I'm just staging with my first client, and although we've postponed, I've had to set up the pay periods and postponement deferment dates etc. I'm hoping I've done it right - can anyone confirm this........
Their staging date was 1st Feb. They pay their staff monthly on 20th of each month, for the period 20th of one month to 19th of next.
Having read TPR info 20 times, I've sussed that they are on a monthly pay period, and as I'm using Moneysoft, the way I've set it up in NEST is to have a 'TAX MONTHLY' period - i.e. 6th of one month to 5th of next in line with the HMRC tax monthly period. (I understand that the software has to be set this way, from having spoken to Moneysoft - and TPR are aware of this and agree)
When it came to stating a deferment date for the end of postponement, I've put 6th April, because this is the first day of the payroll period in the same month as the pay date that falls in the maximum 3 months postponement period (1st May) does this make sense!!!
So - this means that when I 'assess' the staff for their April 20th payment, everything will fall into place, however, what is totally confusing me is this........
How am I supposed to 'assess' the staff on this first day of the pay period, when I wont know what they're likely to earn until the client tells me the hours aroundabout 17th of the month, so I can run the payroll for payment on 20th month??
Have I done it right........or wrong????
Is it OK to assess the staff on 17th instead of 6th of the month???
What are TPR on about when they say that 'do it this way to give yourself maximum time to report the info to your pension provider'??
Any feedback would be most gratefully received
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Carol Saunders Lady of Ledger Book Keeping Telford, Shropshire
I've just re-read that a few times and I think I would have set the staging date to the first day of the new pay period that is to be paid so you have a full month - eg staging date of 20th month which would fall into the next tax month. We staged on 1st January but our payroll is run 4 weekly and that's how I though it would be easiest - a full month of earnings would be easier to assess if you align them. I hope that makes a bit of sense!
It does, and this is what I thought at first - but what payroll software do you use?
I use Moneysoft Payroll Manager, and after my phone call to them, I understood that if you use SAGE or Moneysoft (or any other software that is rigid in that it uses the tax month as a pay period) that you have to go with the tax month set up in NEST as well, otherwise the uploaded template from Moneysoft will not match the set up in NEST and always be mis-aligned.
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Carol Saunders Lady of Ledger Book Keeping Telford, Shropshire
I'm using Brightpay, never tried Moneysoft so I'm not sure on the differences but I wouldn't have thought it would have mattered as long as the pay period fell within correct the tax month. I amended our postponement date to ensure we had a full pay period to assess, it meant we didn't use the full postponement period but our payroll is aligned with pension and makes life easier. Have to admit, working out the dates was the trickiest part but I called NEST just to confirm what I had set up was correct. This is the second company I have set up with this method, the first had their staging date last October and so far we have had no issues with the dates. A couple of issues with me opting employees back in once they had opted out due to uploading the wrong files, but no problems regarding the dates! You could always give NEST a quick call, I've had to phone a few times and always found them quick to answer and very helpful.
-- Edited by pinkdon on Friday 5th of February 2016 11:32:06 AM
