The questions we are actually asked
Moving your payroll to us
Transition, timing, and what happens to the people who run payroll today.
How long does a migration take, and what breaks?
For a typical company the first correct month runs about six to eight weeks after we get access to the data. Larger or messier estates take longer, and we tell you which one you are after the review rather than before it.
Nothing breaks, because we do not switch you over. We run the first month in parallel: your existing system produces its result, we produce ours, and the two are reconciled line by line before anything is filed. You approve the switch after you have seen them agree, not before.
What happens to our payroll accountant?
Usually they stay and stop doing payroll. In most companies the payroll person is also the only one who understands the personnel records, the union agreement and the local exceptions, and that knowledge is worth more than the keystrokes.
Some clients keep them as the internal owner of the relationship with us. Some move them to controlling or HR work that was never getting done. We do not require a redundancy and we will not advise you on one.
Can you take over mid-migration?
Yes, and it is a common point to call us. If the accounting replacement is under way and payroll has turned out to be worse than expected, that is a normal moment for the scope to change.
We work from whatever exists, including a half-converted system, and reconcile to what was filed rather than to what the project believes. Migration off 1C and BAS is a service in its own right.
Do we have to migrate off 1C or BAS at all?
As a private company, not today. The mandatory requirement covers the state sector, state enterprises and designated critical infrastructure operators. For everyone else it is recommended, and the enforcement law failed in June 2026.
What is worth weighing is who asks you first. Banks, auditors, Prozorro procurement and foreign parents are already asking, and answering them is easier if the migration has started than if it has not.
Our payroll runs on 1C. Is that now illegal?
Two facts belong together here, and you should be careful of anyone who gives you only one of them.
The register of restricted software is real. It was created by Cabinet of Ministers Resolution 1335 of 22 October 2025, and the State Service for Special Communications published the first list on 6 January 2026. The 1C line, the BAS products and UA-Бюджет are on it.
The enforcement law is not in place. Draft law 13505, which would have attached sanctions to the register, failed its first reading on 30 June 2026, roughly thirty votes short. So today the register carries reputational and procurement consequences rather than a direct fine.
What that means in practice: you are not committing an offence this month, and you are also relying on a parliamentary result going the same way twice. Most companies that have moved did so because a bank, an auditor, a Prozorro tender or a foreign parent asked the question, not because an inspector did.
What if we later want to bring payroll back in-house?
Then you take it back. The contract sets out data handover on termination, and the calculation history, personnel records and filed returns are yours throughout.
We would rather say that plainly than have you discover the exit terms at the point you want to use them.
Systems, data and where the work happens
How we fit alongside your existing software, and who can see what.
Can you work with our existing finance system, such as SAP?
Yes, and it is a common situation. A group standardises on SAP, or another group ERP, then finds that running Ukrainian payroll inside it is either not feasible or not worth what it costs to configure and maintain.
The usual arrangement is that your ERP stays the system of record for finance and HR, we run the payroll calculation, and the results post back in the structure your group chart of accounts expects. Your head office sees SAP. Nobody has to explain a Ukrainian exception to it.
Who can see our salary data?
A named team, and no one else. Access is per client rather than per company, so our staff working on another client cannot open your records.
We also hold a recruitment capability, which we do not market and which is kept structurally separate. Recruitment staff have no access to payroll or HR administration data, the systems share no connection in either direction, and our contract commits us not to approach or place your employees during the engagement or for twelve months after it ends. You can ask for that in writing, and you should ask any provider who does both the same question.
Where does the work actually happen?
In Ukraine, by our own staff, on software we wrote and maintain. Nothing is subcontracted to another payroll bureau.
That matters for a reason beyond preference: when the rules change, we change the engine ourselves. We are not waiting for a vendor in another country to decide that a Ukrainian legislative amendment justifies a release.
How does salary actually reach our employees?
Through a single salary register produced from the payroll run and delivered to the bank, with cards credited across several banks from one register where your people bank in different places. Client-bank integration is part of the service rather than a separate project.
What do we lose by outsourcing payroll instead of replacing the software?
Direct access to the software, which in practice most finance teams never used. You still get the register, the cost breakdowns, the reports and the exports into whatever your new accounting system turns out to be.
What you gain is that the hardest workstream leaves the project, and the person who understands your payroll exceptions becomes available to the rest of it.
Cost, contract and the penalty guarantee
What you pay, and what happens when something goes wrong.
What does it cost?
A monthly fee based on headcount and on how much of the function you hand over, with the migration quoted separately and fixed before it starts.
We will not put a price on this page, because the number depends on things we have not seen yet: how many contractors you carry, how many sites, how clean the personnel files are, and whether we are running payroll alone or the HR administration with it. After the review you get a fixed monthly figure, not a range.
What exactly does the penalty guarantee cover?
Where a penalty arises from work we performed, the contract makes it ours to pay, and a refund of the fee for the work concerned sits alongside that rather than instead of it. It has been a standard term for years rather than a promotional offer.
It is not unlimited, and no honest provider would claim otherwise. It does not cover the consequences of incorrect information you gave us, or of written advice we gave you that was not acted on. Those two conditions are why the guarantee is possible at all.
The scope and the exclusions are written into the contract, and we go through that clause with you at the first meeting rather than at signature. If a provider tells you they cover everything with no conditions at all, ask to read the clause.
Does the guarantee cover contractor reclassification?
Where a penalty results from work we performed, it is ours to pay under the contract. Where it results from a structuring decision you took against our written advice, it is not, and that boundary is set out in the clause rather than left to interpretation.
This is worth reading properly rather than taking on trust, which is why we go through it at the first meeting.
Setting up as an employer in Ukraine
The documents that have to exist before your first hire.
When do we need to start?
Before registration completes, if the timing allows it. The order on principal activity and the first personnel orders have to carry dates that precede the director’s appointment, so the useful question is not how many days the drafting takes but which documents have to be signed before which event.
If the company is already registered and the director already appointed, we say so plainly and work out what can be regularised and what cannot. That is a more common starting point than people expect. See employer setup.
What is not in the employer setup package?
Two things, both deliberately. The documents that payroll produces month by month, meaning the staffing schedule, timesheets, personnel cards, holiday schedule and registration books, come with payroll and HR administration rather than with this package.
Military registration and reservation from mobilisation are a separate discipline with their own obligations and their own penalties, and they are handled as a separate service. Buying this package does not put your military registration in order, and we would rather say that here than let you discover it later.
Can we use our head office templates?
Not directly. Ukrainian internal documents have required content and a required relationship to each other, and a translated template usually fails on both. A job description that describes a role at the parent company is worse than none, because it is evidence that the position was never actually defined here.
Where the parent has obligations of its own, such as data protection or supply chain rules, those need to be built into the Ukrainian documents deliberately rather than assumed to carry across.
What does the employer setup package cost?
We do not quote from a price list, for the same reason as the rest of our services: the work depends on how many positions you are creating, whether contractors are involved, and how much already exists. A five-person trading office and a twenty-person production site do not need the same file.
Tell us the shape of the company and we will scope it properly and give you a fixed figure before anything starts.
Contractors: ФОП and ЦПХ
Engaging Ukrainian contractors without creating a reclassification exposure.
Are ФОП arrangements actually legal?
Yes, entirely, and they are a normal part of how Ukrainian business works. A genuine ФОП runs their own business, decides how the work gets done, carries their own risk and typically has more than one client.
The problem is never the form. It is when the substance of the relationship stops matching it and nobody notices, because the test applied later is behavioural rather than contractual.
How do we know if ours would survive an inspection?
The questions are fairly predictable: does the person have set working hours, do they report to a manager, do they use your equipment at your premises, do they have other clients, are they paid for time or for a result, and does anything in writing describe them as part of the team.
We review your existing arrangements against those tests and give you a written finding, contractor by contractor, before you decide anything. That is the core of contractor administration.
We use ФОП but have no Ukrainian company. Can you still help?
Yes, and it is a distinct service. Where a foreign company works with Ukrainian contractors without an entity here, we administer the relationship end to end: reviewing costs, calculating the invoice so the agreed net actually arrives after bank charges and tax, invoicing in both languages, keeping contracts and annexes current, and handling the bank when financial monitoring raises questions. See ФОП management for foreign companies.
Do we need a Ukrainian company to work with contractors?
No. That is the point of the arrangement. Your contractor is an independent Ukrainian business invoicing you directly, and you contract with them from wherever you are.
If you later reach the stage of employing people here rather than contracting with them, that is a different structure with different obligations, and we run that too. But nothing about this service requires you to incorporate first.
What does it cost to run a ФОП?
On simplified taxation, a group 3 ФОП pays 5% of turnover as single tax, plus a monthly social contribution set at 22% of the minimum wage, which is UAH 8,647 in 2026. There is also a turnover ceiling for the group, which we monitor.
Our administration fee sits on top of that and is per ФОП per month. What it is depends on how many you have and what state they are in when we take them over.
Can you control who else our contractor works for?
No, and you should be wary of anyone offering to. A private entrepreneur is by definition an independent business entitled to other clients, and restricting that is precisely the kind of control that makes an arrangement look like employment rather than contracting.
What we can do is make sure the arrangement is documented, the standing is clean and the commercial terms are clear. Exclusivity, where you need it, is a matter for the contract and for your lawyer.
We inherited some ФОП arrangements. Where do we start?
With a standing check. We look at each registration: activity codes, tax group, filings, outstanding liabilities, penalties and documentation, and give you the position in writing before you decide anything.
It is common to find something. It is much better to find it deliberately than to find it because a bank, an auditor or a tax authority found it first.
Reservation from mobilisation (бронювання)
Critical-enterprise status, the salary floor, and the September 2026 deadline.
Is the salary threshold really tested every month?
Yes, and this is the single most common misunderstanding. The qualifying salary has to be met in each month of the reporting quarter. A strong average across three months does not compensate for one month below the floor.
It matters most for anyone paid partly in bonus, anyone who had unpaid leave, and anyone who joined or left mid-month, because all three can put a single month under the line without anybody intending it.
What actually changes on 1 September 2026?
The salary floor for a reserved employee rises from two and a half minimum wages to three: from UAH 21,617.50 to UAH 25,941 at the current minimum wage. The equivalent change for company critical status already took effect on 2 June 2026.
Because the floor is pegged to the minimum wage, it will move again whenever the minimum wage does. It is not a one-off adjustment to absorb and forget. Reservation support covers the monitoring.
Can you work on this without taking over our payroll?
Yes. We can run the monitoring against payroll data you send us, and many companies start there because the September deadline arrives faster than a full migration would.
It is less effective than running the payroll ourselves, for a simple reason: we can only check what we are given, and if the underlying data is wrong the check inherits the error. We will tell you plainly which of the two you are getting.
Do you handle the reservation applications themselves?
We handle the payroll evidence that the applications depend on, and the monitoring that keeps them valid once granted. The submission process itself sits with the relevant ministry and your own management.
Where a legal opinion is needed on eligibility, that is work for a qualified lawyer and we bring one in with your agreement rather than improvising it.
Not the question you came with?
Most of what we are asked does not fit on a page like this, because it depends on how your payroll is actually put together. Tell us what you are dealing with and we will answer it directly.
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