Detailed guidance relating to expatriate employees

HMRC have published detailed guidance relating to employers operating PAYE in real time with expatriate employees working either in the UK or overseas.

Part of this guidance reads as follows: 

"HMRC will apply a common sense approach to deciding whether we agree that employers of expatriates have a reasonable excuse for not telling us on time about any tax and NICs due on payments and notional payments made in-year to expatriates by third parties and overseas employers; or for not paying this tax and NICs by its due date. In assessing whether we agree that employers have a reasonable excuse, HMRC is not expecting employers to materially change the operation of their current UK or overseas payrolls for making payments to employees where these payroll practices are reasonable and widely accepted."

The full guidance notes can be accessed here.

Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.

Posted byAnn TigheinPayroll SoftwareRTI

Paying HMRC

HMRC have issued guidance (and a reminder) on the PAYE payment position for employers reporting PAYE in real time, as they appreciate that many employers are still getting used to this new way of reporting. Click here for the full article.

Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.

Read more at www.hmrc.gov.uk >

Posted byPaul ByrneinPayroll SoftwareRTI

Issue of NINO numbers on hold

In response to some National Insurance number Verification Requests (NVRs) and Full Payment Submissions (FPS) with missing or incorrect National Insurance numbers, HM Revenue & Customs has issued a number of National Insurance numbers without the final letter (A, B, C or D) of the number.

The issue of National Insurance numbers is currently on hold whilst HMRC investigate this.

Update by HMRC in June 2013:-

"Last month we temporarily suspended the issue of National Insurance numbers while we investigated why some were being sent out without the final letter (A, B, C or D) of the number. This has been resolved and we are issuing National Insurance numbers again."

Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.

Read more at www.hmrc.gov.uk >

Posted byPaul ByrneinPayroll SoftwareRTI

2012-13 P35 deadline is fast approaching

Your 2012-13 Employer Annual Return is due by 19 May 2013. Send it as soon as possible to avoid a late filing penalty.

Click here for further details.

Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.

Posted byPaul ByrneinPAYEPayroll Software

HMRC clarifies RTI NI number issues

HMRC has been forced to issue a clarification about national insurance number verification requests after being contacted by worried employers trying to meet the Real Time Information (RTI) requirements.

The employers have been receiving rejections in response to their requests. This, says HMRC, is correct. They are being rejected because the employers are sending their requests in before they have made their first full payment submission (FPS).

“You cannot send a national insurance number verification request (NVR) until you have started to send PAYE information in real time,” HMRC advises. “Wait two weeks after sending your first FPS before sending an NVR.”

It points employers to its guidance, Making Sure You Use the Correct National Insurance Number

HMRC also says that it has been receiving phone calls from employees trying to find out what their NI number is after being told by their employer that they must have one for when the employer submits the RTI returns.

Although HMRC does want employers to provide correct NI numbers in their PAYE submissions, it stresses that there will be occasions when an NI number is not available. For example, the employee will not have been allocated one if they are under 16 years old.

Again, it points employers towards the NI guidance to make it clear that they should leave the NI number field blank and not be tempted to fill it in with a dummy or incorrect number.

Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.

Posted byAnn TigheinPAYEPayrollPayroll SoftwarePRSIReal time informationRTIWages

Minimum Wage to be Increased by the Government

The rate for 18 to 20-year-olds will rise by 5p to £5.03, and by 4p to £3.72 for 16 and 17-year-olds.

Ministers said they had rejected a recommendation from the Low Pay Commission that the rate for apprentices should be frozen, announcing a 3p an increase to £2.68 an hour.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said: "The independent Low Pay Commission plays a crucial role in advising the Government when setting the national minimum wage every year. It balances wages of low paid workers against employment prospects if the rate was set too high.

"We are accepting its recommendations for the adult and youth rate increases, which I am confident strikes this balance. However, there is worrying evidence that a significant number of employers are not paying apprentices the relevant minimum wage rate.

"Apprenticeships are at the heart of our goal to support a stronger economy, and so it is important to continue to make them attractive to young people.

"Therefore, I am not taking forward the LPC's recommendation to freeze the apprenticeship rate due to non-compliance, but instead am raising it in line with the youth rates. We are working on a series of tough new measures to ensure we tackle non-compliance issues across the board."

Tim Thomas of the manufacturers' organisation the EEF, commented: "Today's announcement strikes a delicate balance between the need for an element of pay progression and the limitations employers face in accommodating pay rises.

"The modest increase in the apprenticeship rate is unlikely to negatively affect apprenticeship recruitment and of much greater importance is the raising of apprenticeships standards, better information and advice to students and ensuring that apprenticeships are truly employer-led and employer-driven."

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "Boosting the incomes of the low paid goes straight into the economy and wage-led growth must be part of the recovery so we would have liked to have seen minimum wage rates go up further today, even if the Government has rightly rejected calls for a freeze.

"But we are pleased that ministers have increased the apprenticeship rate. This sends a positive signal about the importance of apprentices.

"We will continue to press ministers for more action to ensure the minimum wage is properly enforced - particularly for apprentices where there is considerable evidence that many miss out. It is time to get tough with wage-cheat employers who break this law.

"We will continue to urge the many employers who can afford it to implement a full living wage for their staff."

The rate for 18 to 20-year-olds will rise by 5p to £5.03, and by 4p to £3.72 for 16 and 17-year-olds.

Ministers said they had rejected a recommendation from the Low Pay Commission that the rate for apprentices should be frozen, announcing a 3p an increase to £2.68 an hour.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said: "The independent Low Pay Commission plays a crucial role in advising the Government when setting the national minimum wage every year. It balances wages of low paid workers against employment prospects if the rate was set too high.

"We are accepting its recommendations for the adult and youth rate increases, which I am confident strikes this balance. However, there is worrying evidence that a significant number of employers are not paying apprentices the relevant minimum wage rate.

"Apprenticeships are at the heart of our goal to support a stronger economy, and so it is important to continue to make them attractive to young people.

"Therefore, I am not taking forward the LPC's recommendation to freeze the apprenticeship rate due to non-compliance, but instead am raising it in line with the youth rates. We are working on a series of tough new measures to ensure we tackle non-compliance issues across the board."

Tim Thomas of the manufacturers' organisation the EEF, commented: "Today's announcement strikes a delicate balance between the need for an element of pay progression and the limitations employers face in accommodating pay rises.

"The modest increase in the apprenticeship rate is unlikely to negatively affect apprenticeship recruitment and of much greater importance is the raising of apprenticeships standards, better information and advice to students and ensuring that apprenticeships are truly employer-led and employer-driven."

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "Boosting the incomes of the low paid goes straight into the economy and wage-led growth must be part of the recovery so we would have liked to have seen minimum wage rates go up further today, even if the Government has rightly rejected calls for a freeze.

"But we are pleased that ministers have increased the apprenticeship rate. This sends a positive signal about the importance of apprentices.

"We will continue to press ministers for more action to ensure the minimum wage is properly enforced - particularly for apprentices where there is considerable evidence that many miss out. It is time to get tough with wage-cheat employers who break this law.

"We will continue to urge the many employers who can afford it to implement a full living wage for their staff."

The rate for 18 to 20-year-olds will rise by 5p to £5.03, and by 4p to £3.72 for 16 and 17-year-olds.

Ministers said they had rejected a recommendation from the Low Pay Commission that the rate for apprentices should be frozen, announcing a 3p an increase to £2.68 an hour.

Business Secretary Vince Cable said: "The independent Low Pay Commission plays a crucial role in advising the Government when setting the national minimum wage every year. It balances wages of low paid workers against employment prospects if the rate was set too high.

"We are accepting its recommendations for the adult and youth rate increases, which I am confident strikes this balance. However, there is worrying evidence that a significant number of employers are not paying apprentices the relevant minimum wage rate.

"Apprenticeships are at the heart of our goal to support a stronger economy, and so it is important to continue to make them attractive to young people.

"Therefore, I am not taking forward the LPC's recommendation to freeze the apprenticeship rate due to non-compliance, but instead am raising it in line with the youth rates. We are working on a series of tough new measures to ensure we tackle non-compliance issues across the board."

Tim Thomas of the manufacturers' organisation the EEF, commented: "Today's announcement strikes a delicate balance between the need for an element of pay progression and the limitations employers face in accommodating pay rises.

"The modest increase in the apprenticeship rate is unlikely to negatively affect apprenticeship recruitment and of much greater importance is the raising of apprenticeships standards, better information and advice to students and ensuring that apprenticeships are truly employer-led and employer-driven."

TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady said: "Boosting the incomes of the low paid goes straight into the economy and wage-led growth must be part of the recovery so we would have liked to have seen minimum wage rates go up further today, even if the Government has rightly rejected calls for a freeze.

"But we are pleased that ministers have increased the apprenticeship rate. This sends a positive signal about the importance of apprentices.

"We will continue to press ministers for more action to ensure the minimum wage is properly enforced - particularly for apprentices where there is considerable evidence that many miss out. It is time to get tough with wage-cheat employers who break this law.

"We will continue to urge the many employers who can afford it to implement a full living wage for their staff."

Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.

Posted byCaroline MaloneinEmployee ContractsEmployment ContractPAYEPayrollPayroll SoftwareWages

RTI: STARTER PROCESS AMENDED

HMRC has amended its guidance on the starter process to help increase accuracy for individuals with a P45 and more than one job. In such cases, instead of selecting statement C and operating code BR, the employer should select statement B and operate the tax code on the P45 – unless the tax code on the P45 is BR, 0T or D prefix – in which case statement C would still apply.

Individuals without a P45 or with an old P45 will continue to complete the starter declaration to confirm their employment situation. The full guidance on the starter process will be updated and available from 6 April 2013 here.

Please be aware the guidance linked above will not be updated to reflect this change until 6 April 2013. HMRC acknowledges that the starter process guidance has gone through several iterations and for 2013-14 says it will accept if an employer’s payroll does not follow this new process.

Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.

Read more at www.hmrc.gov.uk >

Posted byAnn TigheinHMRCPAYEPayrollPayroll SoftwarePRSIRTISMEWages

What's New in BrightPay 2013/14?

We released BrightPay 13/14 (version 13.0) on 19th March, 2013. It has since been downloaded nearly 2000 times, and we've received some great feedback. Big thanks to all our customers!

This morning, we released our first maintenance release, version 13.1. This is an important update which contains several minor new features, improvements and bug fixes. When you launch BrightPay, it will check for and offer to download this update automatically. Alternatively, click Check for Updates in the Help menu. To download the upgrade manually, click here.

So, as the title of this blog posts asks ... What's New?

Real Time Information

First and foremost, the most obvious new feature in BrightPay 2013/14 is full, HMRC recognised support for RTI. We believe that we have the best RTI implementation on the market. We've already covered RTI support in previous blog entries (e.g. here, here and here), so won't go into the same detail now. But here are a few tips which you may not have already picked up:

• The number of pending RTI submissions is always visible, showing in an orange box in the main RTI tab.
• Until RTI submissions are sent, they are automatically updated with any changes you make to employer, employee or payment details.
• You can send multiple RTI submissions at once, and continue to use the rest of BrightPay while submissions are sending.
• You can view the Gateway Logs for each RTI submission to see the exact back and forth messaging between BrightPay and HMRC during the submission process.
• If the worst happens during the sending of an RTI submission (e.g. power failure), BrightPay will gracefully cancel the submission and allow you to restart the process when you are back up and running.
• You can edit the default RTI submission timeout in File > Preferences.
• If you have sent an RTI submission to HMRC outside of BrightPay, you can mark it as being already sent in BrightPay (having done so, you can also unmark it as being already sent).

Refined User Interface Design

Since the beginning, of all the work that has gone into creating BrightPay, the most by far has been in the design of the user interface (UI). BrightPay 2013/14 is our best yet. We refined how it looks and feels, making managing your payroll an even better, easier experience. Some of the highlights:

• Less is more. A major part of BrightPay's design over the years has been to show only what's relevant on screen, without the unnecessary visual clutter that plagues so many software applications. In BrightPay 2013/14, we took it even further, optimising the screen real estate and refining the layout of commonly used features.
• Edge-to-edge design with more breathing space. We removed unnecessary lines and borders while slightly increasing some of the space between on-screen controls. Overall, it makes BrightPay cleaner and clearer.
• More 'flat' design. A big trend in UI design is the use of 'flat' design, without visual effects such as gradients, drop shadows and bevels. We have have evolved the design of BrightPay in line with this concept, keeping it modern, fresh and simple.

New Payroll Features

The addition of RTI has over-shadowed some of the other new features and improvements in BrightPay 2013/14. But that doesn't make them any less important. The majority of these are in response to customer feedback and requests, so remember, if there's something that you would like to see in BrightPay, don't hesitate to get in touch.

• Named hourly and daily rates. You can now add a named hourly or daily rate and make it available for use by all employees, or save it just for one employee. There is no limit on the number of rates that can be added, and each can be specifically marked as an overtime rate. There are various ways in which one might use this feature, and so we've put it in various places in BrightPay:
  • Manage global named rates (i.e. those available for use by all employees) in Employer > Hourly/Daily Rates
  • Manage an employee's named rates in Edit Employee > Payment tab.
  • Choose or add a new global, employee, or one-off named rate directly in payroll in the new hourly/daily payment rate selection.
• Edit addition and deduction types. You can now edit BrightPay's built-in list of addition and deduction types, as well as add your own.
• Live calculation as you type. In BrightPay 2013/14, payslip totals now re-calculate as you type. In fact, throughout BrightPay, all text input fields will now update and validate as you type. It's a subtle, but big improvement.
• The payslip totals calculation preview now shows only the relevant totals. For example, it won't show Statutory Payment amounts or Student Loan deductions unless there are any. Similarly, things like the separation of taxable and NIC-able additions and deductions are only shown if applicable.
• A new Cost to Employer field shows the total employer liability for each employee.
• New starter and leaver processes. With RTI, the P45, P45 Part 3 and P46 are no longer relevant. Starter and leaver details are now reported in real time along with other employee and payment information. With this in mind, the starter and leaver processes for BrightPay 2013/14 have been re-thought. For example, before RTI, when an employee was to leave, you would make their final payments, and then afterwards prepare the P45 with the leaver details. Now, you must enter the leaver details before making the final payment, so that the relevant FPS submission is complete and correct. To aid this, BrightPay now lets you confirm starter and leaver details as you finalise payslips. If you enter starter/leaver details in advance, BrightPay will pick them up in the relevant pay period. You can still print a P45 (or export a digital copy).
• An employee's department(s) and payment method/details are now tracked and recorded on a period-by-period basis.
• Two new options have been added to printing, emailing and exporting payslips:
  • Ability to show employee's address
  • Ability to show employee's number of annual leave days remaining
• Several enhancements have been made to the Pay Employees feature:
  • Ability to indicate the available monetary denominations for the cash requirement.
  • Ability to edit employee bank details directly within this feature.
  • Ability to use smart tags in naming the bank payments file name.
  • New Bank of Scotland bank payments file format.
• The annual leave year start date can now be customised for each employee, so that BrightPay will now correctly calculate annual leave days remaining for annual leave schedules which do not align with the tax year (e.g. January to December).
• Support for the Regional Employer National Insurance Contributions Holiday for New Businesses scheme.
• Ability to manually set any Attachment Order as being a priority order, with correct handling.
• 'Holiday Funds' have been renamed to the more appropriate 'Savings Schemes'.

This list covers all the important updates. There are many more minor ones, as well as 'under the hood' performance and reliability improvements.

And we're not done yet! We'll continue to bring you new features during the course of the 2013/14 tax year. Keep an eye on this blog for details.

Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.

Posted byRoss WebsterinNew FeaturesPayroll SoftwareRTISoftware Upgrade

BrightPay 13/14 is Now Available

We are delighted to announce that BrightPay 13/14 has obtained full HMRC recognition for RTI submissions and is now available to download.

Preparing for RTI

From 6th April, all payments to employees must be reported to HMRC using RTI. Although we have worked hard to make your RTI experience with BrightPay as painless as possible, there are a few things you need to do before your first 13/14 payroll run to ensure that it all runs smoothly.

1. Make sure that all employees are included in your payroll before you send your first RTI submission.

   • If you run payroll for both weekly and monthly employees, your first weekly FPS submission will include the employment details for the monthly staff, even if they have not yet been paid.
   • If you have imported from BrightPay 12/13 and an employee joins in 12/13 after the import, make sure you add this employee to your 13/14 payroll.
   • Unlike previous years, you must include all employees, including nannies and domestic staff, casual employees, part-time staff, students working in their vacation and those below the Lower Earnings Limit.
2. Make sure you know your Accounts Office Reference as HMRC requires this to be included in RTI submissions. If you have your yellow Employer Payment Booklet issued by HMRC, the Accounts Office Reference will be on the front cover in the top right hand corner. Here is a useful link on the HMRC website to help you find your Accounts Office Reference.
3. In so far as possible, try to ensure that the information you have entered in BrightPay for each of your employees is accurate. To help with this, we have created a Request Form that you can have your employees complete and return to you.

RTI Examples

It is important that you understand how BrightPay handles Full Payment Submissions (FPS) and in particular your first FPS which acts as an alignment submission. This understanding is best served by a couple of examples.

One of the really nice things about BrightPay is that until an RTI submission is sent, it will be automatically updated with any changes you make to employer, employee or payment details. Let's say you only add your monthly paid employees in BrightPay after already finalising your first week. In this case, the pending first FPS will be automatically updated to include the details for the monthly employees. Similarly, if you discover that the NINO for one of your employees is incorrect, you can simply correct the employee record and the pending FPS will be automatically updated with the correct NINO. You do not have to process the payroll again or prepare the FPS again for these changes to be made.

The same automatic updating applies to other RTI submission types as well (EAS, NVR and EPS). Once they are created and until they are sent, any changes you make to employer or employee information will be automatically applied.

Reporting and Paying HMRC in Real Time: Getting it Right

HMRC have published a useful one page leaflet entitled "Reporting and paying HMRC in real time: getting it right". Download it here.

Any Questions?

We will be delighted to help you with any questions you may have. You can call us on 0845 3004304.

Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.

Posted byPaul ByrneinHMRCPAYEPayroll SoftwarePRSIRTIWages

RTI - a one minute overview

BrightPay obtains HMRC Recognition for 2013/14 - see HMRC listing

The following video shows just how easy RTI is when using BrightPay.

Watch our BrightPay introductory video

Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.

Posted byPaul ByrneinHMRCPayroll SoftwareRTI