NEW – Add New Employees

Datafile Software

NEW – Add New Employees

This option is used to add new employee details or — at initial set-up time — to enter existing employee details. Make sure that you have entered details of your departments (or just one department if you do not require departmental analysis) before you enter any employees via the payroll system profiles.

When adding employees you are taken through three, possibly four, stages.

Enter Employee Details and Basic Salary

Enter any Year-to-Date Details*

Enter Switches to use

* You would only enter ‘year-to-date’ details for a new employee if you are transferring from another payroll system to Datafile during the tax year. New employees to the organisation would not have any year-to-date details.

Enter Employee Details and Basic Salary

At the bottom of the screen you are prompted for the employee number. Employee numbers are usually record numbers in the employee file, it is usual to type ‘N’ here and let the system assign the next employee number for you. If transferring details from a previous system and you wish to retain the same employee number (assuming it’s a numeric reference) then enter this value. If you enter a number that has already been used then you are warned accordingly and returned to the input to re-enter a different employee number.

Alpha-Numeric Employee Numbers

Department - Select the department of which this employee is a member - <F4-Select> is available if required.If using department split analysis (where the employee works for several departments) then you should select their primary department.

Address Details - Enter the employee’s address (if known).

Date of Birth - Enter the employee’s date of birth – this value must be input if the employee’s national insurance number is not known.

Date Started - Enter the date the employee started working with the company.

Male / Female - Enter the sex of the employee – M for Male, F for Female.

Over Pension Age - If the employee is over 65 (or 60 in some cases for women) then the employee no longer pays national insurance. In addition to changing the NI category to C you should set this flag.

Tax Code Week-1/Month-1 - Enter the employee’s tax code from their supplied P45. If not known enter the current emergency tax code (all employers receive notification of this from the HMRC at the start of the tax year). Also set whether the employee is to be taxed on a week-1 basis (this calculates tax on the individual pay period with no reference to previous earnings). If using the emergency tax code then this is on a week-1 basis.

NI (National Insurance) Number - Enter the employee’s national insurance number. If not known, and you have entered a date of birth earlier, then on the warning message that is displayed when you leave this blank press <F7> to override.

NI Category - This asks for the employees NI table letter – note this is not the last letter of the NI Number. If the employee does not pay any NI (under 16) then enter X as the category.

Email Address - This prompt asks for the email address for the employee – this can be used for emailing payslips (for example) to the employee.

Photo/Image - Where the employee record also acts as a personnel database it can be useful to hold an image of the employee against their record. Enter the path/filename of the image file here.

Director - Set to ‘Y’ if the employee is a director. Directors are treated differently from normal employees with regards to National Insurance Contributions. If set to ‘Y’ then a pop-up asks for the start date of becoming a director, the end date (leave this blank!), and the number of tax weeks remaining in the year at the point the employee became a director.

SSP Days - When entering payroll details if the employee is off sick then SSP may be due. Enter here the number of days in the week that the employee usually works – i.e. if they work Monday to Friday then enter 5, if they only work Monday, Tuesday and Thursday enter 3.

Pay Method - You may pay the employee by a number of different methods – cash, cheque, auto payments, bank giro, BACS etc. Enter how this employee is to be paid. A help hint at the bottom of the screen displays the allowed methods.

Basic Pay Or Basic Hours & Hourly Rate - If you pay the employee a salary then enter this in the basic pay for the period – note if you pay fortnightly or every four weeks you would still enter a weekly value, if you pay monthly then enter the monthly value.

Alternatively if the employee is paid based on the number of hours they work then enter the usual number of hours for the week or month followed by their hourly pay rate.Again, if you pay fortnightly or every four weeks you would still enter the number of hours per week.

Overtime Rate - If the employee is paid overtime at a different rate of pay to the hourly rate (i.e. overtime is not time, time-and-a-half, double-time, etc. of their normal pay rate) then enter the base hourly rate for overtime.

If the employee is paid a basic salary then enter the hourly rate for overtime above this.

Pension Employee / Pension Employer - If the employee is a member of the company pension scheme you can enter here the contribution values here – this contribution may be a percentage of basic pay, percentage of gross pay or a fixed amount as configured in the system profiles

If the employee is a member of a stakeholder pension scheme then leave these options blank – stakeholder pension schemes are maintained via the PENS option on this menu.

Previous Employment Pay / Previous Employment Tax - If a new employee is starting with you then enter these details from their supplied P45. If you are transferring existing employees to the Datafile payroll application then you would leave these details blank (unless that particular employee had started with you earlier in the tax year).

Employee Details – Screen 2

The second screen, by default, allows the option to view the year-to-date details for the employee.You would never enter or amend these details unless you are changing payroll systems during the tax year and you are entering existing employees onto the Datafile system. The second screen also allows you to record the employee bank details.

The year-to-date details displayed on this screen include:

Gross Pay

Additions to Gross

Deductions from Gross

Taxable Pay – the pay on which tax has been calculated

NI’able Pay (Employee) – the pay on which NI contributions for the employee have been calculated

NI’able Pay (Employer) – the pay on which NI contributions for the employer have been calculated

NIC Employee – the NI contributions paid by the employee

NIC Employer – the NI contributions paid by the employer

Tax Paid – the tax paid by the employee

Additions to Net

Deductions from Net

Net Pay

Pension (Employer) – pension contributions made by the employer

Pension (Employee) – pension contributions made by the employee

SSP Days Taken – the number of days sick taken this tax year

SSP Amount Paid – the amount of SSP paid during this tax year

SSP Average Pay – the average earnings which SSP is calculated on (this is the average pay for the last eight weeks).

Employee Bank Details - Where payments are made by BACS or by uploading a file to your bank these items allow you to record the employee bank details.

Employee Details – Screen 3

The third employee detail screen allows you to record selected detail used within submissions to the HMRC.

Starting Declaration

Select the starting declaration appropriate for a new employee. If you are adding employees to the Datafile payroll transferring from another software package and they are not a ‘new’ employee then use the <F7-Option> key to skip this input. You can amend the starting declaration for a new employee up to the point the HMRC have been advised of the new starter via the FPS submission.Declarations available for selection include:

This is the employee’s first job since the start of the tax year

This is currently the employee’s only job

This employee has another job or pension

Normal Hours Worked

Select the appropriate category for this employee. Categories available include:

Up to 15.99 Hours

16 to 29.99 Hours

30 Hours or above

Other

Passport Number

As part of employing someone the HMRC requires the employer verify the identity of the employee and their eligibility to work in the UK. One way of doing this is to review their passport, record the employee passport number here for inclusion on the FPS when advising the HMRC of a new starter.

Expat Indicator

This item only appears if the Payroll System Profiles is set to allow recording of seconded worker.Seconded workers are those that work for an overseas company but are seconded to work in the UK for you. Set as appropriate (note that if set various declaration options are available that will need to be reviewed).

Student Loan

Set if the employee has been in receipt of student loan and is set to make deductions through the payroll.

Irregular Pay

If the employee is not paid on a regular weekly/monthly basis then set this option. The HMRC requires this detail as if an employee does not appear on a FPS submission for a period of 13 weeks then the HMRC will treat as a leaver – setting this option advises the HMRC to ignore this rule.

Seconded Employees

Where you have set the Expat Indicator above this activates a series of declarations which you must review:

Employee intends to live in the UK for 183 days (6 months) or more

Employee intends to live in the UK for less than 183 days (6 months)

Employee works both inside and outside the UK but is living abroad

Employee is from a country in the European Economic Area

EPM6 (Modified) Scheme for tax equalised expatriate employees

You must set one of the first three declarations and set the fourth or fifth if the declaration applies.

Switches – Extra Payments, Deductions or Repayments

As discussed in the Introduction,switches are the additional payments or deductions that are made to the employee’s pay. Depending on the product level – Compact and Professional allow 6, Diamond and Premier allow 20, Premier with Payroll Plus allows 80 – the configured switches are displayed here and you set whether that switch is in use for that employee.

Unless the switch selected is for a ‘fixed’ amount – i.e. the same amount each period – you will not be asked for the amount that is to be paid/deducted on the switch. If you are prompted for the amount you should enter the default value if known (you can always enter later during the payroll input). If the switch is configured as a ‘Repayment’ entry (type R) then you will also be asked for a total amount to repay.

Depending on the number of switches configured this option may cover several screens.

Overtime Rates (Premier with Payroll Plus)

If using Payroll Plus then you have the option to enter specific rates of pay for each employee rate for all 20 (including the normal hourly rate) overtime rates rather than basing the overtime on the normal hourly or overtime rate.

Enter the rates as required – if left as zero then any payments on that rate are based on the normal hourly rate (times the factor set in the system profiles).

Is the Loading of New Employees Now Complete?