I took on 3 full time staff part way through Oct 2020 can i Furlough them at their agreed salary?

Rapideye

I have 3 cafe staff who were working 45hrs 45hrs 60hrs/week between June and September 2020 and decided to put them all on PAYE during October. Due to having told to close by the Gov temporarily because of Covid i asked my bookkeeper to furlough all three staff from 20 Dec to 11 Jan as all of our bookings had been cancelled and we were know finding it completely impossible to enjoy our work and make any money!
My problem is that their October paye live post was only made up of half of the month as they were paid on a freelance rate up until the paye paper work was complete. Since their Furlough pay is referenced to their October pay slip can we claim for their contracted hours or can we only refer to what has been posted during October which is far less than was their agreed salaries?

ssparks2003

If you made a PAYE RTI declaration before the 30th October 2020 then you should be able to from my reading of https://www.gov.uk/guidance/claim-for-wage-costs-through-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme

Rapideye

Thanks for your reply ssparks
Our office had made the PAYE RTI on the 28th Oct so within the new cut off point.  My problem is although all three staff are contracted to full time we only filed a small portion of their wage in Oct because the full time contract started towards the middle of the month.  I need to know if i can claim Furlough for the contractable PAYE amounts or only what was partially paid during October ? thank you 

TBagpuss

I think so - check the government guidance but I think that as this would be " the regular payments you are obliged to make, including:"  i.e. their contractual wages for the hours in their contracts. 
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/steps-to-take-before-calculating-your-claim-using-the-coronavirus-job-retention-scheme#include   

Presumably you paid them as normal in November and are only now looking to furlough them with the new lockdown, so HMRC will have returns where they had a normal month's [ay in their records as well as the part month.

TBagpuss

You do of course only get to reclaim 80% and you will still have to pay the tax, NI and pension contributions for them, and will need them to agree a temporary variation of their contracts to receive only 80% or alternatively top up the other 20%, but I expect you already know all of that! 

Rapideye

Thanks so much I took a look at the link and this explanation sounds appropriate to our situation.  I have forwarded this link onto our accounts team who will take it further cheers lee

2.2 Example of calculating usual hours for a fixed hours employee whose first pay period ends after 30 October 2020

An employee started work for CD Ltd on 12 October 2020. They are paid on the last day of each month, starting on 31 October 2020.

The PAYE Real Time Information (RTI) Full Payment Submission (FPS) submission notifying their first payment of wages was received by HMRC on 29 October 2020, so CD Ltd can claim for the employee even though their first pay period ends after 30 October 2020.

At the end of the pay period 1 October to 31 October, the employee is contracted to work on a shift pattern of five 7-hour shifts in each week. This working pattern repeats every 7 days.

The employee agrees to be placed on furlough from 2 November 2020 until 30 November 2020 (29 days). CD Ltd calculates the usual hours for this partial pay period:

1. Start with 35 hours - these are the hours your employee was contracted for in their repeating working pattern at the end of the latest pay period for which a PAYE Real Time Information 
2. (RTI) Full Payment Submission (FPS) was submitted to and received by HMRC on or before 30 October 2020 – which in this example, is 7 hours multiplied by 5 days
   
3. Divide by 7 (the number of days in the repeating working pattern, including non-working days)
4. Multiply by 29 (the number of calendar days in the pay period (or partial pay period) the employer is claiming for) = 145
5. The outcome of step 3 is a whole number, so does not need to be rounded up to the next whole number