Preparing for payroll year-end

To ensure a smooth submission of the payroll year end to HMRC, it is important to be organized and prepared. To assist with this process, we have created a checklist which can be referred to as needed.

 The first step is to confirm the end date of your payroll, as it may need to be extended to week 53.

What exactly is week 53?

Typically, week 53 occurs when the usual payment date for employees who are paid weekly, fortnightly, or every four weeks falls on April 5th. This is because the number of days in the tax year is not evenly divided into the number of tax weeks. However, in the tax year 2023/2024, February will have an additional day due to it being a leap year. This extra day will result in two days being included in week 53 for that year: Thursday, April 4th, 2024, and Friday, April 5th, 2024. You can view this information on the 2023/2024 tax calendar.

*Please note, if you process a monthly payroll, there will not be a week 53 as both April 4th and 5th fall within tax month 12.

To determine if you have a week 53, check the following criteria for your normal pay date being a Thursday or Friday.

• For weekly paid employees, the last processing date was March 28th or 29th, 2024.
• for fortnightly paid employees, the last processing date was March 21st or 22nd, 2024.
• for four weekly paid employees, the last processing date was March 7th or 8th, 2024.

 If any of these apply, you will need to process a week 53 for this payroll year end. This can be done by setting the correct process date and following the same procedure as any other pay period.

It is important to note that you should not change the process date to avoid a week 53.  

While payroll software should automatically account for these dates and make necessary adjustments, it is always recommended to double check for accuracy.

Starters & Leavers

To avoid errors, it is crucial to update information for employees who have left or joined the company in the past 12 months. This should be done before submitting the Full Payment Submission (FPS) or Employer Payment Summary (EPS) to HMRC. While adjustments can be made after the deadline, it can complicate the payroll workload and must be done before April 19th.

The next step is to process the year-end payroll by setting the processing date to April 5th.

After this, P60s must be provided to employees by May 31st, with P11Ds due by July 6th. P60s and P11Ds are important documents that summarize an employee’s pay and deductions for the year and report any expenses or benefits provided to them.

It is recommended to refer to HMRC’s P9X document before starting the new tax year to ensure all tax codes are correct. Other important information to check includes student loan and postgraduate loan thresholds, CA2700 certificate renewals.

Key dates

• April 5th tax year end
• April 6th the new tax year starts.
• April 19th deadline for any alterations.
• April 22nd deadline for month 12 of PAYE
• May 31st latest date for P60s
• July 6th final report deadline for expenses and benefits
• July 22nd Class 1A National Insurance payment deadline

By using a payroll checklist and reliable software, the payroll year end process can be efficiently managed to ensure timely and accurate submissions, as well as correct payment and tax codes for employees.