I see for JSS the calculations for pay for employees with no set hours is to be similar for flexi furlough, in that it's to be the higher of the average of hours worked for the previous tax year, or hours worked for the same period last year (or average to date for employees more recently employed). For furlough calculations we just based it on the average for the previous year as we would not have had time to go over every employee's record to check the same period the previous year. However, with this new JSS I suppose we should make more of an effort. Have any of you found a way to check hours worked for the same period the previous year relatively quickly to determine which calculation was the higher? I've at least 18 employers with 50 employees each who all work irregular hours and are all paid on a weekly basis. I don't know how on earth I would find the time to check records of 900 employees every week. Did any of you find an easy way to do it? Any suggestions welcome. Thanks
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Pass the issue back to the employer
Perhaps the employer would then appreciate work already done on prior scheme
Ours were all manually input onto spreadsheets so that we had the monthly hours and yearly hours to refer back to, but all are monthly paid and in much lower numbers than yourself. Even with our fewer number of employees it has been very very time consuming, as you've said there was a mix of 'same period last year' and 'tax year average used' However most of our variable hours employees have sadly (for them) been laid off.
I assume you agreed this methodology with the employers so will need to come up with a pragmatic solution again. I would personally not cut corners though. You either need the employer to gather all the figures for the comparison or you need to advise how much you would charge.
Sorry no easy answer.
I did the same (used average and agreed with employers) I don’t think it can be done that way this time though, the 20% hours worked is a moving target when compared to the average/same period and finally period to 23/9/20. Hours worked will need to be compared to all three to ensure eligibility.
I, too, have found this onerous even for 3 clients (9,9 &25). I asked a friend who does larger payrolls as to how do large firms cope. She muttered about various high level computer packages.. There must be a way but I feel that you will need cooperation from your client. They must have the current hours to give to you & they can back track a year & then produce a spreadsheet which doesn't need much on it other than the two lots of hours. Its hours based. . It's a rolling programme unfortunately . I complained myself being a ZERO hours employee with a very large well known employer. They put mine right. But not my colleages (100 of them). I checked with a few of them. And we were talking about £500 a month in some cases.
I expect you are like me - you are capable of doing o it but don't want to, as it gives you another huge job. I "pull back" and think I'm employed to process the payroll - the employer can get me the details.
Are you able to download last year's pay by employee and then by pay period then paste it into an Excel workbook?
Then you just need to put =Average(x..y) under the appropriate colum (ie. hours worked or gross pay)
Still fairly time consuming but a bit of a shortcut. Very easy with Moneysoft but I would suspect that you are using Sage...
I empathise. Over the months I looked forward to 30th June - original Furlough end. Then became desperate for 31st October. Now it’s all extended once more. Dare I hope for 30th April. Thank God I’m on the south coast so am only a little bit affected at the moment. But I’m under no illusion that the situation won’t worsen here.
I have quite a lot of weekly payrolls and find the main bind is the need to compare calendar days not payroll weeks - (taking part of two weeks)- why they chose to make it such a time consuming process I will never know.
I can’t get back to the 945 either, I get 947.21 ( 2250x43.55/30x29)
I think I’m correct about splitting the weeks, but I doubt everything that comes out of my mouth at the moment.
Our payroll software runs detailed reports which I have included as a new tab in our calculation spreadsheets and then done formulae to pull the information through. You just update the month each time. Will do something similar for JSS. When they say period to 23 September I am not sure yet whether they mean that exact date, which will be a pain, or last pay period prior to that date.
PS this took a while to set up but it never occurred to me not to do it and just use an average. I think that if HMRC find employees have been underpaid as a result of not doing the calculation in line with the Direction, they can ask for the grant back.