How do I add sick pay?

Summary

The Payroll System links periods of illness together if they are within a 28 week period. Therefore the employee will only be subject to three Waiting Days over their first period of illness. Any subsequent illnesses, within a 28 week period, will enable the employee to be paid SSP for all qualifying days they are off sick.

More Information

Go to " Payroll Run Payroll Period"

• Enter <Y> against the frequency the employee falls into and click [OK].
• Using the arrow keys, move down the list of employees until the appropriate employee is highlighted and press <Shift+F8> to go to the SSP entry screen which should have the prompts below:

"Posting Date"

The Posting Date will automatically pick up the current period end date. The date indicates which period this sick pay entry is to be paid in i.e. you may enter SSP details for a future period, by setting the Posting Date to a date within the future period. The employee will not be paid any SSP until that period. You cannot enter a date which precedes the current Period Start Date.

"PIW Start - Period of Incapacity for Work"

Enter the start date of the period of illness.

• An employee must have been ill for four consecutive days to constitute a Period of Incapacity for Work. This can include weekends. Do not enter a SSP record if the employee has been ill for less than four consecutive days.

"End"

Enter the end date of the period of illness. This must be no later than the periond end for which you are paying. If they are still off sick in the next payroll run, enter an additional record for that period.

"Comment"

Enter a comment if you wish e.g. Flu, Virus or Injury. This is just for your records and will not appear on a payslip.

"Date Notified"

Enter the date you were notified of the illness.

"Certificate Type"

Has this illness been Self-certificated <S> or have you received a Doctor's note <D>? A Self Certificate will suffice for the first week of illness but you must receive a doctor's note after this period to continue paying SSP.

"Unpaid Days"

This field should only be used if you have decided not to pay the employee for some or all of the Qualifying Days (working days) they are entitled to. It should not be confused with Waiting Days. Enter the number of Qualifying Days you have decided not to pay for e.g. you may believe they skived some days so you are not paying them any SSP for those days.

"Reason"

If you decide not to pay the employee for some or all of the Qualifying Days, you must enter the reason (max. 30 characters).

"Qualifying Days"

Qualifying days are the number of working days which qualify for SSP. The default Qualifying Days are set up within the Payroll Settings e.g. Monday to Friday may be your company working days therefore these will be your qualifying days. Qualifying Days may differ between employees so they can be set up for each employee. The number of qualifying days is entered automatically by the system based on the employee's working days. Edit the number of qualifying days if necessary.

"Waiting Days"

The number of Waiting Days (first 3 days off sick) appears automatically. Edit this if necessary e.g. you are using Platinum Payroll for the first time so the system doesn't know the employee has already been subject to waiting days within the last 28 weeks. If this is a linked period of illness, the employee may not be subject to any Waiting Days.

"Average Weekly Wage"

The Payroll system will calculate the employee's average wage, which will then be displayed. This is provided the system has 8 weeks of data to be able to calculate an average from. If the system does not have enough data to calculate an average wage you will have to work out their average and enter the value in this field. The average wage is required for testing if the employee qualifies for SSP payments. If the average wage is below the Lower Earnings Limit then the employee will not receive any SSP.

"Previous Periods of Illness"

Any periods of illness, within 28 weeks, are linked together and the number of days which qualified for Sick Pay, the number of Waiting Days and the number of Unpaid days are displayed at the top left hand corner of the screen, in the "Prev. PIW" field.

 Employee : 000001 Joe Bloggs
  Payment : Weekly, Hourly        Period :  1 99/99/9999 - 99/99/9999

Prev. PIW : 00Q/0W/0U

The snapshot above shows the top of the SSP Entry screen. The field "Prev. PIW" cannot be edited, it is for information only.

• '00Q' - This field displays the total number of Qualifying Days from previous periods of illness.
• '0W' - This field displays the total number of Waiting Days from previous periods of illness.
• '0U' - This field displays the total number of Unpaid Qualifying Days from previous periods of illness.

See also

• How do I run a payroll period?
• How do I Assign Payroll Attachments to an Employee?
• How do I Set up Payroll Attachments?
• How do I Enter a Student Loan?
• How do I Set up a Council Tax Attachment?
• How do I Set up a Child Support Attachment?

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Keywords AND Misspellings

sick, pay, ssp, s.s.p. statutory, sick pay