How I came from finance & ‘fell’ into payroll

Most long term payroll professionals will tell you how they ‘fell’ into payroll, most of who I have asked have come over from finance, and mainly AP.

So everyone’s career starts at school, remember being asked ‘so what would you like to be when you grow up’? Me – I had no ideas, I was very high functioning, but failing school at the same time.?So my response was my comfort blanket – horses, I would like to work with horses.?No-one said well you are great with number, physics or logic, just ok then – off you go!!

Roll on a few years.?That wasn’t a career, and I love horses, but didn’t want it to be my life (and also in those days you had pocket money with a room, so no financial stability)

I saw a job in finance, trainee Accounts Payable assistant for a large national company in a team of 30.?Having never even thought of finance as a career, I didn’t know anything about it other than helping my parents with their accounts as a teen – it didn’t sink in what it was, I could just do it easily.?But guess what… I was actually very good at it, and eventually became a specialist, particularly with sorting out aged problems and working with the suppliers to get the accounts and ledgers cleared.?I was put through AAT, and still to this day I tell anyone I work with in finance to keep me away from debits and credits – I still use T account drawings and get it wrong.

I found after 2 years I was bored, I needed to be challenged, I needed change and to be kept interested, so I went temping in various finance type roles, got to work for some big names, and little companies.?Just temp cover nothing longer than 6 months.?But it still wasn’t giving me the variety, challenge and diversity I was craving.?My CV was also starting to look a bit like a local business directory!

Queue the call from the agency saying they had a 6 month data entry role for a well known service provider.?I took it just because it would pay the rent, I had no interest in data entry, but being a big employer I thought maybe they would have something more suitable when I got a foot in the door.

Hellooooo Payroll!!!!!

This wasn’t any data entry role, it was a Payroll data entry role. I was home.?Within the 6 months I had found my place in the working world:

• Variety – Thanks HMRC
• Challenging – well thanks HMRC!!
• Diversity – all 174 case laws and legislations (well there were less then, and few case laws to wrap into the legislations)
• Being behind the sense, but making a difference without being seen

I had been in paid employment since I was 14 years old, the money just went into my bank every week (well those days it was a brown envelope with cash in), but explaining that today is like explaining a world without internet or mobile phones (how lovely and quiet those days were).

I carried on temping, as there were still few payroll jobs, it was more a career for life, once in no-one left until retirement.?At that time there also was not the opportunities of today such as Payroll Apprentices to get the training and skills needed to be a Payroll Administrator. We also obviously did not have social media, internet, or the software we have today. There was no ‘customer awareness’, no google to tell an employee the answer, and few laws to confuse the payrollers.?It was manual work as in inputting into the very old systems, timesheets arrived by the box load, and this is why good fast accurate data entry clerks were always called for.?And who better to have these skills than someone from finance.?Those days the administrators didn’t need to hold the level of knowledge there is nowadays, and there was very little professional training.

Few roles were advertised, so I carried on temping to gain some valuable experience, and I only ever left payroll twice, and within 6 months each time I was back. It is my Life, my passion, what I know and to be frank my idea of the perfect working world to be in.

Payroll – no day is the same, no year is the same, you never stop learning, everyone shares the same passion,

Payroll – no day is the same, no year is the same, you never stop learning, everyone shares the same passion, there are so many area’s you can specialize in, or generalize.?The laws and deadlines have to be adhered to – no if’s no buts………….

NEXT UP – Why Payroll – Is it a job or career?