Payroll errors are costly: late RTI submissions, missed pension duties and unhappy staff. Here is what UK employers must handle, and what an outsourced payroll provider takes off your hands.
PAYE and Real Time Information
- Register as an employer with HMRC before the first payday.
- Send a Full Payment Submission (FPS) on or before each payday, showing pay and deductions.
- Send an Employer Payment Summary (EPS) to claim allowances or report no payments.
- Pay HMRC by the 22nd of the following month (electronic payments).
Auto-enrolment pensions
Employers must enrol eligible staff, those aged 22 to State Pension age earning over £10,000 a year, into a workplace pension. Minimum total contributions are 8% of qualifying earnings, with at least 3% from the employer. You must also re-enrol every three years and file a declaration of compliance with The Pensions Regulator.
Statutory payments
Payroll must calculate Statutory Sick Pay, maternity, paternity and shared parental pay, and recover what you can from HMRC.
Year-end
- Give each employee a P60 by 31 May.
- Report benefits in kind on P11D by 6 July, or payroll them.
- Issue a P45 to leavers.
What outsourcing covers
An outsourced team runs each pay run in your software, submits RTI, manages pension files, and handles starters, leavers and year-end forms, with payslips sent to staff. You approve the pay run; they do the rest.
See our payroll processing for UK businesses, or check take-home pay with our UK income tax calculator.
