A lot has happpened in the three years since we won the Rewards Awards Specialist Payroll & HR Provider award for Dataplan Education (who knew the pandemic would hit only a few months later). In November 2022 it was our Dataplan Hospitality team who have won the accolade.
Our strategy is to ‘get under the skin’ of a sector and look at how we can deliver the service they need. A service that offsets their ‘pain points’ and adds value to what they do.
The hospitality sector faces many challenges, and payroll shouldn't be one. But, hospitality payrolls are deceptively complex;
- Weekly payrolls require fast turnarounds
- Peaks and troughs in staff levels due to seasonality and events
- High staff turnover – so lots of starters and leavers
- Zero hours contracts
- Large numbers of casual staff and non-UK nationals
- Complex tax scenarios
- National Minimum and Living Wage monitoring
Introducing an innovative service for hospitality
One of these challenges concerns the cost-efficient taxation of tips and gratuities through tronc schemes. We came across troncs as part of our payroll service to hospitality businesses and realised that this was an area that many organisations were getting wrong.
Tips and gratuities paid through a PAYE scheme without a tronc attract National Insurance for both the employer and employee. The result; unnecessary costs for the employer and fewer tips in the employees' pockets. Recent research has shown that nearly £1.2 million hospitality workers pay NI on their tips when they don't have to.
Dataplan’s Troncmaster service provides advice and support to set up and run an effective tronc scheme.
Rewards Award Recognising our Hospitality Team
This depth of experience and ability to take this experience to deliver new services to the hospitality sector marked our Dataplan Hospitality team as winners.
Feedback from the judges stated,
This entry demonstrated cost savings to clients and business benefits as well as a deep understanding of the industry. The business has seen rapid growth due to the release of its Troncmasters service. The organisation correctly identified these challenges and put processes or solutions in place to ensure their customers benefit from cost savings.
The good news doesn’t stop there
Whilst our Hospitality team took home the bling, we also want to acknowledge the achievements of our other entries at these awards. Dataplan was shortlisted for four awards. In addition to the win, we were Highly Commended in two categories; Dataplan Education in the Service Provider Category and our Implementation Team in the Service Provider Team category. We would also like to mention Jack Wingfield, one of our young payrollers shortlisted for the Rising Star award.
Adele Blackham, Dataplan’s Client Services Director, commented,
I couldn’t be prouder of the team. It is a fabulous achievement and testament to everyone involved in delivering a great service, not only our payroll heroes but also our technical and compliance team members.
Dataplan are one of the UK’s leading providers of specialist payroll and associated services.
From payroll outsourcing and pension service management to ePayslips and gender pay gap reporting; we have a solution for you and your business.