In this article
It is especially common around Christmas for companies to pay their staff earlier than usual, so we've developed this feature to automate this functionality for our users.
This feature will allow you to pay your employees on a different payday within the pay period.
What’s included
- You will have an option within your current draft payroll to override the date you pay your staff for monthly, fortnightly and weekly payrolls, both earlier and later in the pay period.
- This change will only apply to your current draft payroll, and it isn't a permanent change. The change will disregard the pay date defined in the pay schedule settings.
- If an earlier pay date is chosen, the payroll deadline emails will be moved up to align with the new date.
- Your payroll will be marked as “submitted” on the new pay date, so changes after that date won’t be possible.
How to change the pay date
1. Go to your draft payroll and click on Actions > Change pay date:
2. After selecting the custom pay date, click on Change pay date.
Confirming payroll
When you are ready to confirm and submit your payroll, you will see an alert on the payroll summary advising you of this change. When you are ready, you can confirm payroll.
Please note – To ensure a smooth process, we recommend confirming your payroll during working hours the day before payday. If you have any issues, rest assured that our Support Team is here to guide you. We’re available from Monday to Friday, 9 am to 5 pm UK time.
Useful information
- If an earlier or later pay date is chosen, the FPS will be sent to HMRC on the new pay date.
- The payday on the FPS remains the contractual payment date, not the one-off changed payday.
- The date selected when changing the pay date only applies to a single draft payroll. Subsequent pay periods use the original payday.
- If the pay date is changed to the date the pay schedule settings would choose, then the “custom pay date” is cleared rather than a manual pay date set.
Will this have any effect on Universal Credit?
By keeping the date, we report your payroll to HMRC the same; this will protect employees on Universal Credit.