Free HMRC Approved PAYE software recommendations, anyone?

Lizbetty

Good afternoon!

I work for my husband, who is a sole trader with me as his only employee. Following the changes to PAYE, we have been told buy a financial advisor that we have to send salary details monthly to HMRC.

I have had a very quick look just now and the HMRC website says we need to use software to process the details to send to them. As we're only a small business, we would be hoping to use free software, but wondered if anyone could suggest which might be the most user friendly if they have any experience of this themselves?

This is not something I have dealt with before and it's important we get it right as we will be applying for a mortgage soon and will need to make sure my income is recorded correctly for the lender as well as HMRC :eek:

Many thanks for your help!

Lucy

comeandgo

Have the IR stopped their free wages software? I've seen it used by many small employers and I would say all have been pleased with it.

Lizbetty

http://hmrc.gov.uk/softwaredevelopers/paye/rti-software-forms.htm

This is what I found on the website, but I'm not sure which might be the most user friendly. It's all unknown territory to me as we have previously left this to the accountant, but I'm taking on the duties now we have to send the salary info in monthly and I'm hoping to find the easiest and best free software to do it. I'm not sure where to start without downloading them and trying them all

Wywth

Lucyeff wrote: »

Good afternoon!

I work for my husband, who is a sole trader with me as his only employee. Following the changes to PAYE, we have been told buy a financial advisor that we have to send salary details monthly to HMRC.

I have had a very quick look just now and the HMRC website says we need to use software to process the details to send to them. As we're only a small business, we would be hoping to use free software, but wondered if anyone could suggest which might be the most user friendly if they have any experience of this themselves?

This is not something I have dealt with before and it's important we get it right as we will be applying for a mortgage soon and will need to make sure my income is recorded correctly for the lender as well as HMRC :eek:

Many thanks for your help!

Lucy

What have you been using since the rules were introduced last April?

Some discussion of alternatives from a thread back then:

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4570211

Vectis

We use the HMRC RTI software - it's free. Works fine. Took a little while to download and update itself the first time, but works perfectly now.

Haven't got a link for it but you should be able to find it on the HMRC site with a little searching.

Little_Vics

My company uses payroo which is free if you have less than 10 employees. It's SO easy once it's all set up.

Lizbetty

Thanks for your suggestions

DH has just had a meeting with the accountant to get the last years' books finalised and we only just found out about RTI :eek: I'm below the tax/NI threshold as I do admin on a part time basis for him, and am only just starting on PAYE.

It's all new territory.

I think we probably need to speak to the tax office about the months prior to this one, as we want to make sure it's all above board!

Thanks again for your help

lvm

I use PAYE tools from HMRC website too and it works a treat.

You'll be fine submitting last few months pay (this tax year only) as you get to tick a box saying that on this occasion only you'll be submitting more than one pay.

Good luck!

AbbieCadabra

i use the free HMRC software too. there were a few queries at the beginning as some of the wording/instructions were less than clear (good ol' HMRC ), but it's a doddle to use now I know what i'm doing with weekly wages & month end. i even managed to back up & transfer all info across to a new PC this week with no issues.

i had to speak to HMRC a short while ago regarding an incorrect paydate i'd filed, i was basically told that there won't be any penalties/fines for late/incorrect reporting until at least October, so you should be ok.

was your accountant not aware that there would be wages to be reported under RTI? if circumstances have changed & he didn't know, then fair enough, but if he knew & didn't advise you, i'd be asking a few questions i think.

Lizbetty

Phew, thanks so much for putting my mind at rest! :beer:

I was absolutely panicking to be honest, thinking we might be penalised for not sending the information in from April onwards. We need to ring the tax office to register for PAYE too - I've tried to do it online and appear to be in some sort of cyber circle on the HMRC website which gets us nowhere at all!

It wasn't until my husband rang the tax credit people to inform them of our income after a visit to the accountant that he found out about the new real time PAYE system.

The accountant has said that we needn't do PAYE as my wages were too low. It's been declared on the accounts as income for me from the date the business started. However, as my husband's business is picking up, despite being his wife I'm not one for slave labour he's increased my income a bit to match my hours of work.

DH has asked the accountant from the beginning if we needed to do anything with the way I'm paid as we're wanting everything to be totally above board. It's become more apparent that we need to do *something* further to dh's chat with the rather abrupt man on the tax credits helpline, and also since we saw our financial adviser about a mortgage, as we are hoping to move soon :eek:. My income needs to be considered and the FA said it needed to be recorded on PAYE correctly.

I'm a little confused as to what has happened as regards my income on an official level if I'm honest, I assumed that the accountant knew it was below some sort of threshold beforehand, and now we need to go PAYE and do the real time recording as it has increased/due to new rules. I'm *hoping* the issue hasn't just been cast aside and as a consequence we'll end up in it!

The accountant is very good (my husband says) but I am doubtful as to whether this has been dealt with correctly.

Hmm.

Flummoxed.

lvm

The HMRC website to register is indeed a nightmare. I registered 2 businesses which were a doddle then came to register a 3rd about 6 weeks ago and it's only just been sorted this week after calling the helpline.

Just some info for you though - the big downside of HMRC PAYE tools is that they don't give any sort of template for payslips so you have to create your own - simple enough but have a look for the information you MUST have on them (you'll need this for our mortgage application).