Common Scenarios for Payroll over the Christmas Period

Pay Runs

In December, you may want to pay your employees earlier than usual, so they receive their pay before Christmas. When paying employees early, you should report the payment to HMRC with the normal pay date reported on the FPS.

If you are paying weekly pays that for example are due to be paid on Friday 27th December but you want to pay it on Friday 20th, you should report it as paid on the 27th to HMRC.I

f you are paying monthly pays that for example are due to be paid on Friday 3rd Jan but you want to pay it on Tuesday 31st December, you should report it as paid on the 3rd to HMRC.

You need to ensure that the date paid of each pay run is their normal pay date on the FPS due to universal credits. 

Paying a bonus to multiple employees

To pay your employees a bonus in bulk you would need to create a pay category called “bonus”. This article will help you to do this:  Pay Categories – Creating & Managing

If you want to upload bonus payments in bulk via a pay run import, you will need to follow these steps:

Create a pay run and pay the first employee a bonus. In the pay run actions menu you should “export pay run” in the drop down.

Open the spreadsheet and identify the employee with the bonus, this will then let you see the pay category ID you need to use. You should then copy the bonus Pay Category ID and paste it into that column for anyone you want to pay the bonus to.

You should then fill in the units and the rates including:
EmployeeName,
EmployeeId,
LocationId,
PayCategoryId,
Units,
Rate,
Notes,
ExternalId.

​If you then save the spreadsheet you can then import the spreadsheet into the pay run (under ‘Pay Run Actions’ -> ‘Import Pay Run’).

You will need to make sure you amend the spreadsheet for the employee that was originally paid the bonus or this will end up in the pay run twice. Alternatively you can go into the pay run and delete/amend the earnings line.

Paying a bonus to an individual employee

To pay your employee a bonus you would need to create a pay category called “bonus”. This article will help you to do this:  Pay Categories – Creating & Managing

Once you’ve done this you can then go into the employees details within the pay run. Then go to Actions > Add Earnings Line.

This will produce an extra earnings line. You can then select the ‘bonus’ Pay Category from the drop down menu and apply the correct units.  

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