Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)

If your employee is unable to work, they may be entitled to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) which is paid for up to 28 weeks. For SSP rates, you can refer to HMRC's Rates and Thresholds. 

You can check your employee's entitlement and eligibility by using HMRC's Employer Guidance:

If your employee is not eligible, or their SSP entitlement is exhausted prior to their return to work, then you must provide them with form SSP1 either: 

• Within 7 days of their SSP ending, if it ends unexpectedly while they’re still sick
• On or before the beginning of the 23rd week, if their SSP is expected to end before their sickness does

If your employee does not qualify for SSP, you must send them form SSP1 within 7 days of them going off sick.

Adding SSP to Pento

To add Statutory Sick Pay, you will need to follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Payrolls
2. Click into the payroll draft for the relevant month
3. Select the Employee
4. Select Add pay item
5. Select Add statutory sick pay
   
   
   
6. An SSP modal will pop up
7. Enter the absence dates:
   
   
8. Enter the Average Weekly Earnings if applicable e.g. If you have recently joined Pento, we will not hold enough data to calculate the AWE automatically, you will need to calculate this manually and override the £0. You can use HMRC's SSP calculator to work out their AWE.

Waiting days included 

Pento will automatically take into consideration any waiting days from the dates you enter, however, there are some occasions where you will need to enter this information manually:

• If you have joined Pento within 8 weeks of an employee's absence and this is a linked period of incapacity to work, you will need to enter the amount of waiting days previously used.
• If a period of incapacity to work is related to Covid-19 and the employee is eligible for SSP, enter 3, this will remove the waiting days and pay SSP from the start date. 

Once you have entered the details, select Add sick pay.

You can watch a short video here.

Employees with different work patterns

At the moment, Pento only considers employees working a standard week (i.e. 5 days per week) If your employee's working pattern differs from the standard, assumed pattern, you will need to add SSP manually. To do this, you will need to follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Payrolls
2. Select the relevant payroll draft
3. Search for the relevant Employee
4. Select Add pay item
5. Select Gross addition
6. From the Type of addition dropdown menu, select Statutory sick pay
7. Enter the amount
8. Toggle off Pensionable if you do not wish for the SSP to be included in the pension calculations

To work out how much SSP your employee is due, you should refer to HMRC's SSP calculator where you will be able to select the days your employee works to get the correct SSP due.

Adding SSP in arrears

If you are adding SSP with a start date in a previous period, Pento will allow you to select a date in the past, however, only SSP pertaining to the current pay period will be added to the payslip. You will need to add the remaining SSP manually. To do this, you will need to follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Payrolls
2. Select the relevant payroll draft
3. Search for the relevant Employee
4. Select Add pay item
5. Select Gross addition
6. From the Type of addition dropdown menu, select Statutory sick pay
7. Enter the amount
8. Toggle off Pensionable if you do not wish for the SSP to be included in the pension calculations

To work out how much SSP your employee is due, you can deduct the amount in the payslip from the total shown on the summary when you added the dates. Alternatively, you can refer to HMRC's SSP calculator.

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