Contractor Umbrella - I would never, ever, use again

[DolanContractorGroup]

Hi everyone, after a few weeks of to and fro (mostly circular discussion) I wanted to share my experience.

Here's the detail (lowest priority first):

1. The contracts provided by me were not initially set up correctly. I had to chase CU to even be able to able to raise invoices at the outset.

2. The system does not allow odd days (e.g. 0.3) even though my employer does. CU's suggestion was to change my invoice, which obviously doesn't work. It took many, many weeks to get it paid and about 20 chasing emails.

3. I was promised the ability to make pension contributions from day one. I then received an email to say they'd be made from month three, and again I had to challenge. The challenge was successful but I shouldn't have had to do it.

4. And most importantly, despite me paying CU they don't do any automatic chasing or following up of unpaid invoices. Even when I asked for this to happen (several times) there was a total lack of proactivity. The summary is that payments were made many weeks later and CU admitted fault.

5. As a result of the late payments, some of them fell into a new tax year. Payments made for work in March (19/20) were paid and taxed in April (20/21). That's excusable. However a payment made for work in *February* (19/20) was also not paid until April (20/21), which is totally unacceptable. I will have an increased marginal tax rate on these and missed out on some of last year's pension allowance - it's cost me over a grand. CU's gesture of goodwill was £25.

It's not the end of the world - there are far worse things in life at the moment - but for anyone thinking of signing up you might bear this in mind.

Thanks for reading this far and I hope the info is helpful to someone. Stay safe!

Hi Sandy100,

Thanks for your co-operation.

As you're aware, unfortunately there was an issue with invoicing within the end clients invoice deadline, and to rectify this we processed the payments to you at no charge, and also advanced the payment so that you were able to receive funds sooner than we had received them.

The end client paid us in the 2020-21 tax year, which meant we had to declare the salary payment in this year.

We also defer pension auto-enrolment for a period of 3 months as we've seen that the average assignment lasts around 3-4 months and many workers don't always want to be enrolled into the scheme for only a temporary time. We do, however, allow workers to be enrolled from the start if that is their preference, and which you requested.


Kind regards


Zeeshan

[Sandy100]

Hi Sandy100,

Thanks for your co-operation.

As you're aware, unfortunately there was an issue with invoicing within the end clients invoice deadline, and to rectify this we processed the payments to you at no charge, and also advanced the payment so that you were able to receive funds sooner than we had received them.

The end client paid us in the 2020-21 tax year, which meant we had to declare the salary payment in this year.

We also defer pension auto-enrolment for a period of 3 months as we've seen that the average assignment lasts around 3-4 months and many workers don't always want to be enrolled into the scheme for only a temporary time. We do, however, allow workers to be enrolled from the start if that is their preference, and which you requested.


Kind regards


Zeeshan

Thank you. It's also important to delcare that the reason the end client so paid late was (largely) because CU failed to follow up properly. Direct quote from CU: "I acknowledge and apologise that the invoice was raised late."

The advance payment was only a week before CU received the funds and is immaterial to the wider delay which spanned from February to April.

[Sandy100]

Yes, it was by me proactively reconciling the amount uploaded against my payslips that this came to light. The other issues I listed such as missing payments & incorrect pension deduction required me to proactively check too.

I think my pension contributions were taken correctly after the initial issues, but it’s worth noting that they make the payment into Scottish Widows on the 22nd (ish) of the *following* month which is very late. It’s also technically the last day they can legally do it.

[Paralytic]

I think my pension contributions were taken correctly after the initial issues, but it’s worth noting that they make the payment into Scottish Widows on the 22nd (ish) of the *following* month which is very late. It’s also technically the last day they can legally do it.

So, not late then.