The origin story for many working in payroll today tends to sound familiar, and Chanelle Webb’s story is no exception. When she first fell into this career more than two decades ago, it was never meant to be the career.

This so-called ‘stopgap’, however, quickly transformed into a 28-year calling in technical precision, empathy, and strategic thinking. Today, as founder of Amesto Payroll Services, Webb has a mission to elevate payroll to the professional standing of accountancy and HR. “Payroll is about advice and critical thinking, not just data entry,” she says firmly. “If that’s all it was, we’d be vastly overpaying our payroll people.”

Webb’s career began at just 18 when she joined a recruitment agency on maternity cover after being made redundant. With no prior experience, she was left managing a weekly payroll for over a hundred staff after the company’s partners split unexpectedly.  “I’d never done recruitment before this; I was supposed to be being trained.” She says, “And I show up at the office and the other partner’s not there.”

She calls the partner on maternity leave and finds out the other one has left to set up a recruitment agency just down the road.  “But, lo and behold, I had a hundred staff that needed paying on a weekly payroll,” she says.

Thrown in at the deep end, she taught herself the fundamentals of payroll by attending HMRC courses and learning on the job. Since then, Webb has built a broad and deep expertise across sectors, from government and corporate roles to accountancy practices, exposing her to every imaginable payroll scenario: TUPE transfers, complex benefits, manual processing, and the first waves of automation. Those experiences taught her two important lessons.

Firstly, she says payroll shouldn’t be treated as an administrative subset of HR or finance. It is a discipline in its own right, with compliance and legislative requirements that can affect people’s lives and livelihoods. Secondly, payroll is personal.

Webb stresses, “Get it wrong, and it’s not just a number on a spreadsheet, it’s someone’s mortgage, their childcare, their food shopping. It’s one of the most sensitive points of trust between employer and employee.”

Payroll’s Pandemic Moment

COVID-19 and the furlough scheme changed payroll forever, Webb argues. Once overlooked as back-office number-crunching, payroll became front and centre of business survival. The profession’s value rose, but not evenly.

“Administrator salaries have jumped to £27,000-£30,000, when ten years ago that was closer to a manager’s wage,” she notes. “But managerial roles haven’t seen the same uplift. The perception is still a mixed bag.”

At the same time, regulatory pressures are increasing. Anti-money laundering checks for payroll bureaus, due to come into force by 2026, will formalise obligations many practitioners already feel in practice. “In my view, no bureau should be operating without AML checks. We’re dealing with tax bills. It’s squarely within AML territory,” she says.

The Problem With “One-Hour Payrolls”

For all the progress, Webb warns against narratives that trivialise payroll’s complexity. She points to software vendors promising employers the ability to run a payroll of 100 staff “in an hour, for free.”

“That’s impossible unless nothing changes. No leavers, no new joiners, no overtime, no sick leave,” she says. “It drives down respect for the profession. You wouldn’t file corporation tax without an accountant or dismiss someone without HR advice. Why would you run a payroll with no knowledge, when the penalties can be as serious as prison?”

Despite her passion, launching a business was never on Webb’s wish list. “The idea of running my own firm actually petrified me,” she laughs. But frustration at what was missing in the industry pushed her to make the leap.

At Amesto Payroll Services, her philosophy is simple: empower staff, invest in their training, and deliver advisory-led payroll that makes clients feel supported, not just processed.

“I don’t want a culture where people blindly follow processes. A process might be beautifully written, but if it’s legislatively wrong, it’s still wrong. I want my team to ask ‘why are we doing this? Is the client compliant? Could they be losing money?’”

She recalls spotting one client who had missed out on claiming £10,500 in employment allowance due to outdated assumptions. “That kind of proactive advice makes a tangible difference,” she says.

Payroll has always been shaped by technology, and artificial intelligence is the inevitable next frontier. Webb sees huge potential in AI to catch details humans might miss. Things like, a part-time worker switching contracts, an apprentice exceeding 12 months, or an employee left on the wrong NI code.“AI could be like an extra safety net, flagging risks before they slip through. That frees payroll specialists to spend more time advising clients,” she says.

But she cautions against over-reliance. “The danger comes when people believe payroll can run itself. A 100-person payroll completed in an hour without human oversight is a red flag. Clients don’t want blanket automated emails. People buy people.”

The Training Gap

Webb believes that what the payroll profession needs most is training. “Too often, teams are taught only the statutory basics, SSP, SMP, the bare minimum. But payroll staff need to understand pensions, expenses, benefits, salary sacrifice, compliance. I’ve yet to walk into a company where bonus salary sacrifice was being operated correctly.”

For Webb, training is less about memorising every detail of legislation and more about cultivating “red flag instincts.” “You don’t need to carry it all in your head, but you must know when something doesn’t look right, and where to go for the answer,” she says.

If she could change two things about the industry, one would be regulation. “Anyone can pick up a payroll today, and that’s dangerous. Accountants must be chartered, HR managers must be CIPD-qualified. Payroll deserves the same level of professional recognition.”

The second is culture. “We need more positivity. Payroll is full of brilliant, clever people, but they’re often overlooked. I want to see the profession elevated, celebrated at awards, respected at board level, and recognised as the vital service it is.”

For all the challenges, Webb is grateful for her years of experience and remains as motivated as her first days in the profession, “I’ve been lucky to learn from some of the best people in finance, HR and payroll. Now I want to build a service that reflects that, where staff are supported, clients are truly advised, and payroll is treated with the respect it deserves.” She adds, “I love what I do. And that’s a good enough reason as any to keep going.”