Employees who are self-isolating due to Coronavirus (COVID-19) are entitled to statutory sick pay (SSP) from day one.


Any employee who is self-isolating due to Coronavirus and is unable to work will be entitled to statutory sick pay (SSP) from their first day of sickness. Historically an employee would not qualify for SSP until their fourth day of sickness.


Further guidance can be found at Gov.uk.


The Qtac 2019/20 software will not automatically calculate SSP from the first day and you will be required to override the automatic calculation. 


Within Qtac 2020/21 a new feature has been added to improve the efficiency of adding SSP for coronavirus. See our knowledge base article for further information.


Paying SSP from the first day


Right-click the employee and choose 'Open and Pay'


Select 'Change' and the 'Absence Recording' tab



Select 'Add New Absence' and choose 'Sick Pay' from the absence type


Enter the 'Start Date' and 'End Date' of the absence, these dates must fall within the period that you are currently paying. You should also include any weekends where the employee had been sick.



Click 'Save Absence' and the software will automatically calculate the employee's SSP, if the absence is less than three days this will calculate as 0.00.


Select the absence from the absence list. If 'SSP Not Payable' has ticked, due to the employee being absent for three or fewer days then untick the box.


Whilst the absence is still selected, enter the number of days the employee has been sick during this period and select 'Calculate SSP'.


Choose whether you wish to top up their sick pay (Company Sick Pay), pay any additional hours or only pay SSP by selecting the 'Basic Pay Adjustment'. 


Reduce Standard Basic Pay by Statutory Pay = Reduce their standard salary by the amount of SSP being paid, this will top up their sick pay to their normal salary.


Do not pay Basic Pay = Do not pay any additional basic pay, only process the SSPpay SSP.


Pay Basic Pay entered =Process SSP and a custom amount of basic pay, if this is selected you must set the correct basic pay.



Click 'Save Absence' and 'Close'. You can now continue to process your pay as normal.