Invoice underpayments

**tino** · 11 May 2009, 12:01

Originally posted by ams View Post

I'm interested in hearing if anyone has been experiencing small (or large) underpayments from their agency recently?

I have now had 2 invoices underpaid in the past few months. Admittedly it has only been a matter of pence, but I'm concerned that this could be a wide-spread thing? 2p per week for 2000+ contractors will add up over time.

Worse thing about it was the response I got from payroll dept when I queried the underpayment - they sent me *coins* in the post along with their 'sincerest' apologies for the inconvenience.

While I'm not suggesting that the agency are 'in' on any vast conspiracy, I'm concerned that there could be an individual operating within the payroll department who has found a way of skimming these small amounts.

Am I being paranoid!? Happy to name the agency in question. I think that regardless of the facts, the lack of professionalism shown by certain members of their staff is amazing.

Thanks for reading.

personally, I'd return the coins to them with an invoice for the outstanding amount and have them BACs it to the company account

**ams** · 11 May 2009, 12:07

Yeah, that's what I'd asked them to do in the original email exchange when I queried the payments...but I don't want/need to invoice them for the amount again, as they have the invoice already - they just haven't paid it in full.

It makes me mad...I can't just walk into a shop and grab something worth a fiver and just throw 4.98 on the counter and walk out!

**BrowneIssue** · 11 May 2009, 14:10

Is it a rounding error? E.g. one of you is calculating VAT per day the other per week?

I had this annoying practice in the past (and boy did I get some flak on here when I pointed it out.

)

**ams** · 11 May 2009, 15:23

That's an interesting point, I'll check with my accountant. I'm almost certain that this isn't the case though - but if it were surely they could point this out on the remittance slip, or when I emailed the payroll team to query the underpayments.

It's more the attitude I encountered when I queried with them I guess...It made me suspicious as it seemed a big over-reaction on their part - perhaps because they have something to hide.

My accountant is going to raise this with the PCG to see if they have had any reports of this becoming wide-spread, so that will be interesting.

Thanks for your comments so far though.

**EchoSierra** · 11 May 2009, 15:33

Originally posted by ams View Post

Worse thing about it was the response I got from payroll dept when I queried the underpayment - they sent me *coins* in the post along with their 'sincerest' apologies for the inconvenience.

haha somebody at the agency must have had a sense of humour...

**ASB** · 11 May 2009, 15:42

I think this is fairly common with rounding issues with an self billing system. I think you can find some guidance on HMRC website, I recall the last agency I used this was an issue. Can't for the life of me remember what the solution was, but it certainly didn't involve worry about it...

**ams** · 11 May 2009, 16:48

Originally posted by EchoSierra View Post

haha somebody at the agency must have had a sense of humour...

Yeah, I've got a sense of humour too! Just expect that sort of thing from people I know...not a payroll manager I've never met.

**BolshieBastard** · 11 May 2009, 19:39

Originally posted by ASB View Post

I think this is fairly common with rounding issues with an self billing system. I think you can find some guidance on HMRC website, I recall the last agency I used this was an issue. Can't for the life of me remember what the solution was, but it certainly didn't involve worry about it...

HMRC instructions are that rounding must be done one way consistently ie you can round up or down but you must do this on all the invoices and not round up one week \ month then round down the next week \ month.

Invoice underpayments