I am meeting a potential new client tomorrow regarding bookkeeping and payroll. As I've not done Payroll in my business yet (have done for other companies), I've not had to set up for RTI before. I have Quickbooks Payroll, the 2013 version, and have just gone into it under my company account and it has a button (?) to 'Get Ready for RTI' but as I have no employees I can't go any further. I take it this will mean once I have entered the payroll clients details and the employees details I can then set up for RTI immediately? What information will I need from the client to make setting up for it run smoothly?
I really want to go to the meeting completely prepared.
Also what happens if I am processing the payroll but sending them the information to pay their clients. Do I submit the FPS to HMRC at the same time as sending the company their payslips/payment report, then they pay their employees? Or do I send them the information and they submit the FPS to HMRC?
I usually send a copy of the payroll summary report (I think its an update records check) by email to the client to check before printing payslips and when I have confirmation that all is ok I submit the FPS.
If the client does not reply in time, I send them another email to say that the FPS has been submitted on the assumption that all figures given were correct then I submit the FPS.
I would ask them for their company details, PAYE and accounts office reference if they have one, details of any previous accountant that ran their payroll, records for all staff with up to date personal information such as national insurance, date of birth, address etc, hours and hourly rate of all staff, day that they actually pay their staff as this will be their processing date and ask them what information they require you to send them.
Some of our clients don't require payslips, some don't contact us at all and we just process the figures the same as the previous week/month until we are told otherwise. Some send us timesheets and require reports, wageslips etc.
Thanks for the info. Meeting went well. He'd never heard of RTI. If he's not had a letter from HMRC does that mean nothing has to be submitted yet? I think I'm going to sign up to 12Pay to do the payroll as he only has two employees.
Thanks for the info. Meeting went well. He'd never heard of RTI. If he's not had a letter from HMRC does that mean nothing has to be submitted yet? I think I'm going to sign up to 12Pay to do the payroll as he only has two employees.
If he has a PAYE scheme then he must file RTI. Probably the letters from HMRC have been ignored.
The Get Ready for RTI button in QB just brings up a report for all employees and highlights in red any fields that are missing so that you can get the info off the employees. After you've done all that it tells you that you're ready and you can then go to the next bit down on the menu which says Turn RTI on.
