Letting a payroll bureau run temp payroll
How an agency appoints an outside payroll bureau to work inside its own Achekam workspace, what access to give, and what stays with the agency.
By Achekam · · 4 min read · For Recruitment businesses in South Africa, Nigeria, Kenya
Temp payroll is relentless. Every week there are new starters from Monday's assignments, leavers from Friday's, overtime from a client's night shift, and a handful of bank detail changes to check. A growing agency often reaches the point where its consultants should be placing people, not checking hours, and hands the weekly run to a payroll bureau or to the payroll team at its accounting firm.
The usual way of doing that is to e-mail spreadsheets back and forth, receive payslips and a journal from the bureau's own system, and then re-enter the totals into the agency's books. Achekam lets you do it differently: the bureau works inside your workspace, in your ledger, under the same controls as your own staff.
Appointing the bureau by its Achekam address or code
A business appoints an outside firm by the firm's Achekam address or firm code. When you appoint it, you choose its role (accountant, auditor, tax practitioner, payroll provider or adviser) and an access level. The firm then accepts or declines the appointment.
For a payroll bureau, choose the payroll provider role. Before you send the appointment, ask the bureau for its exact Achekam address or code in writing, rather than searching by name, so the invitation reaches the right firm.
The access level you give
What the firm's people can do in your books depends on the access level you grant. Two levels are worth knowing:
- Bookkeeping access covers the accounting, but not your users, your settings or your payment gateways.
- Review access is read-only.
Neither level hands the bureau your business itself. It cannot add users to your workspace or change your payment gateway keys. Before you appoint, agree with the bureau which level its payroll work needs, and give no more than that. A firm that only checks the runs your own administrator prepares needs far less than one that prepares them.
There is a data-protection side to this too. A bureau handling your temps' identity numbers, addresses and bank accounts is processing personal data on your behalf. Kenyan agencies, for example, can look up how data controllers and processors register with the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner, which is also where breaches are reported and complaints filed. Whatever your country, put the bureau's data duties into your written agreement with it.
The bureau works in your own ledger, with no copy
An appointed firm works directly in the business's own ledger. No copy of the books is made, so whatever the firm posts appears in your own accounting screens.
For an agency, this removes a whole class of month-end problems:
- The wages journal from each approved run lands in your books the moment it is approved, not when the bureau remembers to send it.
- There is one set of employee records, not one at the bureau and another at the agency.
- When your consultant asks why a temp's pay looks short, the answer is in the same workspace the consultant can see, not in someone else's system.
The two-person approval rule still applies
An outside bureau does not change Achekam's payroll rules. A pay run is approved by someone other than the person who prepared it, nobody can approve a run that pays themselves, and an approved run is never recalculated.
That gives you a choice about how to split the work. A common arrangement looks like this:
| Step | Who does it |
|---|---|
| Collect signed timesheets and hours | Agency consultants |
| Enter variable inputs and prepare the run | The bureau |
| Approve the run | An agency manager who is not paid in that run, or a second person at the bureau |
| Pay the temps at the bank | The agency, through its own online banking |
| File and pay statutory returns | Agreed in writing: the bureau or the agency |
The payment step stays with you however you split the rest. Each approved run has a payment schedule that downloads as a CSV, and marking a run paid only records the fact; Achekam moves no money. Your bank's own approval rules still decide who can release the payment.
What to put in writing with the bureau
Before the first run, agree:
- The weekly cut-off for hours and the day the bureau prepares the run.
- Who approves each run, by name, and the stand-in when that person is away.
- Who handles bank detail changes, including the call-back to the worker.
- Who files the monthly returns and records what was filed.
- The access level the bureau holds, and when you will review it.
Ending the appointment keeps your records with you
Either side can end the appointment. When that happens, the firm loses access and the books stay with the business. Every employee record, payslip, wages journal and payment schedule the bureau worked on remains in your workspace.
That matters because agencies change bureaux more often than they change their own systems, whether after a price review, a service failure or a merger. When the history lives in the bureau's software, leaving means asking for exports and hoping they are complete. When it lives in your own workspace, the next bureau, or your own new payroll officer, starts from the full record. The same principle for accounting firms generally is covered in changing accountants without losing your books.
If you pay temps weekly and your own staff monthly, decide whether the bureau runs both or only the temp run; the two cadences are explained in weekly temps and monthly staff in one payroll. Then ask your chosen bureau for its Achekam address or firm code, and settle the access level and the approval roles before you send the appointment.
General guidance only, not advice on your own circumstances. Tax and payroll rules change: check the current position with the authority or your adviser.
