The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has been announced by the government to assist UK employers with financial support during the COVID-19 crisis, specifically where the employer would otherwise have no choice but to lay off employees.
The government website provides detail to check an employer and employees eligibility for the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and guidance on this can be found on gov.uk.
Claims to recover furloughed pay can be made via the new HMRC portal. Qtac has produced an export to allow customers to extract the required information to submit their claim, for further information view our knowledge base article.
Setting an employee to furloughed
Please note, before proceeding you will be required to update to the latest software version for this functionality to be available. For details of how to update your 2020/21 software, please visit the relevant update page for your software package: Qtac 2020/21 update or Mamut 2020/21 update.
Select the relevant employee and navigate to Employee > Employee Maintenance, select ‘Furloughed’ from the Status drop down box.
Once selected a new window will be displayed:
The window contains three sections which you must complete in order to furlough the employee.
Furlough Period
The start and end date of the furlough period are required. As the furlough is likely to be ongoing, if the furlough end date is not known, you can supply an anticipated date. The furlough period can be adjusted in the future, when their end date is known.
If the employee returns from furlough and is re-furloughed at a later date, a new furlough period can be entered.
Reference Pay for Calculation
In order to calculate the employees furlough pay the software requires a reference pay to be provided. The reference pay will be automatically populated based on the pay information already held within Qtac, however, there are circumstances where you will need to calculate this yourself. For further information view our Reference Pay article.
If you have calculated a furlough pay value yourself and you wish for Qtac to utalise your calculated amount, we have supplied a ‘Update Reference Pay using Furlough Pay’ feature. Using this feature, you can supply your calculated furlough pay alongside the percentage used and the software will calculate the correct reference pay.
Part Time Furlough
The second iteration of Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) permits an employee to be furloughed on a part time basis. While submitting a claim for CJRS 2 via the HMRC portal you are required to supply the employees normal working hours for a month, this is required even for employees who are on a fixed salary. For further information, view our Normal Working Hours article.
Upon saving the Furlough Period screen you’ll see the details of the current furlough period on the right hand side of the employee maintenance. There are two additional options available at this stage.
If an employee received variable pay in 1920 this can be indicated by checking the ‘Variable Pay in 1920’ checkbox, this will adjust the furlough pay calculation as per HMRC rules for variably paid employees.
Qtac can automatically calculate the employee’s furlough pay based on the value that is recoverable under the Job Retention Scheme. The automatic calculation functionality can be enabled by checking the ‘Automatically calculate furlough pay’ checkbox. For further information, view our Automatically calculate furlough pay article.
Adjusting a furlough period
Once an employee has been furloughed, you may wish to adjust the details supplied during the initial furlough process. Upon returning to Employee Maintenance, you can use the ‘View furlough history’ option to view their furlough periods, upon selecting a furlough period you are able to edit and revisit the information supplied.
