I have been told by Sage that if you insert a start date of say 25/4 for a starter on a monthly pay date of 31st, then not submitting the starter details on the 30/4 FPS counts as late even where the first pay date is 31/5 (and Sage requires you to select a reason for the late FPS).
Is that technically correct - I thought it was only late where FPS filed after date of payment? I've in mind the penalties that are due to start in October!
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Not late
Whatever Sage may be programmed to think, a submission cannot be late if made on or before the date of the first payment to a new employee.
I think this problem may have been raised on AWeb a week or two ago.
Not late, but...
Hi geroge,
Based on what you have described the FPS is not late, however, are you saying that you are being prompted by the Sage Payroll software for a late reason when you are attempting to send the FPS? If you are then you'll need to double check the dates you are using as something is not quite correct here.
When you start an FPS the system will compare all of the payment dates in the FPS against the current system date on your PC. If the system date is later than one or more of the payment dates then it is classed as late and you will be given the prompt to specify the late reason.
The payment date in the FPS is the same date as the processing date used when you updated the payroll records. The employee's start date is irrelevant in this scenario as that is not part of the 'on or before' rule, it is the date on which the employee is paid that matters.
Regards
Gary
Sage (UK) Ltd
Other Thread
This other thread here says that they were told by Sage that this is a glitch in Sage's system and will be updated
https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/anyanswers/question/sage-payroll-false-l...
Me too
I also experienced the late submission Sage warning when doing advanced pay earlier this tax year. Can I join in with asking Gary at Sage to let us know what is happening with this and whether it will be sorted before October?
Hi geroge and kpdorset,
The issue with the late reason prompt appearing when it shouldn't only relates to certain circumstances when advancing periods of pay. A software update was released last month to resolve this and if you haven't already received an update notice when going into the software then you should use the Help/Check For Updates option which should then start the download.
To confirm, the start date of the employee has no bearing on whether or not an fps would be considered as late by HMRC, it is purely the payment date in the FPS that is evaluated against the date the FPS is received that decides it.
If you select the 'no reason' option when the late reason dialog is displayed then all it means is that the <LateReason> information is not included in the FPS at all. If HMRC receive the FPS after the payment date and there is no reason included, then a late filing notice will be definitely be raised. If a late reason was included then HMRC will assess it before deciding to raise a late filing notice or not.
If you have received the late reason prompt when the FPS was being sent on or before the payment date, and you then chose 'no reason', then this will not cause any issue as HMRC will not consider it to be late and therefore will not process it as such.
I hope this clears things up.
Regards
Gary
Sage (UK) Ltd
Always happy for feedback
Hi geroge,
We are always happy to get feedback and suggestions from our customers so I'll make sure that your suggestion of 'not applicable' is considered.
Regards
Sage (UK) Ltd
@Gary.Ging
Hi Gary
Could you advise what the implications are if you tick "Reasonable excuse" on a late FPS.
Many thanks
Karen
Fingers crossed
I've just run the update to Version 20.02.203 so fingers crossed the bug has been ironed out.
Hi Kazmc,
HMRC expect the 'Reasonable Excuse' reason to be used when the submission is late due to unforeseen circumstances, such as hardware failure, and any submission with that reason will be assessed by them before deciding if any late penalty is due.
There is no hard or fast rule that says if a late reason is included then no penalty will be raised, however, if they are frequently late with this reason then I would expect HMRC would want to understand in more detail why that is the case and the likelihood of a penalty would increase.
Regards
Gary
Sage (UK) Ltd
RTI submission - is it late?
We are a very small organisation and use Sage Instant Payroll.
This month we didn't pay ourselves until 20th Feb for what was effectively our January salaries (previous payment end of Dec). Owning the company ourselves I feel that we should have a right to do this if we wish. Knowing that an RTI submission has to be made on or before actual payment date I tried to re-set payment date in Sage to 20th Feb.Seems logical? However Sage then wouldn't then let me run the payroll.
In the end I had to reset the payment date to 28th January so that I could run the payroll.(I will be running another payroll for what will be our Feb salaries at end Feb/beginning of March.). However when I came to make the RTI submission, nowhere was there anything to say I am NOT submitting late I have only just paid but at a different time in the month. None of the 'reasons' for late submission were appropriate so I just entered 'NONE' .
Is my return effectively late?
I am extremely fed up with the extra amount of time and total inflexibility of this.Plus I will no longer be able to update Sage as they are pulling the plug (TOTALLY) on XP
For another of our companies I use MyPAYE (as SAGE charged such extortionate amounts to add in CIS payments) and I can do flexible returns with that. But we have always used Sage for this company and have all the historical data in there.
Any help much appreciated
Many thanks
Janet