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Ship Shape Pay for Construction Firms

How the service works

You select the best labour for your projects, whether it be your regular subbies, former PAYE employees or new workers. This labour contracts directly with Ship Shape and we provide you with a single CIS invoice for payment.

You negotiate rates of pay with the workers and maintain control of the quality of the work completed. You instruct Ship Shape which workers to pay and how much either by phone, fax, email or the secure web system we will supply to you (our “extranet”). When we receive your transfer we make immediate electronic payment to the workers, usually by BACS or FPS.

We make a CIS deduction from the worker’s pay and send them confirmation of pay by email and / or post. We have a payrun every day making hundreds of transactions and can provide client testimonials supporting the accuracy and professionalism of our service. We welcome workers’ payment queries by phone, email or face to face at our Central London offices.

All live and historic transactions, invoices and worker remittances are published on a secure extranet giving you perfect information at all times.

Apart from simplifying the payroll process, our service saves you money and administrative headaches:

  • Save 26% versus the cost of PAYE payroll
  • Avoid CIS, IR35 and MSC debt transfer issues and liability
  • Protection from punitive HMRC fines for compliance slips (currently up to £3,000 per worker, per month for incorrect employment status)
  • Remove responsibility for PAYE and National Insurance calculation, sick pay, redundancy, holiday pay etc
  • Scale your workforce up or down with total flexibility to reflect current contract demands

Clients find that Ship Shape Pay benefits their workers by providing maximum income with guaranteed compliancy. Furthermore, we provide excellent Personal Accident insurance, plus free CSCS certification and a complimentary HSBC bank account for workers new to construction work in the UK.

Compliance

Ship Shape is a certified CIS gross payment company (former CIS5), entirely UK based, holding corporate Professional Indemnity, Public and Employers Liability insurance. We investigate the individual circumstances of each worker and then pay them via an employment contract or a subcontract to those genuinely in business on their own account. We collate evidence of bona-fide self-employed behaviour and events(no mutual obligation, no control, right to substitute, financial risk) to support the actuality of our contract with all subcontractors, ready for any employment status challenge.

Our terms completely remove CIS compliance, employment status and debt transfer liabilities from contractors with regards to workers paid through Ship Shape.As a construction company ourselves we belong in the construction supply chain and our client and operative contracts stand up naturally under HMRC scrutiny.

The best service for the worker

Choosing Ship Shape Pay also has enormous benefits for the worker:

  • Ability to stay legitimately self-employed and pay up to 15% less tax
  • Fee includes personal tax returns and professional expenses management all year
  • Free CSCS safety testing
  • Pre-tax purchase of tools, PPE, professional training etc is possible
  • All arranged by a personal consultant who stays with the worker all year

Fees

Our worker fees start from as low as £9.90 per week plus just £2.99 for extensive insurance. However, we find that properly managed expenses will still leave the worker better off after fees, compared to managing their own affairs.

Why choose Ship Shape over a traditional payroll supplier?

In a paper released in July 2009 HMRC discussed potential legislative changes to combat false self-employment in construction. It proposes that to justify self-employment a worker will have to a) supply plant other than normal hand tools b) supply all materials or alternatively employ other labour directly. HMRC signalled that those contractors using ‘intermediary’ companies are it’s medium term target. Whereas contractors currently paying labour directly as subcontractors are it’s immediate target and these are likely to face one of an ever increasing number of employment status reviews.

The full discussion paper can be viewed at: www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/d/consult_falseselfemploymentconstruction_200709.pdf

The overall message is that paying self employed labour is a redundant working model. Besides the punitive potential fines for deemed employment, substantial business cost and disruption is guaranteed by an HMRC review. There is however no doubt that paying subcontract labour through a properly structured intermediary does provide protection from these employment status liabilities for the time being. The question really is what type of intermediary to work with, both now and with a view to the longer term?

Ship Shape is a construction company supplying labour and materials, Main Contracting and Subcontracting, and labour-only subcontracting (www.shipshapeconstruction.com). We spend millions on plant and materials every year and achieved a turnover of £15.4m in the calendar year ending December 2009. Unlike payroll firms who offer only financial products (across a range of industry sectors), Ship Shape’s labour and materials contracting positions us squarely in the construction supply chain, allowing our client relationships to stand up under HMRC scrutiny:

On 22nd July 2009 Ship Shape participated in an HMRC Employment Status Review. Two Construction Compliance Officers spent seven hours in our offices reviewing our worker and client contracts, our operations, documentation, financial and tax administration after which they concluded "the HMRC has no additional charges, taxes or fines to be raised, no administrative corrections to CIS and PAYE process, and no challenge to any operative employment status".

In the current and future compliance environment it is unlikely that financial services based payroll companies will pass these types of review as their purpose is purely that of tax reduction.

Whereas our depth of involvement in the construction supply chain gives us the ability to adapt to the changing regulatory environment and needs of our construction clients. We can demonstrate that we take on fixed price labour, plant and materials contracts, and subcontract out the same. If the price and service offered by a construction company such as Ship Shape matches or exceeds any financial services based offering, whilst also removing you from the HMRC’s target list, why not consider us?

The fact is construction is not a level playing field. Ship Shape works vigorously to keep our operations compliant, while at the same time tipping the scales in favour of our clients. We remove liability and significantly cut our clients’ costs thereby increasing competitiveness, growth and profit.

Call Ship Shape Pay on 020 7706 5240 or contact us.

 

Construction Firm Testimonials

"My payroll takes me less than five minutes and my lads are over the moon." – Chiswick Woodworking

"Thanks very much for all your help this year it really is a pleasure to do business with a company when they have such nice, helpful and friendly staff like yourself." – JP Tradesman