Pippa Brown, near Beverley in East Yorkshire has been trading as a mobile farm secretary/ bookkeeper for over 20 years and has approximately 30 regular clients, most of who are 'computerised' Farmplan customers. The majority of Pippa's clients are farmers and estate owners but many have diversified over the years.
Mrs Brown also helps her husband Alastair to run the family business producing specialist paper bedding used predominantly by racehorses but also by game farms and in pig farrowing houses.
Pippa says "being based in East Yorkshire, most of my clients are arable farmers with some pigs, cows and sheep thrown in for good measure. I operate Earnie Payroll software from Farmplan for many of my clients as it can cope with any type of business. I have found over the years that it is quite simply the best".
Earnie payroll software from Farmplan is a payroll management tool ideal for farms and rural businesses. The software helps to simplify the payroll process, avoid mistakes and guides you through legislation. The legalities of payroll are built in to this intelligent, easy to use system which automatically generates statutory pay documents. There is no adding up to do and you can file your year- end returns online.
"Manual payrolls were becoming more and more unwieldy and complex with the introduction of K codes, pension payments, SSP, SMP, SSP, SAP, CCJ collections, student loans and Working Times Directives to name a few. These can be a nightmare to implement manually and involve background reading. Earnie calculates all these for you using Wizards which are basically software driven simple 'question and answer' routines which help you to implement the relevant payment or deduction, thus eliminating any in-depth knowledge or need to plough through the vast HMRC manuals relating to these subjects" explains Pippa.
The software can save time by automatically calculating important figures such as Tax, National Insurance, SSP and SMP amongst other things.
"The annual year end update informs you of the changes for each New Year and this together with the helpful booklet supplied by Farmplan means you hardly need to glance at the bucketfuls of information supplied by HMRC. It also has the facility for 'net to gross' payments which is ideal when the boss agrees a rate 'in the hand'- a nightmare for manual payrolls" adds Pippa.
"I use Earnie on farm with several of my clients. My clients with Earnie are also Farmplan Business Manager customers and they are fairly forward thinking in respect of 'computerisation'. Most of them are quite happy to feel their way round the program between my visits, either to retrieve information or to carry out payroll when I'm away on my holidays" says Pippa.
Earnie Payroll software from Farmplan can be used to manage your payroll records, run the payroll and meet your statutory payroll requirements whatever the type and size of enterprise. Templates for the most common payments and deductions have been set up in the program to help you get started.
Pippa says, "the benefits of Earnie are enormous and continually increase with 'on-line' developments which have allowed us to file year end returns online and I have thus been able to achieve £825 tax free incentive payments over the last 5 years for all my clients. The ability to send and receive information such as P45's and P46's online will be compulsory from April 2011, speeds up the process and eliminates paperwork whilst preventing postage delays. There is also a wonderful function called Quick Calculators which supplies instant 'on-screen' calculations for PAYE and NIC contributions, loan repayments etc based on theoretic wages which is wonderful for 'what if' scenarios".
Earnie can link to other accounting systems including Farmplan's Business Manager software. It also provides a daybook, secure audit trails and a function for emailing payslips. There are 25 fields available for additional information to be added as well as an option for detailed costing analysis.
Pippa concludes, "I would recommend Earnie to absolutely anyone, whatever type of business you are in. The setting up procedure is straightforward and I have yet to find any payroll scenario that the program is unable to cope with, however complex the payroll. The ability to program in any payment details and deduction you wish to facilitate is invaluable. My favourite tool however has to be the diary which allows you to view the employee' absences, such as holidays and sickness in a colour coded 'wall chart' format".
To contact Farmplan for a free no obligation demo of Earnie Payroll please contact us on 01594 545000 or email sales@farmplan.co.uk alternatively visit www.farmplan.co.uk.
For further information email sales@farmplan.co.uk or
