An overlooked pressure affecting many small businesses?
- By DavidAshdown
- General Business Forum
- 24 Replies
No need to apologise, that’s exactly the kind of situation I was thinking about when I wrote the post.I have a client who has been a pain since the beginning - their computer skills are close to non-existent and they did not understand what I needed when I explained I needed a timesheet every time I ran payroll (hourly paid staff, paid 4-weekly). So I designed a simple timesheet for them, with rows and columns automatically totalled and a colour code for each type of day - normal, sickness, holiday, unpaid etc. The key for that was repeated on every timesheet.
They struggled with completing the timesheet, making changes so the totals didn't work, entering totals manually, which did not add up properly, etc. I reminded them on the Monday every 4 weeks that I needed the timesheet by lunchtime on Thursday so I could run payroll for them to pay staff on Friday. Every Thursday I chased them for the timesheet. I explained several times that the deadline was 12:00 mid-day on Thursday. I often worked Thursday evening, but often also didn't get the data I needed until Friday, often late Friday so I would work at the weekend so they could pay staff on Monday. Terms were payment 3 periods in advance and I always had to chase it.
Last year I had enough when they complained that the payslips weren't available on Friday morning when the data had been there by 18:00 on Thursday. I explained that my work on their payroll was scheduled for 12:30 on Thursday and if they missed their slot it would be done when I had time. They were amazed by this.
Some months ago I notified them that I would not be providing payroll after end March this year. I chickened out of the real reason and told them new government regs meant It wasn't economically viable. They argued about that saying they weren't aware of the new regs. They asked, last week, for a P45 for someone who left on 2 April (last payroll of the year was 3 April). Their next paydate is 1 May and they haven't found a new provider yet.
What I should have done was recognise the red flags and sack them as a client after the first year, but I hoped it would improve.
Sorry, sometimes, when you work alone, you need a rant!
What’s interesting is that everything you describe was visible early on… just not obvious enough at the time to act on decisively.
I think a lot of us fall into that “it’ll improve” mindset, especially when we’ve already invested time and effort.
The difficult bit is knowing when something is a temporary frustration vs a pattern that’s unlikely to change.
Out of interest, looking back, was there a specific moment where you now think “that was the point I should have stepped back”?
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