Sage Payroll - Is the following RTI submission late?

Sage Payroll - Is the following RTI submission...

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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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Euan's picture
By Euan MacLennan
04th Jun 2014 18:21

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.

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By gary.ging
05th Jun 2014 08:57

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

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Replying to Asia888Cloud:
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By geroge
05th Jun 2014 10:08

Thanks Gary,

I received the 'late FPS - select reason' message when filing an FPS on 27/5 for a payroll processing date of 28/5 (for all employees) - so not late for 'on or before payment'. Sage support have told me on two occasions that it is something to do with start dates (e.g. 25/4) and a skipped first payroll (28/4).

I should clarify that the starter information was not sent with the 28/4 payroll and is sent when first payment made on 28/5. Is that causing the issue because HMRC expected the starter details on 28/4?

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By rjoconnor81
05th Jun 2014 09:21

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...

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By geroge
05th Jun 2014 12:53

Update

Hi Garry,

I have filed another FPS today (for a 2 weekly payroll) and no late reason message arose thankfully. This despite some starters having a start date before the previous pay date 2 weeks ago. So that on its own cannot be the reason for the previous message I did receive.

And I believe it does not matter even if the start date is before 5/4/14 (this is a casual payroll, so there can be a gap between start date and first pay date).

I've looked at the e-submissions log for the 'late' submission, but in the 'late reason' column there is nothing - I was told by support to use 'no reason' as the reason, is that why?

What does 'no reason' mean going forward - that we are admitting it is late due to a failure on our part?

Is there some way to identify which employee the message related to?

Will be grateful for your help in resolving before the penalties kick in.

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By kpdorset
05th Jun 2014 13:11

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?

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Replying to Duggimon:
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By geroge
05th Jun 2014 13:39

Hi kpdorset, I believe using the advance pay facility is specifically known to cause this issue (and so is a bug they will presumably fix); however, I have experienced it without using advance pay.

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By gary.ging
05th Jun 2014 16:00

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

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By geroge
05th Jun 2014 17:11

Thanks Gary,

I suppose I will wait and see if I receive the late FPS message again and then call Sage support to get to the bottom of it.

Just a suggestion, but perhaps it may be better if 'no reason' is changed to 'not applicable' or similar, if that is what it means?

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By gary.ging
06th Jun 2014 08:54

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

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By Kazmc
06th Jun 2014 11:38

@Gary.Ging

Hi Gary

Could you advise what the implications are if you tick "Reasonable excuse" on a late FPS.

Many thanks

Karen

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By kpdorset
06th Jun 2014 15:45

Fingers crossed

I've just run the update to Version 20.02.203 so fingers crossed the bug has been ironed out.

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By gary.ging
09th Jun 2014 09:03

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

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By Janet jbgb
22nd Feb 2015 16:11

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

 

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