The final day of the tax year, 5 April 2020 is almost here and that means it’s the end of the payroll year too. Despite the chaos caused by the Coronavirus Pandemic it is still important for businesses running payrolls to make sure they are still fully compliant with the requirements. In this article we summarise the key steps that need to be taken
- Prepare your P60s. All your employees who are working with you on the final day of the tax year, on 5 April, need to receive a P60 from you by 31 May. The P60 is an important document that summarises employee deductions for the year.
- Check when your payroll ends – 2020 is a Leap Year. Does your payroll end on week 52 or do you have a week 53 (if the pay date falls on 4 or 5 April due to the leap year for 2020) to take into consideration? If some (or all) of your employees are paid on a weekly, fortnightly or four weekly basis, if your normal pay date doesn’t fall on 5 April, you don’t have a week 53.
However, if those weekly, fortnightly or four weekly payments mean your normal pay date does fall on 4 or 5 April, then you do have a week 53.
In this case, all you need to do is complete your payroll for 5 April in the usual way before processing your year end.
3. Check for those who have left the company.
Have any of your employees left your business? If so, you need to process them as leavers. It’s important that you do this before submitting your Full Payment Submission (FPS) and Employer Payment Summary (EPS).
4. Send your final Full Payment Submission of the year
Once you have worked out whether you have a week 53, processed the final payroll of the tax year and have processed those who have left the company, you can now send your final FPS and, if required, the EPS.
As part of the preparation, you would process your final pay period and submit your last FPS, but just for your final pay period. When you process your year end, you’ll do an internet submission. The deadline for this is 19 April.
There’s no difference to the FPS and EPS in the final pay period. Submit them as normal, you can then proceed with the payroll year end process.
5. Process your year end
Using your payroll software, make sure you check your processing date – this needs to be set for 5 April. Now you can process your year end and make your final submission for the 2019/20 tax year.
Once this step is complete, you can produce your P60s, with the deadline for employees to receive them being 31 May 2020
When these 5 steps are complete the pay roll year-end is also complete. Which means, of course that the 2020-21 payroll year will be underway as of 6 April 2020.
Talk to us about Outsourcing your Payroll
If you are finding your payroll too time consuming, especially the year end process, and are considering outsourcing it, why not contact us? We can take your entire payroll off your hands, and guarantee to deliver a quick, accurate and efficient service.
