On Friday 19th September the UK will learn whether Scotland has secured independence. The majority of voters casting a ‘yes’ into the ballot box has been predicted to bring about all manner of implications to the world of business as we see it today and payroll is no different.

The key issue if Scotland is to move away from the UK is in the respect of how current payroll software is formatted to pass information to the UK HMRC. Scotland has already highlighted within a statement that following independence it would review tax regulation, should this be the case then many software issues will arise due to current payroll products not being aligned with any other tax body other than the HMRC.

The key cost of this is the investment that will be required from software providers in order to manage upgrades in functionality in order to support Scotland’s payroll requirements, not only that there is the cost for businesses within Scotland who will have to overhaul payroll systems and begin again with new tax legislation and regulations – a complicated business for all.

Of course, there are those providers who offer enterprise scale functionality and can support global payrolls – it is these providers who will be able to support the larger organisation but a business of 200 employees could not afford such a system and will be hit hard in the pocket.

I await the outcome of the referendum with interest, the impact of a yes vote goes far further for businesses than we take into account, not just in Scotland but for those developing the software products in England as well.