Issue with Payroll

Hi Simon

I'm inclined to say it will be an HMRC error, not a Clear Books one. I personally tell clients to pay their weekly PAYE bills immediately but Clear Books are right in terms of setting the due date to the 22nd of the following month - that's technically how it should be. In fact, if your PAYE bill is less than £1.5k per month it's possibly to pay quarterly.

In my opinion the starting point would be to log into your HMRC gateway and view the PAYE totals to see if they in any way correspond to the ones in Clear Books. Unfortunately, you'll find quite often you'll submit X via RTI and HMRC somehow interpret it as Y...and they'll swear blind you submitted Y until they see otherwise.

Next I would write to them with your findings. Yes it's a pain to have to do so but needs must. Provide literally as much information as you can; dates, amounts, liabilities, payments etc then wait for a reply - there's little more you can do. I'd love to say try it over the phone but there's a good chance it's a mess hence me suggesting you put it in black & white so they've got chance to review it properly instead of being put on the spot where they'll likely fire dud info at you.

You won't be the first RTI causality and you certainly won't be the last.

Oh and do send it recorded and of course retain a copy for your own records.

Thanks Kevin. That's very very helpful and that is the conclusion we've arrived at.

I guess the only unanswered question here is why did Clearbooks suddenly decide to do things differently?

I think it's more a case of correctly as opposed to differently. How they're doing it now is how it should really be done.

If I remember rightly it was discussed on here somewhere so it very possibly came from user feedback. Just goes to show how what one person classes as a good idea, another doesn't necessarily agree!