How Pleo switched from payroll bureau to automated payroll with Pento

Pleo's challenge

Pleo has been growing rapidly in the UK since its launch in 2017. With Pleo’s bigger UK team, managing payroll had become a growing hassle. They were previously outsourcing UK payroll to an external payroll agency.

A seemingly good solution resulted in a few painful processes:

• A lot of back and forth communication: Pleo was exchanging earnings spreadsheets on a regular basis and adjusting other details in time-consuming email communication with the external payroll agency.
• Long payroll lockdown periods: Because a 3rd party was doing payroll calculations, they needed all final data submitted several days before payday. This often resulted in critical changes not being made in time.
• Still a lot of manual work: Even though the promise of an external payroll agency sounded good, there was still a lot of manual work on the shoulders of Pleo’s finance team.

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The switch to Pento

Pleo made the switch to Pento in April 2020. The transition was seamless and done in a matter of days.

Pento’s quick onboarding process and assistance made it possible for Pleo to switch without retyping all employee information or much other manual work. When they logged in for the first time, all of their existing employee and company information was already in the Pento platform.

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The Pento solution

Pleo now runs UK payroll internally and solely on Pento. Because Pento connects to HMRC and their pension provider NEST, Pleo’s finance team only has to make sure the employee earnings are correct. Everything else is automatically taken care of by Pento.‍

Full payroll automation: Pento helps Pleo automate all the boring and highly repetitive payroll processes: from automatic pension enrolment, HMRC reporting, bank transfers and payslip generation and distribution to employees.

‍Ability to change earnings up until payday: Pento executes bank payments in a matter of seconds. Because all calculations happen in real-time, Pleo can change any payroll-related inputs right up to the payday.

Ability to see what changed from previous month: Within the payroll view, Pleo can quickly track down and compare the changes from the previous month.‍

Super quick support: Whenever there’s a question, Jacob and his team at Pleo can reach out via built-in chat functionality and get a quick answer from the Pento team.

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The key outcomes for Pleo

Now that Pleo is fully onboard with Pento, their finance team has freed up time for more higher-level tasks and not worry about the small payroll details.

‍No more waiting steps in the payroll process: Because Pento is a fully automated software solution, everything Pleo’s finance team does is instant. No more waiting for calculations or changes in earnings from an external payroll agency.‍

Much less stressful and time-consuming process: there is no more fragile spreadsheets and email back and forths. With Pento, Pleo’s team is in full control of what gets paid out and, once approved, Pento executes payments and sends payslips to employees automatically.‍

Complete payroll transparency: Pleo can see how changes in earnings affect calculations in real-time. Payroll is not a “black box” anymore - Pleo now has a complete overview of what constitutes their UK payroll. ‍

Happier employees: Pleo’s finance team can make changes up until the day of payroll. This means that employees get correct earnings and bonuses and there’s no need for the delayed corrections.