Guidelines to Choose the Right Umbrella Company for You
Umbrella companies hire contractors for the end clients and agencies for their work assignments. There are so many umbrella companies available around the UK. It’s become a real opportunity for a contractor to choose the right umbrella company among the list. It’s quite essential for the contractors to make a proper research on those companies to ensure about the reputation of the company and quality of service they offer. Selecting a wrong company can damage your career. So you must check all the key factors that actually help you to understand the value of any umbrella service provider.
Check the background and reputation of the company — Start you journey with background checking of the umbrella company. You must do a self survey to ensure about the market reputation of the company. It really matters a lot! Working in a reputed place can ensure you about getting the reliable service. You should check the credit rating of the company. Make sure about how long they are doing the business, and whether they’ve a good track record of supporting contractors.
You can go for a research through online. Try to read the reviews and ratings the company has got for their services. You may also visit contractor forums and discuss there about any umbrella company, their service and reputation etc.
HMRC Compliance — This is very important for you to know whether the company is HMRC compliant.
Contractors’ Benefits — Umbrella companies must offer their contractors a bunch of benefits like sick pay, holiday, maternity/paternity leave, pension etc. A genuine service provider will always offer their contractors with such facilities. So before joining any umbrella company ask them whether you’re entitled to avail such facilities.
Claim expenses with receipts — You must avoid such umbrella companies that can ask you about claiming expenses without receipts. Joining such organisations could be highly risky for you! Later during the period of investigation carried out by HMRC they’ll be rejected and you’ll be accountable for all the tax owing.
Payment policy — For every contractor this is a very crucial step to understand how and when the company will pay them. In umbrella service, generally after submitting the work timesheet the company releases the payment to the contractors. After they receive full payment from the agencies, the umbrella companies keep a margin for their own and from the rest they start paying all the contractors after deducting their respective required tax amount and National Insurance contributions.
Easy way to submit your timesheet — Submitting your timesheet at right time is quite important to make sure about getting your payment on time. Your umbrella company should have a running portal where you can easily upload your work timesheet and expense claims (if any).
DNS Umbrella is a reputed umbrella company in the UK that uses PAYE process while making payment to the contractors. DNS also offers bunch of facilities to the contractors like sick pay, holidays, maternity/paternity leaves, pension etc.
