How do I create an employee in the payroll?

Summary

This article describes how to create an employee record in the Payroll.

More Information

All employees will need an employee record.

If an employee returns to work for you, either within the current tax year or after having left in a previous tax year, you will need to create a new employee record for them. This ensures their previous pay is correctly recorded and their details can be submitted to HMRC without fear of conflicting information being transmitted.

You need to know the following mandatory information to allow you to create an employee record.

"Surname"
"Forenames"
"Address"
"Date Of Birth"
"Date started"
"Tax Code" - If you are unsure what code to use please contact HMRC for advice.
"NI Number"
"NI Rate" - If you are unsure what rate to use please contact HMRC for advice.
"Pay Frequency"
"Std Rate"

This article explains how to enter P45/P46 details once the employee record has been created.

Entering Employee Details

Go to " Payroll Maintenance Options Add or Edit Employees".

Click [Add].
Enter a suitable "Employee" code, e.g. 'CCS001' (max 6 characters).

Press <Enter>.

General

Complete the [General] fields. Mandatory fields are highlighted in red. You will be unable to save an employee record if any mandatory fields are left blank.

Your RTI submission will include many of these details therefore it is important to complete all required fields. Please note the employee's middle name should be included in the "Forenames" field. Names and Address must not contain commas or any special characters as these will make the RTI Submission Fail.

Emergency contact details can be recorded in the "Contact" field or "Notes" lines.

If you intend to email this employee their Payslips enter their "Email" address and a "Password". You should ask the employee for the password they wish to use. Please note: this cannot be retrieved if forgotten so encourage the employee to use something suitably memorable to them or suggest they use their National Insurance number without spaces.

Certain documents should be emailed using password protection to ensure they remain secure e.g. payslips and P60's. You may need configuration to enable this option so please Contact your Platinum dealer or our support team on 0116 230 1500 or by using our website support contact page for more information.

Employment

You may assign a "Department" to an employee.

Press <Ctrl+F1> and click [List] to select an existing department code.
- To add a new department, click <Add>.
- Enter a department code and "Name" e.g. MK01 - Marketing.
- Click [Done] and [Accept].

Enter a "Job Title".
Complete the "Date Started" - this cannot be more than 30 days in the future.

All new employees will be put 'On Hold' when they are first entered. This allows you to enter their details at any time, but only activate them once you have closed the period prior the first one in which you will be paying them, e.g. if Month 4 is your current period but you will not be paying this employee until Month 5, you should leave this flag set to 'Yes' until you have closed and submitted Month 4.

"Payroll ID" - If the employee has a unique payroll id, by which HMRC already refer to them, please enter their code here. This may contain up to 35 characters and may contain upper and lower case letters, digits 0 to 9 and some standard symbols.
- Press <F11> for the full list of symbols allowed.

Click here for instructions on how to record holiday allowance for a new employee.

Tax, NI and Pension

Complete the employee "Tax Details".

Enter the appropriate "Tax Code" and "Week/Month 1" flag. This can be found on the new starter's P45 or enter the current emergency tax code. If you are unsure, please contact HMRC for advice as this will have a direct effect on the amount of tax deducted per period.

Complete the employee "National Insurance Details".

You must get an "NI Number:" for your employee - HMRC provides a method to find the number if the employee does not know it.
The "NI Rate:" should be set appropriately. You should ensure that you are using the correct rate for each employee according to current legislation.

If the employee is to be a director of the company, please see this article.

Pension

With the arrival of Auto Enrolment schemes, you will find your payroll system will assess and enrol the new employee into your designated scheme. Please see How do I prepare for automatic enrolment?.

Do not amend any of the pension settings. The system will assess them for eligibility for auto enrolment and will enrol them in the scheme, if eligible. The scheme and join date will be populated for you once you close the first period they are enrolled in. Overwriting these settings will affect the systems ability to auto enrol an employee.

Statutory Payments

Select the "SSP qualifying days" for this employee, i.e. usually this will be the days they are contracted to work.

If this employee is not entitled to claim SPP and/or SMP/SAP/SPP, select 'No'.

Basic Pay

Enter the defaults for this employee if they differ from the settings shown.

Where the "Payment Type" is 'S' for Salary, the "Std Hours" are not relevant in the actual wages calculation, and there may be no standard hours for the job! Decide on a figure that you consider appropriate since this is a requirement for RTI so that HMRC can decide if you are paying minimum wage or not.

The rate or rates of pay can be entered here. The system can cope with a wide variety of options including basic salary, basic salary plus overtime paid at an hourly rate, basic plus a fixed amount for Saturday working, hourly basic rate plus overtime at time and a half (or other rate), and so on. Please see this article to explain the rates in your system.
- If the employee is paid on a salaried basis, enter their standard pay per period, e.g £1000 per month.

You will be able to overwrite and amend hours during a payroll run.

Bank

If you wish to store employee bank details, you will first need to create bank records in the Payroll Settings.

To get straight into the Bank Maintenance program, without having to exit this screen, follow the instructions below:

Press <Shift+F10> while the cursor is on the "Sort Code" field.
Enter the "Sort Code", "Name" and "Address" of the Bank.
Press <Esc> and [Accept] the new record.
Press <Esc> again to return to the employee record.
Once you have created the necessary Bank Records, enter the Sort Code for the employee's bank. Pressing <F1>/<Shift+F1> allows you to scroll forwards/backwards through Bank Sort Codes already on file.
Enter the employee's Account details and the Payment Reference number, if applicable. Various Payroll reports can be produced to show these details along with relevant pay information for ease of payment, e.g. a Natwest Autopay Report which will show Nett Pay and the employee Reference number to make entering BACS details quick and easy.

If you do not need or want to record the employee's bank details, you may leave this page blank.

Adjustments

If you have an employee who has a fixed value addition or deduction each period to or from their pay, enter it here.
The amount will appear automatically when you run the payroll. If you have a variable or irregular addition or deduction, don't enter it here, but remember to deal with it when you actually run the payroll for the period.
Check carefully whether the amount is subject to tax and national insurance, and that the adjustment option that you use is set up correctly.

See How do I set up payroll adjustments? and How do I assign attachments to an employee? for more information.

Notes

You may record additional details in this tab, e.g. previous addresses, medical notes etc.

Images

If you have pictures of your employees, you may add them here. This article explains how to add an image.

Once you have entered all relevant details, you should click [Done] and [Accept]. If you are warned an item is missing or incorrect, you should check the record carefully. Make sure you have completed all mandatory fields.

P45/P46 Details

Please follow the instructions in this article to enter the employee's new starter details.

HMRC Starter Checklist

The HMRC also provides a PDF document to help you collect the required information for a new employee. Click here to download this document from the HMRC website.