Payroll (Cloud / Shape)

Step-by-step guide

Paying employees for the first time can be daunting. It is important to get this right and a little time spent now can save a lot of problems later on.

This guide covers the main setup actions you will need to complete before you pay anyone, and then gives you an overview of the tasks you will complete each time you pay your employees.

Make sure you have double checked all the details before submitting your information to HMRC.

Before you start
You will need to enter some details about your company and employees before you can start paying people.

Your company homepage is found under Home on the side menu and will link to important areas. You can also access other areas from the side menu.

Complete Company Setup
This can be found on your homepage when you sign in or found in the side menu. Follow the guidance here: Company Details.

Configure Pensions
This can be found on your homepage or under Company Setup. If you have a pension, you need to set this up next. Guidance can be found here: Set up your Pension Scheme. This enables you to make sure the scheme is in place before you start putting in payments for your employees and means you can assign them to the correct pension scheme if you have more than one.

Register Employees
You are now ready to set up your employees. Further guidance can be found here: Set up a New Employee. Employees are always found on your dashboard or in the side menu. Under individual employees, you will be able to view and edit their details, review their payslips, pensions schemes they have been enrolled in, P11 report, benefits, P45s and at year end their P60s.

Check HMRC Tax Notices (paid subscription accounts only)
Before you complete each pay run, you should check that no new tax notices have been issued from HMRC for your employees. Please see Manage PAYE notices in Our Payroll for more information. Once this has been set up, under the HMRC tab, you will find notices and you can search for any new tax code or student loan notices. You can then select to apply them to your employee.

Your first Pay Run

Enter Payments
Once you have completed the above, you are now ready to enter the payment details for your employees. Follow the guidance here: How to pay an employee.

Every time you pay your employee that information should be put into a pay run. If you pay weekly, you will need to complete a pay run every week and send the information to HMRC through the RTI submission.

Complete Pay Run
When you are confident you have entered the correct payments, select Complete pay run. You then send payslips, your RTI submission and pay your employees, HMRC and pension provider.

Review and Submit Full Payment Summary (FPS)
You must submit the details of all payments to your employers on or before the day you pay them. You can find out more information on the different RTI submissions here: RTI Submissions. You will find your FPS submission for that pay run under the RTI tab and also on the side menu under HMRC. There is also a link on your homepage that shows you when you still have an RTI to file.

Send Payslips to Your Employees
You have a legal obligation to provide each of your employees with a payslip every time you pay them, on or before pay day. You can download PDF copies from the Payslips tab to print and send to your employees. If you have a paid subscription you can email these directly from the system or if you are using the Employee Portal, employees can log in and view their payslips.

Pay Your Employee, HMRC and Pension Provider
You need to pay your employees, HMRC and pension provider (if applicable) from your bank account. Our software does not connect to your bank, you will need to make these payments manually.

Employee payments
Once you have completed your pay run, pay your employees the amounts shown in the 'Pay Due' column on the payslips tab. You may want to download the payment file from the reports menu if your bank accepts this.

HMRC payments
You need to pay any tax, NI and student loan deductions you have made from your employees to HMRC. Details of what is due each month can be found in the P32 reports under HMRC in the side menu. Money must reach HMRC by the 22nd of the month following the tax month. You may be able to pay quarterly if you are a small employee. Please review your HMRC PAYE account as you may have outstanding payments or deductions to take into consideration. See HMRC's documentation for full and complete guidance. Paying HMRC.

Pension Contributions
How you pay your pension provider will depend on which provider you use. All providers will require you to record the payments and contributions for each of your employees each time you pay them. All the values you need can be found in the Pension Report on each pay run.