Expense Cards

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Running Payroll

Payroll checklist

Tracking payroll changes
We currently have a few different ways of doing this.
When a client sends emails
Create tasks when we receive an email from the client throughout the month
Update a with the changes
HR Software (ie - Charlie HR)
Downloading reports for;
Joiners
Leavers
Salary changes
Accrued holidays for leavers
What's our general approach?
Track changes in HR software (limited
Track changes in Google Sheet - easy to see month on month changes
Processing payroll changes
New starters
Information required from employee
New starter form or P45 (either of is fine)
Bank account details

Information we should already hold for the client
Pension enrolment (immediately or deferred for 3 months)
Annual salary
Start date

Add personal details
Add tax details
P45
If there is no P45, the payroll software will default to a
If there is a P45, enter the information in Xero exactly per the P45 in Box 7
Student Loan
if information is provided in the new starter form, enter accordingly
if you don't have any information on this,
Add employee to pension scheme
Select whether the employee is in a pension scheme:
If No, Xero assesses the employee for auto enrolment, and adds pension pay items to their pay template.
Defer for auto-enrolment
Leavers
Information required from the employer
Last day of employment
Any holiday accruals
Any redundancy payments
Any other deduction (ie - season tickets loan, laptop purchase etc)
Salary changes
Commission
Bonus
Salary increase or decrease
Pension contribution changes
In the UK, all employees aged over 22 years old and earning a minimum of £10k a year are opted in to pension contributions, unless they opt out.
If they are under 22 or earning less than this amount, you can ask the employee if they’d like to voluntarily enrol or “opt-in”.
If they opted out within the first month, the employee will be able to get the money back. If they opted out after that, they can't get the money back but no more contributions will be made to their pension fund.
An employee can defer their enrolment for 3 months after joining the company. If they choose to defer, you must send them a postponement letter. This is automatically generated in Xero under the pension section. After 3-months they must be enrolled.
When adding an employee in Xero, Xero will automatically prompt you to enrol them in the pension scheme if they have not been deferred. If they have been deferred Xero will automatically ask you to enrol them in 3 months time when processing pay-run.
When employees are enrolled, you must send them a pension eligibility letter. This can be found in Xero once the pay-run has been processed under the employees name and under the pension tab.
On occasion, employees may want to increase their pension contributions or to opt out of pension
Pension contribution holidays (pause contributions)
3 yearly enrolment day

Tutorial (TBC)
How to change employee contributions
How to opt out of pension contribution
Checks
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What can go wrong
What checks in place
1
Salary changes not put through
Gross salary month-on-month and provide commentary for any changes
2
Not adding pension contributions
Net salary month-on-month and provide commentary for any changes
3
Tax code changes causing a significant change in net salary
Net salary month-on-month and provide commentary for any changes
4
Applying salary changes to the wrong person
Gross salary month-on-month and provide commentary for any changes
5
Paying to the wrong bank account
6
Not paying the PAYE payment before the next deadline
7
Not applying salary increase after probation period
8
Tax notices received in HMRC not applied in payroll system
9
Taking student loan deductions when we should haven't / Not deducting student loans when should have
10
Not deducting pension deductions when we should be
11
Not posting payroll before paying employees
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11
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Pension providers
Where have an agent account
Smart Pensions
NEST

Where we don't have an agent account
Aviva
The People's Pension
Christmas payroll
TBC
End of tax year procedures
Checks
PAYE and NI liabilities
Ensure that Wages Payable account is nil
Reconcile PAYE and NI payable account to payroll reports (P11 NIC and P11 PAYE)
Reconcile PAYE and NI payable to HMRC portal

Compliance deadlines
Send final FPS of the year (same process as per the monthly FPS)
Send employees P60 by 31st of May
Report employee benefits (P11D) by 6th of July
PAYE Settlement Agreements by 6th of July (payment by 22nd October)
Payroll software
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Software
Pros
Cons
1
Xero
integrated into accounting system
only online support
automatic payroll journals only allocate gross salaries to different departments, not associated costs such as Employers NI and Pension Costs
inability to export csv reports vs gross and net
2
Payfit
free migration
hands-ons support via video call and online support
reports on gross salary and net salary
rapid development
a growing startup so product occasionally buggy
3
Sage Payroll
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3
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Other payroll technicalities
Holiday accruals
Check holiday allowance for employees per the employment contract
For example, 28 days (including public holidays is statutory holidays)20 days
Start - 2nd December 2019, End - 27th of March (4 months)
PAYE Settlement Agreement
A allows you to make one annual payment to cover all the tax and National Insurance due on expenses or benefits for your employees.
Migrating payroll software
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