April updates - new tax year features and fortnightly pay schedule

We know how busy this period can be for businesses, with the close of the previous tax year and the start of the new one.  We’re doing all we can to streamline the payroll process for you during this time (and into the future) with some exciting new updates for our cloud-based payroll software.

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HMRC rates updated

We have started by updating income tax rates and allowances for the 2021/2022 tax year in Pento. As of 6 April, HMRC has made some changes to things like national insurance, tax and statutory pay rates. Pento automatically applies the new rates to your payroll calculations in-platform. 

To see the full list of rates, head to the HMRC page.

New student loan Plan 4

From the start of this new tax year, people on the Scottish Student Loans (SSL) repayment Plan 1 will be moved over to Plan 4. This will see their monthly earnings threshold increase from £1,615 to £2,083 before tax.

If you have linked your HMRC account, then Pento will automatically update this for your existing employees on this plan. 

For any new employees on this plan, you can now set them up on Pento. Just head to ‘Employee/Pay’ blocks, select ‘Student Loan’ and then choose ‘Student Loan Repayment - Plan 4:

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Payrolling benefits

Last month, we launched the option to payroll benefits in Pento. To use this feature, you need to have registered with HMRC before the start of the new tax year on 6 April as you can no longer informally payroll benefits.

If you have registered before the start of 2021/2022, then now is the time to add or update the taxable employee benefits in Pento. 

To do this, you just set the tax method to ‘PAYE (payrolling benefits)’. We’ll then add the taxable value of the benefit to each month’s payroll as a notional value, so that it affects your employee’s income tax but won’t be added to net pay. This will also appear on your employee’s payslip.

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New information on payslips - taxable earnings

To give your employees accurate information on what part of their earnings is taxable, we have now added taxable earnings to your payslips. If, for example, an employee has payrolled benefits or a net pay arrangement pension, then the figures for taxable earnings and total gross earnings will differ. 

The taxable earnings figure will appear underneath total gross earnings on your employee payslips.

We are now also collecting employee and employer pension year to date (YTD) figures to include in taxable pay calculations, which you can find in the employee YTD tab.  And we will soon be adding the employer pension YTD figure too.

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Fortnightly pay schedule

We now offer the option of setting up payroll with fortnightly pay frequency. We are working on setting up other pay frequencies too; next up will be a weekly option. This will mean that you can pay your employees at varying frequencies, or employees with the same frequency can receive their pay on different days, allowing for plenty of flexibility. We hope this will especially appeal to those in the retail and hospitality sectors.

To set up new pay frequencies, head to ‘Payrolls/settings’ and choose ‘New pay schedule’. You will then need to allocate a new pay schedule to an employee in the ‘Employee/Salary’ settings.

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As we get into the flow of the new tax year, we will be launching plenty more new features in Pento.  Coming up next will be locations/cost centres, recurring pay items and attachment of earnings.  Keep an eye out for all this coming soon.  

We love hearing your feedback on all these updates, so please do get in touch via chat.

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