When a company stops being an employer, it's important that the company's payroll is closed off and HMRC is notified (HMRC: Stop Being an Employer)
Before you 'Cease' or 'Stop' your PAYE Scheme you ensure you have completed the following:
- Paid and Processed any Outstanding Pay to the relevant employees
- Terminated all of the employees and issued their P45s
- Sent the final pension contributions to your provider and informed the provider of the leaving details
- Closed the pension schemes down with the pension provider (if applicable)
- Informed HMRC that the company has ceased employing staff
How do I make employees leavers on Buddy?
Before closing off scheme, you have to terminate employees and mark them as leavers. This allows you to issue final payslips for them.
- Go to People tab and select an employee
- Go to the Role area
- Click on the 'Add Termination Date' red button
- Select the leaving date from the calendar and click 'save termination' date
How do I process the final Payslip and View employees' P45s?
After having inserted the Termination Date from the Role Details, accessing the pay run of the final period will automatically mark that as a final payslip.
In case the period was already closed and submitted, one can create extra payslips: Pay an Already Terminated Employee, in an additional period.
P45s will be automatically generated once a payroll with the final payslip has been concluded.
- Go to Tax Forms
- Select P45s
- Click on the download icon to view the PDF
- If the employee has portal access, you can also enable them to view this online
How do I inform the HMRC that a company has ceased trading on Buddy?
You will need to send through a final EPS but firstly you will need to flag on Buddy that the scheme has closed.
To flag on Buddy that the scheme has ceased you will go to your Company Settings and scroll to 'stop being an employer'. Turn on the toggle and insert the cessation date in the calendar provided.
What is a final EPS?
An Employer Payment Summary (EPS) is part of the Real-Time Information reporting that can be sent once a month to HMRC to inform them of any statutory payment reclaims, apprenticeship levy and CIS deductions. The final EPS is used to inform HMRC that the specific PAYE Account has closed. It is really important that you send a final EPS if the scheme is to be closed. This will avoid any non-filing penalties being issued by the HMRC or stop them 'estimating' charges due on the PAYE Account.
To send the final EPS, Go to Tax Forms (located down the left hand side) click on the month you are sending the EPS for and click on the Submit EPS button and ensure it is received successfully with HMRC.
If it has been sent successfully you will see Submitted button in green and be able to download the P30 as applicable.
Note that you are not able to submit final FPS or EPS prior to the cessation date. They can only submitted on the end date or afterwards, otherwise you may encounter an error relating to [DATESCHEMECEASED].
Archiving the Company to Finalise Buddy Account
After you have finished and finalised all payroll actions on Buddy, it's recommended that you archive the company. This allows bureaus to keep a better track of which clients are active.