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Creating and Submitting the EPS

Sarah Westie
Updated
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This guide will show you how to create and submit the Employer Payment Summary (EPS).

 

Contents

 

Overview 

An Employer Payment Summary (EPS) must be submitted if you have paid some statutory payments and want to recover them OR if you do not pay any employees in a tax month and therefore have no FPS to send to HMRC.

The EPS must be sent by the 19th of the following tax month in order to ensure that HMRC do not issue penalties because they were expecting an FPS.

Note:  It is possible to report ‘no payments to employees’ for the current tax month and you can report ‘no payments to employees’ for one or more future whole tax months, up to a maximum of 6 months, but the start date must be the first day of the next tax month.

 

Creating and submitting the EPS 

  • Go to RTI Submissions via either route below:
    • Calculations > RTI Processing
    • Home/Utilities > Other Utilities > RTI
  • Click Add New
  • From the menu presented select ‘New EPS' (Employment Payment Summary)
  • Enter any required/missing data
  • Most of the fields will be pre- populated
  • Tick all additional companies in the PAYE scheme on the Additional Companies check list
  • If you are acting as a payroll agent for the client then the agent details must be populated
  • Having completed the details as required click Next
  • There is nothing to be completed on the second page
  • Click Finish to create the submission file
Note:  For the final EPS submission for the tax year or if the scheme is closed click the relevant check box. 
  • The Auto-Populate button will automatically populate YTD (year to date) recovery/compensation amounts for checking and confirmation
  • The previously submitted YTD amounts will also be visible

Notes:  Since April 2020 employers must make extra checks to work out whether they are eligible to claim Employment Allowance (EA). A new claim for EA needs to be submitted once each tax year, as claims will not automatically renew each tax year. Refer to the government website for more details.

Employers’ (secondary) Class 1 National Insurance Contributions threshold check. EA can only be claimed if total qualifying employers’ (secondary) Class 1 NICs liability in the previous tax year was less than £100,000. 

  • If you have multiple PAYE schemes or are part of a connected group of companies, the Employers’ (secondary) Class 1 NICs liabilities of all companies, and/or PAYE schemes, needs to be added together to assess eligibility for EA
  • The allowance can only be claimed once across all your PAYE schemes and connected companies. You’ll need to decide which one PAYE scheme to set the claim against
  • By targeting the allowance in this way, it means that EA will be operated as de
    minimis State aid

Notes:  De minimis State aid rules will apply if businesses engage in economic activity, this means providing goods or services to the market, this will apply to most businesses. 

Extra checks will be required, if businesses have received de minimis State aid from other sources Employers must ensure that the relevant threshold for their business sector is not exceeded by receiving EA. 

Claiming Employment Allowance Employment Allowance will continue to be claimed through your EPS; by making the claim you are confirming you’ve assessed your eligibility for EA and won’t exceed the de minimis State aid threshold. 

If your business is undertaking economic activity, you’ll need to provide your business sector(s) on the EPS – Agriculture, Fisheries & Aquaculture, Road Freight Transport or Industrial for everyone else. 

If your business is not undertaking economic activity – you’ll need to advise that State aid rules do not apply

 

Employment Allowance (EA) parameters

  • Having established your company eligibility for an EA claim you need to set the payroll parameters switch 3-23 accordingly
  • Every tax year this switch will be reset to 0 automatedly as part of the year end function to reset accumulators and so you will need to set manually this switch according to your company circumstances for the coming tax year 

 

Parameter Switches 3-23

Click on each heading to learn more:

0 - no employment allowance claimed for the company

  • P32 – no EA shown/calculated
  • RTI PAYE – no EA shown/calculated

  • EPS – not possible to tick EA box, possible to force submit No

     

1 - employment allowance claimed for the company as usual

  • P32 – EA shown/calculated as usually (based on period ER NI)
  • RTI PAYE – EA shown/calculated as usually (based on YTD ER NI)
  • EPS – possible to tick EA box, possible to force re-submission Yes

2 - employment allowance claimed for the company that was moved to Accord Payroll mid tax year (after April)

  • P32 - no EA shown/calculated
  • RTI PAYE – EA shown/calculated as usually (based on YTD ER NI)
  • EPS – possible to tick EA box, possible to force submit Yes
     

3 - claimed employment allowance for the company will be calculated manually

  • P32 – no EA shown/calculated
  • RTI PAYE – no EA shown/calculated
  • EPS – possible to tick EA box, possible to force re-submission Yes

 

Notes:  Please note the new fields on the EPS screen in the Employment Allowance and De Minimis Aid box that need to be completed if you are eligible to claim EA.

You can also submit/change bank account details for any HMRC repayments/refunds to be paid to.

  • Having entered the required data click Finish 

 

  • Click Start on the Creating EPS XML file window
  • Confirmation of the file creation will then be displayed
  • Close the window and a new line will be shown in the HMRC RTI Submissions table with a newly created EPS submission 

 

  • Click Edit if the line is to be changed prior to submission
  • To submit the EPS submission click on the appropriate line in the table and then click
    Submit
  • The Injector screen will be displayed where the User ID and Password need to be
    entered unless the fields are already populated
  • Click Submit
  • If Status and Submit Date fields are not populated and you are sure the file has been
    submitted to HMRC successfully, then use the Update/Mark as Submitted button

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