Support Archives - Bluestones Group

QPS Group achieves SafeRec certification

Kelly Croutear — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 11:41:53 +0000

QPS achieves SafeRec certification, strengthening payroll compliance and transparency

QPS Group, part of Bluestones Group’s Support division, has achieved SafeRec certification, reinforcing its commitment to transparent, compliant, and risk-free payroll solutions for recruitment agencies and contractors.

QPS Group specialises in fully compliant payroll, accountancy and financial services, helping agencies manage payments with confidence while ensuring contractors receive accurate, verified pay. SafeRec certification is recognised as the gold standard in payroll auditing, providing real-time independent verification to ensure payroll accuracy, full HMRC compliance, and complete supply chain transparency.

With increased scrutiny on compliance in the umbrella company market, SafeRec certification demonstrates that QPS operates to the highest standards, offering:

Real-time payroll audits – Ensuring all payments are independently verified for full compliance.
Supply chain transparency – Protecting recruitment agencies under the Criminal Finances Act.
Payslip verification for workers – Providing contractors with full visibility of their earnings and deductions.

Alongside its existing FCSA accreditation, this latest certification further establishes QPS as a trusted payroll provider, giving agencies and contractors total confidence in their payroll processing.

As part of Bluestones Group’s Support division, QPS continues to lead the way in compliant, innovative, and transparent payroll solutions, ensuring agencies and contractors can operate with complete peace of mind.

Read more about this achievement on the QPS Group website here.

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QPS launches new services and a bold brand refresh

Kelly Croutear — Tue, 03 Dec 2024 14:15:36 +0000

QPS Group (formerly Quest Pay Solutions) has unveiled a comprehensive suite of services to empower recruitment agencies and contractors

As part of the Bluestones Group portfolio and sitting within the Group’s Support Division, Quest Pay Solutions (QPS) has been a trusted partner to recruitment businesses for the past eight years.

Specialising in Umbrella PAYE and CIS services, QPS is committed to helping businesses navigate the ever-evolving recruitment landscape. In response to the changing needs of both hirers and recruitment businesses, as well as new compliance obligations introduced by the Labour government, QPS has leveraged its expertise and resources to develop an innovative range of products and services.

These solutions are designed to support recruitment businesses in driving growth, ensuring compliance, and adapting seamlessly to regulatory changes, underpinned by the strength and backing of the Bluestones Group.

What's new? Expanded services and enhanced solutions:

Enhanced accountancy services

Recognising the unique financial needs of contractors, freelancers, and small to medium-sized enterprises, QPS Group now offers tailored accountancy solutions. These services simplify financial management, ensuring compliance and efficiency for businesses of all sizes.

Specialised financial services

Understanding that securing mortgages is a significant concern for professionals transitioning to contract positions, QPS Group has introduced specialised mortgage services. These offerings are designed to assist contractors in obtaining mortgages, addressing one of the primary barriers to entering contract roles.

Comprehensive payroll solutions

To support recruitment agencies and their staff, QPS Group now provides a range of PAYE services, including outsourced payroll for agency staff, PAYE, and Professional Employer Organisation (PEO) services. These solutions are crafted to ensure seamless payroll management, allowing agencies to focus on their core operations.

Global payroll and UK funding service

Expanding its reach, QPS Group offers international payroll services to facilitate global operations for recruitment agencies. Additionally, new UK funding options are available to support business growth and financial stability within the recruitment sector.

Robert Arnold, Managing Director of QPS Group said:

“At QPS Group, we are committed to providing comprehensive solutions that empower our clients to achieve their business objectives. Our expanded suite of services reflects our dedication to addressing the evolving needs of recruitment agencies, contractors, and SMEs, enabling them to thrive in a competitive market.”

For more information about QPS Group’s new services, please visit https://qpsgroup.co.uk/

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IT support business launches

MC — Fri, 09 Feb 2024 11:54:56 +0000

We’re delighted to officially launch Zircon IT Systems – a trusted IT support partner of the recruitment industry.

With its focus on providing, clear, bespoke IT services, tailored to the recruitment sector, Zircon is uniquely positioned to become an IT partner of choice for many recruiters and agencies.

Zircon is led by IT expert, Alison Drew – who has over ten years’ experience meeting the needs of an ever-changing, ever-growing recruitment sector. Alison, has spent her time in the industry developing a flexible service offering that can not only react to the short-term demands of the market, but also future-proof her clients and keep them one step ahead.

Alison Drew, Managing Director of Zircon IT Systems had this to say:

“We’ve worked with and supported hundreds of recruiters within the Group’s portfolio, and now feel the time is right to offer our services to a wider audience.
The early feedback we’ve had is that there’s a gap in the market for what we offer: recruitment sector expertise, professional IT support, and generally being a trusted IT partner that won’t over-engineer (or over-charge) for our solutions and support”.

Whether it’s project based or retained support, Zircon offers a proven and flexible IT support service for recruitment businesses, focusing on six key areas:

IT infrastructure
IT support
Procurement & setup
Project support
Security
Software & licensing

Keep up to date with the latest insights and advice on all recruitment specific IT information through their website and their LinkedIn page.

For more information, speak to the team today on 0151 433 8860.

Zircon IT Systems is the fourth business within Bluestones Group’s burgeoning support division, joining established businesses Quest Pay Solutions (recruitment payroll), Recruitment Funding Solutions (recruitment funding), and APEX (recruitment marketing).

As Steve Pendergast, Group CEO commented,

“The Group’s support division is a particularly innovative concept; in that it takes the collective experience of our subject matter experts within the Group and enables external recruitment businesses to access their services.
It also flips on its head the idea that service functions are only considered as cost centres, as we continue to build scalable and profitable recruitment support businesses within our portfolio”.

The introduction of Zircon is a further development of our ‘All Things Recruitment’ concept. With three clear divisions – Recruitment, Investment, and Support – Bluestones is well-positioned to continue building its portfolio of recruitment and staffing service businesses that cover every aspect of the recruitment sector.

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Additional funding product from RFS

MC — Tue, 24 Jan 2023 15:34:35 +0000

Recruitment Funding Solutions (RFS), the specialist recruitment funding provider within the Group’s portfolio of recruitment and staffing service companies, has launched a completely overhauled website, incorporating a range of design and functional changes that coincides with the addition of an all-new funding product too.

Recruitment Funding Solutions provides specialist recruitment funding support to recruitment agencies of all sizes and all stages of maturity, predominantly throughout the UK. Along with its well-established and extremely popular protected funding solution (RFS Protect), the business now offers RFS Evolve for typically larger and more well-established recruitment agencies that are ready and able to take on more of risk and debt management themselves. Both funding products are exceptionally easy to access, supported by recruitment specialists, and competitively priced in the marketplace.

RFS Protect

RFS Protect is our protected funding solution. It’s perfect for all agencies, but especially attractive for developing, early-stage and start-up agencies.

Find out more

RFS Evolve

RFS Evolve is for more established agencies that want to determine their own credit terms with clients, owning and managing a company’s risk profile.

Find out more

It’s important to remember that what Recruitment Funding Solutions does is different to the investment proposition from its parent company, Bluestones Group. At Bluestones, the investment approach is typically geared towards more fast-paced scaling and growth within the Group’s portfolio of businesses.

Find out more about what investment at Bluestones means HERE.

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QPS share payroll provider tips

MC — Mon, 12 Dec 2022 15:00:03 +0000

Quest Pay Solutions, the Group’s specialist payroll provider that provides CIS, PAYE and Umbrella payroll services to recruitment agencies throughout the UK, has shared a detailed guide on how to find the best payroll provider.

In the article, they advise:

When looking to hire the best payroll provider for your recruitment agency, it is important to consider multiple factors. From understanding the margins associated with different providers to evaluating their customer service and support, there are a variety of elements that can help you make the most informed decision. In this article, we will provide tips to help you successfully find the best payroll provider for your recruitment agency.

The team at Quest Pay Solutions go on to explore five key steps to go through to find the best payroll provider. These are:

Understanding your needs
Consider cost & margins
Assess software features
Analyse data security
Read reviews

To read the article in full, please follow the link to the Quest Pay Solutions website HERE.

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Quest Pay Solutions launch new website

Kelly Croutear — Fri, 19 Aug 2022 09:33:04 +0000

Quest Pay Solutions (QPS), part of the Group’s Support Division and trusted payroll and back office solutions provider for CIS, PAYE and Umbrella contractors, launched their new website this week.

The exciting digital refresh makes it even easier for Quest Pay Solutions’ clients, CIS, PAYE and Umbrella contractors to work with them.

With its new streamlined interface, interactive callback bot and extensive digital services provided via an online client portal, the new QPS website represents a step-change in how the company present themselves online.

Features of the new website include:

Bespoke portal areas, providing easy and quick access to forms for clients and contractors
An umbrella illustration calculator
A new referrals and payroll submission upload area

Also introducing a new media section and online 24/7 support chatbot, the QPS team are already receiving positive feedback from clients and contractors about the ease of navigation and improved user experience on the new site.

Watch the video below to learn more about the website, or explore the site itself HERE.

Visit the new Quest Pay website

Meet the team and explore the range of services that Quest pay Solutions provide.

Click Here

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RFS launch fee comparison service

MC — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 07:54:34 +0000

Recruitment Funding Solutions (RFS), the specialist recruitment funding provider, has launched a brand-new fee comparison service. Available as a completely free, no-obligation service, agencies answer a handful of questions about their current funding provider and the charges or fees they apply to help understand the genuine fee they’re being charged.

Alex Grant, Managing Director at RFS commented,

“It’s surprising just how many recruitment agencies are lured in by a headline rate from a funding provider, then have extra charges and fees applied without realising the impact this has on the overall cost of the service. Our fee comparison service helps demonstrate the difference between the headline rate typically advertised by funders and the actual rate charged after additional fees are applied.”

RFS funding is different to most other funders, in that it offers a single fee with a transparent pricing structure, so the headline rate advertised by RFS is the rate that agencies will actually pay.

Mike Findley, Operations Director at RFS explained further,

“Occasionally, the RFS headline rate may be higher than some other funders’ initial rates, but when the additional fees and charges are taken into account – we’ve seen the actual rate charged by competitors being more than double the RFS rate. In monetary terms this can amount to tens of thousands of pounds in extra charges annually”.

This doesn’t just affect recruitment start-ups, although they’re most likely to feel the impact of the additional charges more keenly; but agencies of all sizes can end up paying far more than they need to for their recruitment funding.

If you’re interested in finding out more about this service, or want to request a fee comparison report for your funding provider – sign up HERE or call 03300 539 439.

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RFS share a customer perspective

MC — Mon, 13 May 2019 09:00:33 +0000

Recruitment Funding Solutions offers plenty of advice via their website and in-person through their consultancy team, but sometimes, there’s no substitute to hearing from someone who’s been there and done it.

So the RFS team asked a customer of their – Vincent Gurney Ltd – to share some insights into how they set up, what challenges they faced, how RFS helped them and what advice they’d offer to others contemplating setting up their own recruitment business.

The in-depth article – which can be read in full HERE answers the following questions:

What made you want to start your own recruitment business?
Can you give a brief overview of what your business does and the journey you have been on to get where you are now?
What obstacles have you encountered during the early stages of running your business?
How helpful have you found RFS to be throughout the process of setting up and running your business?
What advice would you give to anyone else considering setting up their own recruitment business?
Where do you see the business being in five years’ time?

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Recruitment Funding Solutions launch new media centre

MC — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 08:41:29 +0000

Recruitment Funding Solutions have launched an updated media centre containing a range of informative articles.

Setting up and running your own recruitment agency can be a daunting task So, to help, we’ve collated a range of articles and blog posts from across our team to provide insight, advice and guidance on the issues that matter to recruitment entrepreneurs.

You can access the media centre HERE and there are selected articles available at launch, including:

…and many others.

The business has also launched a new social media channel on Instagram, which can be followed HERE.

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