Important note: You should only enter brought forward figures in the situation where you are moving the data between payroll software or if the payroll is being taken over part-way through a tax year.
Finding the Brought Forward Figures
You can access the brought forward figures for a new employee in ‘Employee > Employee Maintenance’. When you are in the employee’s maintenance there is a box in the bottom left that says ‘Employee Brought Forward…’.
In order to be able to press this button you will have to have entered some basic details for the employee. As soon as you have saved the employee’s details you will be able to access the employee brought forward figures. After pressing this button a new window will open showing you the fields that will need to be filled in for the employee brought forward figures.
NOTE: You must have created an employee pay frequency before adding in the brought forward details. The software will use the pay rate that you have created to decide what frequency you are entering in the brought forward details. For example, a weekly or monthly pay frequency.
This is the new window that will open – here you will fill in the brought forward figures for the employee.
Before you can enter the B/F figures you will have to press the ‘Unlock’ button. If you are unable to press the unlock button (as in the diagram above) this is because the employee has already been processed for a period. You MUST enter the employees B/F figures before they are processed for the first time.
Pressing the ‘Unlock’ button will display this message box.
- Once you have read the message press ‘Yes’
- Select the Week/Month of the final period paid by the old system from‘As at end of Tax Week/Month’ drop down list in the top left of the B/F window.
Adding in Values
This employment
All figures for the B/F national insurance section should be filled in using figures taken from the previous payroll software or payroll provider – Payroll Summary Reports, Tax and NI totals and P11 reports are useful for providing this information. Failure to insert the correct information will mean that the employees data will be wrong throughout the year and the incorrect figures will show on their P60 at the end of the year.
- ‘Gross Pay’ – The employees gross pay up until this point
- ‘Tax Grs‘ – The employees taxable gross up until this point (generally this figure would be the same as the gross pay unless the employee has had some tax free payments made to them
- ‘Tax Paid’ – The amount of tax deducted from the employee
- ‘Net Pay‘ – The employee gross pay minus any deductions
- ‘Free Pay‘ – The amount of tax free payments (can be left blank and is not mandatory)
- There are additional fields for ‘SMP’, ‘SPP’, and ‘Tax Credits’ etc. Complete these fields as applicable
- There may be rounding carried forward if a rounding has been applied to cash payments
National Insurance
Three columns have been provided for entering NI payments. A separate column can be used for each NI code letter the employee has had during a tax year. National insurance is broken down into different thresholds and bands, you can check the latest rates for NI and other aspects within the ‘Help > Rates‘ menu.
- Select the ‘NI Code‘ from the drop down box.
- ‘Up to LEL‘ – The figure up to the ‘Lower Earnings Limit’
- ‘LEL to ST’ – Enter the figure from the ‘Lower Earnings Limit’ to the ‘Secondary Threshold’ (employer)
- ‘ST to PT’ – Enter the figure from the ‘Secondary Threshold’ to the ‘Primary Threshold’ (employee)
- ‘PT to UAP’ – Enter the figure from the ‘Primary Threshold’ to the ‘Upper Accrual Point’
- ‘UAP to UEL’ – Enter any figures from the ‘Upper Accrual Point’ to the ‘Upper Earnings Limit’
- ‘Above LEL’ – Enter any payments above the ‘Upper Earnings Limit’
- ‘Total NI’ – Enter the total amount of employee and employer NI
- ‘Employee NI’ – Enter the amount the employee has paid for NI
- ‘Employer NI’ – Enter the value that the employer has paid for NI
Only LEL to PT earnings available If the P11 reports or brought forward figures you have received do not have a breakdown for ‘ST to PT‘ and ‘PT to UAP’ then you can click the box and enter the ‘LEL to PT’ earnings figure and the software will split down the figures into the two bands for you. NOTE: it will only split the figures for you if the employee has been employed since the beginning of the year, otherwise we cannot work this split out as the brought forward figures are not from the start of the tax year.
