RTI again (sorry!!)

RTI again (sorry!!)

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Payroll for my small (under 10 employee) clients has never been much of a problem. However, now that penalties are here, I want to make sure that I have covered 2 scenarios that occasionally happen:

  • weekly paid workers have the pay date set as Friday of each week. Nearly always I receive the pay details on a Thursday, run the payroll and file the FPS on that Thursday. Sometimes in the past, I haven't received one employee's pay details until the Saturday. I have then filed the FPS on Saturday (late) and received the notice from HMRC saying that, if there had been penalties in operation, I would have received one. How do I get round this problem now as I believe that Moneysoft Payroll do not allow more than one FPS per month.
  • with either weekly or monthly paid staff, what happens if the client pays a particular worker before their normal pay date; i.e. after I have sent the payslips (or before if they knew the net amount to pay) but before I have filed the FPS and before the normal pay date?

Many thanks.

Replies (9)

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Chris M
By mr. mischief
10th Mar 2015 05:52

My answer to this issue

My answer to these dilemmas is quite simply never to put any client in the position of getting stupid fines.  Note that some of what follows is not strictly compliant - you could argue - so there will be folks jumping into this thread to say that.  But it is pragmatic and it works and so far I have not had any of these fining warnings.

1.  Every client is now on either monthly or 4 weekly payroll.  So that reduces the possibilty of fines from 52 times per year to either 12 or 13.

2.  Where staff are being paid more regularly, I am noting this as "approved loan repayments" on the payslips.  As far as I can tell there is no statutory definition of the difference between an approved loan repayment and a salary advance.  Until there is one I am in my view compliant, or at least I will not be saying "hands up guv" if HMRC should ever pick me up on this.

3.  Where a client provides incomplete information by the normal payslip processing date - which is 3 days before the official deadline - I run the payslips anyway and submit the RTI.  Some of the payslips will be estimates, to be adjusted to actuals in the following payslip period.  This procedure is part of my standard terms and conditions in my letter of engagement.  Where this has caused problems for clients, I have found they get their acts together and get me the data on time next period!

I think RTI is a complete farce.  I have 4 clients already on stupid tax codes for 15-16 containing stuff from jobs they had 3 years ago.  The deadline for all April payslips - whether weekly, monthly or 4 weekly - should be 5 May.  Then we could all relax. Until that commonsense measure becomes HMRC official practice I will apply the above 3 step system to ensure no-one on my books gets a fine.

Thanks (4)
Replying to AthollAccounts:
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By NYB
10th Mar 2015 19:27

Fines. There can never be 52 weeks of fines. It is quite clear that any employer cannot receive more than 11 fines per annum. You are allowed one "go". For weekly paid the penalty is determined by HMRC not receiving " the expected number of FPS' s per month. There is no discrimination pensalty wise between weekl & monthly paid.

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Replying to AthollAccounts:
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By matttaxnpayroll
13th Mar 2015 12:55

Not strictly compliant...

mr. mischief wrote:

Note that some of what follows is not strictly compliant - you could argue -

2.  Where staff are being paid more regularly, I am noting this as "approved loan repayments" on the payslips.  As far as I can tell there is no statutory definition of the difference between an approved loan repayment and a salary advance.  Until there is one I am in my view compliant, or at least I will not be saying "hands up guv" if HMRC should ever pick me up on this.

 

As you say, not strictly compliant - if HMRC pick up on it they'll say that you're making regular salary payments at the more frequent interval so you should be calculating PAYE and NIC each payment.  It's not really a loan, it's the payment of wages.  Whether or not that's in the legislation, however, I will leave to other more learned colleagues!

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Euan's picture
By Euan MacLennan
10th Mar 2015 12:27

My answers to your questions

I agree with Mr Mischief that weekly payrolls are the kiss of death, but are you aware that if there are less than 10 employees, you are allowed to file only one FPS on or before the last payday in the month, at least up to April 2016?

Are you aware that HMRC has recently announced a 3 day period of grace for filing RTI returns late, meaning after the payday stated in the return?

Moneysoft will allow you to file more than one FPS a month - you need to go into Tools>Online Filing>IDs & Passwords and tick the "Temporarily allow submission to be re-sent" box.

Unless they do a visit to your (client's) premises, HMRC will never know on what day employees are actually paid (unless you use full-blown BACS to make the payments).  They have to assume that the date stated in the FPS is the payday.

My specific answers to your two scenarios:

I would file the weekly payroll on or before the Friday payday.  If additional pay details are received on Saturday, I would be inclined to take Mr Mischief's line of adjusting the original figures in the following week, but you could re-run the payroll and re-submit the FPS, giving the reason for it being late as a correction to a previous FPS.No worries!

Thanks (1)
Universe
By SteveOH
10th Mar 2015 13:28

Many thanks

Thanks to Mr Mischief for the pragmatic approach and thanks to Euan for the usual detailed and helpful reply.

By the way, I searched for ages on the Moneysoft help pages to see if it was possible to re-send an FPS but couldn't find the answer. So thank you for extra bit of help.

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Replying to DKB-Sheffield:
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By Richard_Carey
11th Mar 2015 14:33

guide

Dear SteveOH,

For future reference, the guide is under the 'RTI' section of our Payroll Manager support page:

http://www.moneysoft.co.uk/support/payroll-software/payroll-manager-videos-and-guides.htm

 

 

 

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Chris M
By mr. mischief
11th Mar 2015 14:28

wording

"So that reduces the possibilty of fines from 52 times per year to either 12 or 13."

Note I did not say that you could incur 52 fines in the year.

You still have 52 chances to submit a late return after the payment date, I believe - unless that is incorrect?

So although I agree the maximum number of fines are 11, the possibility of submitting a late return is greatly reduced if you only do 12 or 13 compared to 52 or 53.

As a sole practitioner I find it quite challenging making sure all my monthly and 4-weekly submissions have gone in correctly.  This month 2 transmissions somehow went astray between the "submission pending" screen and the "submission achieved" screen.  Whilst this is unusual, had I not double checked on that then it could have been £200 in fines.

Taking holidays must be a complete nightmare for people still doing lots of weekly payrolls.

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Replying to goldenfawn:
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By NYB
11th Mar 2015 15:40

This all indicates the impossibility of this RTI where two years down the line experienced people like you and I are still falling down now and then. I seem to have a strict record sheet where I tick off everything and yet occasionally I tick & yet I have not submitted. Presumably I was interrupted at the vital moment. And still we are having difficulty in getting to grips with this whole penalty issue.

I still do about 4 x weekly paid.  Cannot shift them. However with AE its another matter. I think it will be a case of change to four weekly at least, or find another payroll provider.

I am lucky in that I have another person in my buisness who does cover but even so holidays have to be worked around wretched RTI. I tend to go round about the 1st of the month. 

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By NYB
13th Mar 2015 15:10

Unworkable: RTI is unworkable if you folllow every letter of the law. Its a case of doing your best around the system which was never designed for micro business but big business with their own HR department. Its even more unworkable for us poor payroll agents who actually havent a clue half the time when staff are paid.  We just do our best with on or before dates and stick to it each week/month to ensure we don't fall foul of the penalty regime.

 

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