Let’s start with staff and PAYROLL first. One simple discipline will serve you well – unless they arrive on their first day with their P45, always insist that they complete a P46 on their first day and send it off to the tax office after they’ve completed their first week’s work for you. If they subsequently bring in their P45 you can still cross check details and send that off to the tax office as well. If you are doing your own payroll, complete all the entries every week.
Set up and use a deductions working sheet, the P11, for every member of staff, whether or not they pay national insurance or income tax. Use the tax code from their P45, or a very recent payslip from their previous employer. In the absence of either, tax them at basic rate. Give everyone a payslip and insist that they sign for receipt of their wages, especially if you are paying cash. Summarise your outstanding liability for income tax and national insurance each week on your yellow employer’s payment record, the P32. Pay your income tax and national insurance to the Inland Revenue monthly on time via your payslip booklet.
If all that sounds complicated, and it will be even more so if you do not do it, and on time, especially at the financial year-end every April, pay someone to do your payroll for you. It costs only a few pence per employee per week and keeps you on the straight and narrow path. Why not let PAYEpeople run your PAYROLL for you?
