Virtual Wallet reduces the hassle of dealing with direct payments for PAs, as it gives them a way to deal with multiple individuals in a standardised way. Virtual Wallet enables PAs to complete their timesheets - and get paid quickly and easily. Take a look at our 'short' intro for PAs video.
Your wages paid faster and easier
Why should PAs use Virtual Wallet?
For both employed and self-employed personal assistants, Virtual Wallet provides a simple, secure way to manage your timesheets and keep track of the hours you have worked.
Each personal assistant is given their own user account, meaning they have full control over who can see the services they provide; a self employed PA may wish to be visible to other individuals requiring care in the local area, whereas a directly-employed PA will often choose to only have their services visible to their employer.
The set-up process is simple and Virtual Wallet is provided at no cost to the PA.
Did you know that Virtual Wallet also provides payroll services?
As well as working with 3rd party payroll providers, we provide our own payroll service, which integrates seamlessly with Virtual Wallet. Our Payroll Plus solution also includes insurance, training resources and more. Read more about the VW Payroll service here.
Take a look at our short videos that answer many common queries
FAQs: Getting started with Virtual Wallet
Virtual Wallet is FREE for all end-users. Local councils or the NHS pays us to provide access to Virtual Wallet. This means that there is no cost to individuals, their family & friends or their PAs & providers.
When we say there are no costs for PAs, we mean it. There are NO commissions, subscriptions, transaction fees or listing fees. We don't do kickbacks either way and we don't sell the data to anyone. It is not a trial and there isn't a 'freemium' model with "optional" upgrades.
Submitting timesheets is an essential part of making sure that you get paid the right amount and on-time. Using Virtual Wallet to do this is easy and has no cost. If it sounds daunting, the Virtual Wallet support team will be on-hand to help you.
There are over 2,000 PAs that use Virtual Wallet every month.
We need some basic information at the outset - such as your name, address, national insurance number, contact details and bank details, along with which individual(s) you support, the contracted hours and the rate of pay.
Some of this information may be provided to us by your employer (the person that you support) or the council/NHS, but we will need you to fill in any gaps. We will send you an email with a link to setup a Virtual Wallet account and fill in any missing information.
The Virtual Wallet team will get you setup, and you should be ready to go within a few days. We have to get the individual setup at the same time (and get their funding from the council or the NHS), so whilst we try and make everything happen at the same time, sometimes there is a short delay.
Take a look at our 'short' PA setup video for more info.
The answer to this depends on the area that you are from. When we start working with a new local council or NHS organisation, it can work in different ways:
- Full migration - The vast majority of direct payment-related services (such as managed accounts and payroll) move across to Virtual Wallet, all at the same time.
- Partial migration - Some activities move across to Virtual Wallet, but they may be gradual and/or some activities (such as doing the payroll calculations) may stay with the existing organisation either for a period of time or for ever.
- No migration - Virtual Wallet is just implemented for 'new' direct payments, with the existing arrangements being kept in place for existing direct payments.
The Virtual Wallet team or your local contact will be able to explain how Virtual Wallet is going to affect you.
For people who've not heard of personal assistants in a care environment it can all sound very daunting.
The complex bit is the employment law and set-up. The good news is that there are lots of resources that can help you understand it. Most councils and NHS organisations have local service that can help, and check out Skills for Care website.
Once you get going, Virtual Wallet is the easy bit - you just submit your timesheets and you will get paid!
When an individual that you care for decides to move to Virtual Wallet, you don't have to do anything until you receive an email from the Virtual Wallet support team.
Your employer will provide details of all the PAs that provide care to them and we will email these PAs, inviting them to register on Virtual Wallet.
When you receive a Virtual Wallet registration request email:
- Click on the link within the email, which will direct you to a registration page where you will need tell us about yourself and confirm details of the bank account you would like your wages to be paid into.
- When you click ‘submit’ your form will be sent to the Virtual Wallet support team for processing.
- The Virtual Wallet support team will review your form and create your Virtual Wallet account.
- At this point, you will be sent a username and password via email – this will enable to you to log into Virtual Wallet and submit your timesheets.
Virtual Wallet is operated by a company called People Places Lives Limited. We have been around since 2008 and our whole business is about personalisation in the health and social care sectors. We have 50 staff and are based in the North West of England. Local councils and NHS organisations go through lengthy procurement processes to decide who they will work with, so we have to meet lots of quality standards. All of this means that PAs can trust Virtual Wallet and the company behind it.
FAQs: Getting paid
That is down to your agreement with your employer (the person that you support). Virtual Wallet can made payments to PAs on a weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly or monthly basis. The most common one is four-weekly.
PAs typically receive their wages within 5 days of their timesheet being submitted. The trick is to make sure that your timesheets are submitted on time (and if they need to be approved by someone, that they get approved quickly).
One of the benefits of the Virtual Wallet system is that PAs are less reliant on the individual taking action to make a payment. So, PAs spend less time on admin, dealing with timesheet queries and chasing payments.
In most cases, you will login to your Virtual Wallet account and complete a short online form showing what hours you have worked. The form can handle different rates (e.g. weekends) if they are applicable, as well as things like expenses. You can do this from your phone, a tablet or a computer. It should only take a few minutes each week.
If you have been used to submitting timesheets manually (paper copies or over the phone), then this will represent a change for you, but we have thousands of PAs that now submit their timesheets online, making it much simpler and quicker for everyone involved.
In a small number of cases, there may be an existing third-party payroll company that you will continue to submit your timesheets to, they then do the calculations and tell Virtual Wallet the amounts to be paid. If this is going to be the case, we will let you know about it.
The employer (the individual that you support) is responsible for ensuring that your pay is calculated correctly, including all the tax, national insurance and pension calculations. This can be done in two ways:
- Virtual Wallet payroll - All the calculations are done by us. This means 'everything is in one place' for both you and the employer.
- Third-party payroll - Timesheet information is shared with a payroll third-party company that is contracted by your employer (or their council). They do the payroll calculations and then tell Virtual Wallet the amount to be paid.
Either way, you will get a payslip that details all the calculations and the amount that you have been paid.
FAQs: Employment
PAs have an employment contract with the individual that they support. Virtual Wallet doesn't change that, it is just a way of submitting timesheets and getting paid.
The way that employment law works in the UK means that most PAs are employees of the person that they support. However, there are some circumstances where a PA may be 'self-employed'. This means that the PA is responsible for calculating and paying their own tax. Sometimes this can be through an introductory agency (such as Curam Care or Elder). Sometimes they have been developed at a local level and are called 'micro-providers' or 'community micro enterprises'.
Virtual Wallet can handle these in one of two ways:
- Self-employed PA submits timesheets - This is done in a similar way to how we handle employed PAs, but the difference is that the system creates an invoice on behalf of the PA on the basis of the timesheets they have submitted. There are no payroll calculations or deductions as the payment is made 'gross', and the PA is then responsible for calculating and paying their own tax at a later date.
- Self-employed PA is treated as a 'provider' - We treat them as a small business, and deal with them in the same way as other providers, such as homecare agencies. A schedule of orders is created, and the system generates invoices on their behalf. Once gain, there is no payroll, and they are responsible for their own tax affairs. For more info, look at our provider pages.