Switching payroll provider
How switching works
Thinking about a new payroll arrangement? Here’s what’s involved, and who does what.
Prefer to write? Send a short brief
Can I explore this without committing?
Yes. A review is confidential, and looking at the options doesn’t give notice. We only contact your current provider if you ask us to. You decide whether a change makes sense, and if it doesn’t, nothing changes.
What will you need from me?
To start, just your contact details, and there’s nothing to prepare. It helps to know roughly how many people you pay, and whether that’s PAYE, CIS or through an umbrella. Your provider’s invoices or statements are useful on the call, if you have them.
Please don’t send worker names, payslips or other personal data.
What should you ask about benefits in payroll before April 2027?
Who handles each part?
It’s shared between you, the provider you choose and us.
Kingsway
- Reviews the options with you.
- Coordinates the introduction and the agreed handover with the provider you choose.
- Doesn’t run payroll or employ your workers.
The provider you choose
- Confirms the final scope and price.
- Runs payroll under its own agreement with you.
- Runs the implementation under that agreement.
You
- Decide whether to move, and when.
- Contract with the provider directly, after your own due diligence.
More detail: your duties as the employer
If you stay the employer, you stay legally responsible for PAYE and your workplace pension duties, whoever runs payroll.
Sources: HMRC, Choose how to run payroll. The Pensions Regulator, Duties for new employers.
If the provider deals with HMRC for you, you’ll authorise it as your agent, for PAYE and any CIS.
Source: HMRC, Authorising an agent.
How do we agree the handover and first payroll?
Before anything moves, you agree the handover and the first payroll with the provider you choose. We help coordinate that agreed handover. There’s no fixed timetable.
Your current agreement sets the notice period and any exit charges, and you give notice when you’re ready. We’ll ask about your contract, notice and renewal dates, so any move fits around them.
More detail: records and HMRC reporting
You need to keep payroll records for 3 years from the end of the tax year they relate to. So it’s worth checking how your current provider will hand them back.
Source: HMRC, Keeping records.
If you stay the employer with the same PAYE reference, year-to-date figures carry on from your last submission to HMRC.
Source: HMRC, Payroll information to report to HMRC.
If you stay the contractor under CIS, your monthly returns carry on too.
Source: HMRC, CIS monthly returns.
What if I’m not sure which arrangement I need?
That’s what the review is for: we’ll tell you what looks workable, what needs checking and who should confirm it.
More detail: moving to a new legal employer
Some arrangements keep you as the employer, while others move your workers to a new legal employer. A genuine employment transfer can move the employment rights and liabilities, but not the statutory PAYE exposure the April 2026 rules create.
Talk it through with us
It’s 30 minutes. If you’re already on a good deal, we’ll tell you.
Book a confidential review: calendly.com/kingswaypayroll-sales/30min
Already decided to move? Send your switching details