Railpart Keeps Payroll On Track With Payrite
Railpart UK Limited is the leading supplier of replacement components in the UK Traction and Stock market. Formed in 1987 as the National Supply Centre (NSC) of the British Railways Board, in 1995 the company was incorporated as part of Railpart (UK) Ltd, a subsidiary of BRB. Railpart is now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Unipart Group of Companies.
Since the company was privatised and sold to Unipart Rail Holdings in 1997, it has seen substantial investment in improving its logistics capability with an upgrade of many of its IT and operational systems.
The company has over 600 accredited suppliers and manages a range of over 50,000 railway products and parts held in stock at its Doncaster distribution centre. With a daily delivery service to over ninety customer maintenance depots throughout the UK, as well as international shipments, it is vital that its infrastructure ands systems are robust enough to support such operations.
Investing in IT to work smarter
Investing in training and developing its people is a priority for Railpart. The company prides itself on adopting the best tools and techniques to support its personnel across all business disciplines.
As well as the successful implementation of SAP as its mainline business system, it has invested in bespoke systems to manage critical spares and repairs and specialist payroll software, Payrite from Rutherford Webb.
According to Ian Pannell, Payroll Manager at Railpart:
“The Unipart philosophy is to invest in the right tools that help us to work smarter. Payrite was already in use within the Group and we were happy to follow their lead.”
“We have not been disappointed – Payrite works like a dream. Previously I used to have to rely on changes being processed on an overnight batch, now I can make the necessary amendments and updates and they are automatically displayed.”
Processing the payroll
Pannell is responsible for administering the payroll every four weeks for over 260 staff located at the Doncaster site. The staff are of all grades and all qualify for payments for working a standard 37 hour week.
Pannell uses the absence management module on Payrite that enables him to calculate Statutory Sick Pay for each individual. With the advent of new legislation for Working Time Directive (WTD) and National Minimum Wage (NMW), recording and reporting detailed information for salaried staff is vital. With Payrite, absences can be recorded with reason messages for absence codes, patterns can be identified and holiday entitlement and time taken can be recorded, enabling the company to meet with government legislation.
Inland Revenue e-filing – faster and safer
Railpart also uses the Internet filing facility in Payrite to submit both year-end and in-year reports to the Inland Revenue. Using Payrite, Pannell’s team can transmit the p14s via the internet, making the process quicker and safer that is very important in business collaboration. He found this particularly useful when submitting the last return, where having many tax code changes to make could have made the process very time-consuming.
“With Payrite the year-end routines were very easy to run and we filed them over the Internet, and surprisingly, without any problems.” said Pannell.
“We can now complete the tax returns saving almost a day in time and it ensures that the business avoids penalties from the Revenue for late returns.”
Secure payment via BACS
Pannell was also one of the early adopters to use the dedicated Payroll BACSTEL IP option, ensuring security for the payroll payments. Direct transmission to BACS substantially reduces the number of manual cheques required. Separate payments can also be arranged if required for pension and expenses, PAYE, SAYE club membership and even court order payments.
When required, Rutherford Webb has been on hand to provide support on technical issues:
“Payrite is very straightforward and intuitive to use. With a little in-house training I was quickly up and running, but on the occasions that I have required support, I can’t fault the Rutherford Webb team,” said Pannell.