Follow up to the new payroll legislation – RTI – the trial period has commenced now.
We have now run one month for participators under the new scheme for payroll, which has been put in place by HMRC.

We have found the main differences to be;

• The information held for each employee needs to be more complete, accurate and up to date.
• More information about the number hours employees are contracted to work is required.
• The date that employees are paid is now recorded and therefore more significant.
• No changes can be made once the submission has been processed – it is not possible to ‘roll back’ last month with a change to the payslips.

As RTI is such a significant change to the scheme, anyone currently processing their own payroll needs to be aware that the software costs are increasing as the program has to collect so much more information each month. Please be aware that you are likely to be charged more for your payroll updates.

It has been possible to keep accountancy costs down by running quarterly and annual schemes up to now, however RTI is a rigid monthly reporting requirement and we may have to change everyone over to having a monthly payroll. We will need to be in contact with employers more regularly so that the data is as accurate as possible.