Offering payroll services: Define processing and advice clearly

A company wants to outsource payroll and asks your office for a complete package. Its management may also mean advice on new remuneration arrangements, contract changes or disputed individual cases. A useful proposal therefore separates several questions: Which routine tasks can you undertake, which decisions will the company provide, and which additional advice needs a separately authorised professional? A clear scope shows the customer precisely where your service will help. It also tells your team what work is actually being agreed.

This guide helps you organise these requests before preparing a proposal. The discussion method and working notes are editorial recommendations for your own office. They do not confirm anyone’s professional authorisation or replace an assessment of the individual engagement. All examples are explicitly fictional. Before making a commitment, establish with the appropriate professional whether a particular tax, legal or social insurance question falls within your own authority.

Ask for each intended outcome separately

First ask your contact to describe the support they want. “Everything to do with employees” expresses a reasonable wish for relief, but does not yet define an engagement. Ask which documents your office should process regularly and which answers the business additionally expects. Record these requests separately. Preparing monthly payroll and recommending a new remuneration arrangement may arise side by side in conversation. Your proposal still needs to consider each individually and assign an appropriate responsible person.

Describe each request as observable work. “The office prepares the agreed routine payroll from the information supplied” has a different outcome from “The office decides which remuneration arrangement suits us”. Ask the customer to confirm the expectation. You can then explain what your actual service covers and where another professional decision is required. Keep the discussion constructive: Find the appropriate route for each task, rather than assuming an unlimited package.

Check your role before committing

Discuss the collected tasks internally with the person responsible for the proposed scope. Do not ask only whether someone knows how to operate the software. You also need an assessed basis for undertaking the particular activity and the expertise required for that case. An available input field does not answer this question. For an unclear request, record exactly which professional assessment is needed before the proposal and who should obtain a definitive answer.

Make this a specific decision point. You can describe an already clarified routine task in the proposal. An unclear additional advisory task remains open, with a named route to clarification. If your office works with a tax practice or another authorised professional, explain the arrangement that actually exists. Merely knowing a professional does not create a joint service. Establish who is being engaged, who is responsible for the answer and what contribution your own office will make.

Separate the customer’s decision from processing it

For variable remuneration components, ask who supplies the underlying decision. For example, a business may communicate a specific amount for processing. That is different from asking which arrangement it should introduce in the first place. Record the confirmed facts to be processed and the question still awaiting a decision. You do not need actual employee documents for the initial proposal discussion. A wholly invented example is enough to make the different expectations understandable.

Watch for wording that hides several tasks. “Check the allowance” might mean comparing a communicated amount with a list, querying missing information, or assessing the underlying agreement professionally. Ask which task is intended, then describe it unambiguously. The customer can see which check forms part of the agreed process and which further assessment may need another professional. One vague word becomes a comprehensible boundary of service.

Give additional advice its own route

Agree how your team will respond when a new question arises during routine processing. One useful internal aid is a short note recording the issue, the affected task and the appropriate professional. Describe the question so someone can answer it without reconstructing the entire case. “Customer has a tax question” is less useful than a factual account of the decision required. Avoid unnecessary personal information in general sales notes and do not request an indiscriminate collection of employee documents.

Discuss how a pending answer will feed into subsequent work. Who tells your office about the decision? Which task depends on it? What can be prepared independently? Do not prescribe a universal professional workaround. Organising a handover does not authorise you to decide an unresolved substantive question yourself. For the proposal, what matters is whether the customer understands the route and whether the necessary people can fulfil their roles. Clarify uncertain responsibilities before committing.

Describe requests outside the monthly scope

Ask the business for examples of additional work previously undertaken. Perhaps someone explained older transactions, assembled documents for another body, or discussed particular questions with the previous tax practice. Classify every request by its actual outcome. If it belongs to your service, describe it clearly. If it has not been assessed or is excluded, name the next route to clarification. Someone having performed a task previously does not automatically make it part of your engagement.

Separate scope from remuneration. Before discussing an additional charge, establish what work can actually be offered. Do not invent a standard number of permitted questions or a universal turnaround time for special cases. Instead explain how an extra request is recorded, professionally assessed and, where appropriate, agreed separately. This helps customers compare proposals: They can tell whether the scope matches or whether certain tasks would require a later engagement.

Test the boundary with a fictional business

An explicitly fictional trade business wants to outsource routine payroll processing. Management also wants a recommendation whenever it considers a new remuneration idea. The administrator mainly expects confirmed information to have a defined place in monthly processing. Record both expectations separately. Your proposal describes only the tasks genuinely assessed and offered by your office. The additional design question goes to an authorised professional, unless an individual assessment of your authority establishes that it belongs within your own service.

In the next conversation, the business asks about an old payslip. First establish whether it needs an existing document, a factual explanation, or an assessment of a disputed claim. These three requests do not require identical handling. The example illustrates why a broad promise to handle all employee matters would be imprecise. A specific description shows the support offered and gives the company a named route for further questions. It neither determines the individual case nor guarantees its outcome.

Ask the customer to explain the division of work

At the end, ask your contact to describe the planned arrangement in their own words. Which regular work will your office undertake? What information and decisions will the business supply? Which questions go to another professional? If the customer names a task missing from your description, clarify that particular difference. This is especially useful when management and administration previously had different expectations. They can then discuss the same scope without relying on differing interpretations of “full service”.

Also check whether those involved can explain the route for a new question. Who receives it and who decides on a possible extension? Where an external contact is needed, the customer must understand the role actually agreed. Do not promise automatic referral or acceptance by another company. Your office may offer coordination where it forms part of its real services. The substantive answer remains with the person responsible for providing it under the particular engagement.

Record a readable proposal scope

The result is a short, connected description with three identifiable parts: Included routine work, necessary customer contributions and additional tasks requiring separate clarification. Use the terms from the discussion and explain ambiguous wording. A colleague who was not present should understand what work to undertake. If they would have to invent a professional decision to do so, an explanation is missing. Add that specific information before presenting the proposal as a defined scope.

Keep the confirmed version as the basis for subsequent discussions. When another request arrives, compare it with that scope and clarify the particular task affected. There is no need to reinterpret the original description as broader than agreed. Customers can see which support they already commissioned and which extension they now wish to consider. Your team gains a working basis that remains understandable when contacts change and directs specific questions to the appropriate people.

Identify the client for each professional task

Where a tax practice is involved, explicitly establish whether the business is already its client or still needs to agree a new engagement. The customer should know whom it is actually engaging and from whom to expect an answer. Also ask who passes the result to your payroll team. A joint meeting can help establish these roles, but does not replace a clarified service relationship. If your office only processes existing answers, describe that task precisely and do not promise to reassess every basis of another professional’s advice.

Consider a change of contact as well. For example, the administrator leaves while a remuneration question is still with the professional. Who can explain its status and follow up the pending answer? Record the factual issue and the next decision needed so a replacement can take over. A personal understanding then becomes an intelligible division of work. The customer sees which internal task remains, even when your service undertakes a large share of routine processing.

Legal basis and limits

The Section 6 StBerG text read on 18 October 2026 lists routine payroll and preparation of payroll tax returns subject to particular qualification and practical experience requirements. This limited exception does not authorise tax advice generally. Section 5 StBerG restricts professional assistance in tax matters to the relevant authority. Your particular service scope and other areas of law require individual assessment.

Meet new companies for your payroll service

Payroll leads from webRichtung open discussions with companies in Germany considering external support. Employee number range, current arrangements and preferred start, together with company location and contact details, provide a starting point. Establish the precise scope and your authority yourself. Register your business and prepare the order in webRichtung Customer; you see the current price before placing a binding order.