New P45

From 6 April 2009 you must use the new versions of form P45 which were introduced by HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) last year.. You should also destroy any stocks of the old A5 P45s and forms P160 still on hand at that date.

The pre-printed A4 versions of the P45 are available from HMRC’s Employer Orderline – 0845 764 6646. Order now so that you are ready to give the new form P45 to employees who leave after 5 April. Do not leave it until the last minute.

The new versions of the form include the date of birth and gender fields. This information will help HMRC to match an employee’s information to their records when the forms are processed and reduce the number of queries to employers. These fields must be completed from 6 April 2009.

If you use HMRC’s free Online Return and Forms – PAYE product you can print parts 1A, 2 and 3 of form P45 onto A4 plain paper, when you have submitted the P45 part 1 (employee leaving details) to HMRC online. This facility is also available in some payroll software packages. The form should be printed onto white A4 paper, using black ink.

Employees may not recognise the new forms. You can reassure them that the form P45 has only changed in appearance and, apart from the new fields mentioned above, the information requested and the procedures around it remain unchanged.

A P45 is the form you complete when an employee stops working for you. It is a record of the pay and the tax that has been deducted so far in the tax year. A P45 has four parts - part 1, part 1A, part 2 and part 3. You send part 1 to HMRC and usually give the employee the other three.

Notes on data migration 08/09 to 09/10:

Before using the migration utility in Qtac Payroll 09/10, be sure that the 08/09 application has been updated to the latest version (9.20.0) from the 09 95 CD (containing the 09/10 tax year) and that all staff members have been paid and closed to the end of the year.

When you are ready to run the migration utility make sure Qtac Payroll 08/09 is completely closed. You may need to use Task Manager to confirm this.

Staff who leave the company during the 08/09 tax year will not be migrated as they do not effect the P35 for 09/10.

Blank or Service Not Available errors on electronic submission:

If you receive a blank or “service not available” error message whilst attempting to submit your P35 online you should check your internet connection has full connectivity (contact your IT Department if you are unsure) and then try again.

Checking your user credentials:

There are six main user credentials that the government gateway client checks before accepting an online submission – you will need to check these for typing mistakes and if necessary, validity.

1. In Company > Company Maintenance > Tax, NI & Pension check the Tax District Number for that company has been entered correctly.
2. In the same location, check that the ‘Ref’ is the correct PAYE tax reference for that particular company.
3. In File By Internet > Setup check that the User ID under ‘ID Authentication’ is the same as you would use to log in to the gateway client at: www.gateway.gov.uk
4. Likewise, check the password at the same site.
5. Check the email address on this screen is the same as you registered with the HMRC.
6. Finally, on the same Setup screen, check your agent details are entered correctly – particularly your Agent ID (if applicable).

If you have confirmed that all the above is correct, you will need to log in to the government gateway (using the link above) to make sure that the information you have input into the Qtac software matches what the HMRC is expecting (e.g. does the PAYE reference you entered into Qtac match what the HMRC has on its site?). If the user credentials don’t match then you will need to correct the information in Qtac or contact the HMRC. If there is no information for the company you are trying to submit on the gateway website then you are not registered to submit for this company – again you will need to contact the HMRC directly.

HMRC PAYE Helpline: 0845 60 55 999

Error 1046 on submitting P35’s and other reports online:

Many of our customers find it more convenient to submit their end of year information online, you also gain a tax incentive for the following year. However, during the submission process you may encounter the following message:

“Error 1046 supplied user credentials failed validation”

This message, although displayed in our Qtac Payroll application, is in fact generated by the government gateway when one or more pieces of information have been incorrectly entered into the software.

Checking your end of year figures before submission:

You might want to check your end of year figures before submitting them online to prevent future problems. If you select Reports > HMRC Remittance Advice > Print then from the print menu specify the start and end pay periods as ‘1’, then click ‘Print Preview’, you will see you’re the amount you need to pay the HMRC for month 1. On closing this report you may be presented with a message asking you to update the figures in the EOY Totals table – to which you reply ‘Yes to All’. Do this again for period 2, 3, etc, until all months have been checked.

If you now select Company > EOY Totals you can see a monthly analysis of tax paid to the Revenue, how much needs to be paid total, etc. You can also manually type in any incentives gained from submitting online in the previous year (if applicable) or any funding received. The Qtac Full and Complete submission utility uses the EOY Totals table for automatically filling its P35 information.

All the information on the EOY Totals table can be overtyped if necessary EXCEPT FOR THE CALCULATED IR RETURNS!

Important Notice!

The 08/09 financial year has 53 weeks – be sure all your staff have been paid to the correct period and closed accordingly.

FAILING TO PAY AND CLOSE YOUR STAFF CORRECTLY WILL LEAD TO INCORRECT P35 FIGURES AND CAUSE PROBLEMS WHEN MIGRATING STAFF INFORMATION TO THE 09/10 VERSION OF QTAC PAYROLL!