If you’re employed by an umbrella company, the payroll process will be slightly different from what you might be used to as a conventional employee, mostly because the supply chain involves other companies. The exact process will vary depending on your umbrella company’s internal processes, and their relationship with the agency or client, but in this article, we’ll look at how it works for Orange Genie employees. If you’re employed by another compliant umbrella company, you can expect the process to be broadly similar.
The umbrella company supply chain
Before we look at the process for getting you paid, it makes sense to look at what exactly is going on in the supply chain. In most cases, the end client has engaged a recruitment agency to hire a contractor, and the agency have outsourced the employment of the contractor (you) to an umbrella company (us). So there are four parties involved in the supply chain – the client, the agency, the umbrella company, and you.
So, in terms of getting you paid, the process works as follows:
You complete the work for the end client and follow their timesheet/signoff process. You may also need to complete a timesheet for us, so we can invoice the agency.
The client pays the agency, as per the terms of their contract.
The agency pays us for the work you completed as our employee.
We pay you.
Depending on our relationship with the agency, we may not need to receive the money from the agency before we pay you.
What happens on pay day?
Once your work has been signed off for payment, the agency and the client will follow their agreed process. From your point of view, the end result will be that we receive what we need to pay you. This might be written confirmation of the amount, or it could be the payment itself; the exact details will depend on the agency’s process and our relationship with them.
Once we have what we need, we will notify you by text message that we’ll be making payment that day. We aim to notify you as early as possible, but the exact time varies depending on how long it takes our payroll team to collate all the information. You should not be alarmed, for example, if you haven’t received your notification at the same time as you did last week.
Your pay will then be processed later that day and you’ll receive another text message once that has happened. Your payslip will be uploaded to your Orange Genie Portal, for you to view or download for your records.
Predictable payments
From long experience of employing contractors, we know you need your pay to be predictable, which is why we make every effort to ensure you get paid on the same day each week/month. This ensures that you know when to expect payment, and you can be confident that your money will arrive as expected. This in turn allows you plan your finances and your life and allows you to concentrate on doing a great job for your end clients.
Summary of events
So, to sum up, this is how the umbrella payroll process works:
You complete the necessary timesheets, and the client signs off.
We receive confirmation and/or payment from the agency
We send you text notification that we’re making payment that day
Your payslip is uploaded to your Orange Genie Portal
Payment is made, we text you again to confirm, and money reaches your bank account on your usual pay day.
If you think there might be a delay
The exact timing of the above events can vary quite a lot from day to day and week to week. However, we pay thousands of contractors every week, delays and errors are vanishingly rare and our systems are robust and flexible enough to adapt and adjust when they do occur. If you usually get paid today and you’ve followed the usual process, there’s no need to contact us to chase; we can say with absolute confidence that you will be paid as expected.
If you are aware of an issue at your agency or client’s end, for example if there was a delay in your client approving your timesheet, we obviously want to do everything we can to ensure you get paid on time. The earlier we know, the more we can do, so please let us know about any such issues as soon as possible.
If you have any questions or if we can help in any way, please call our expert team on 01296 468483 or email info@orangegenie.com.