Appendix - End of Year Returns

Prior to the introduction of RTI in 2013/14 you submitted returns at the end of the tax year. If you are asked to re-submit for earlier years (failed to send originally / sent with wrong tax reference) then you may still need to use these options.

The XML End-of-Year procedure has two possible submission methods – a complete P14 and P35 all-in-one submission, and separate P14 and P35 submissions.

If you have only one Datafile payroll company per HMRC PAYE reference then you submit using the complete submission process.

If you have two or more payroll companies in Datafile that share the same PAYE reference then you need to submit a separate P14 for each company and then submit one P35. You might have more than one company where one is for monthly-paid staff and one for weekly-paid staff, or perhaps a separate company for directors.

If you have one payroll company in Datafile and another company in another software package or manual payroll set-up that shares the same PAYE reference you can submit the P14 from Datafile for the Datafile company but the P14 for the other set-up and the P35 must be submitted via the HMRC website.

Submitting End of Year Returns

To submit the end-of-year returns online you need to select the appropriate option(s) within the year-end menu.

P14/P35 Complete Submission

This option is used when the payroll company contains all employees for a particular PAYE reference.

Selecting the option you will be warned if the payroll company is not at the year-end (payroll not having been run for the final period).

Next, the system will check whether this indeed is the only Datafile company with the set PAYE reference (history companies are ignored). If other companies are detected you will be warned accordingly and asked whether you wish to swap to submit the P14 only or continue with the complete submission.

Finally, the system will validate the NI codes for all employees to check they match allowed formats, also checking whether required SCON and ECON references have been entered.You will not be allowed to proceed unless you correct any warning messages arising from this process.

If tests are successfully passed then the system begins the filing procedure.

XML Template – displays the template definition to be used for the end-of-year returns

XML Filename – displays the XML filename to be created containing the end-of-year returns.

Print XML Output – set this option if you require a printout of the XML generated output file.

Report Errors Only – set this option when omitting the printout of the XML output file to report the entries in the output where any errors are generated.

Test Submission – Identifies the submission as a test only, the HMRC will not process P14/P35 flagged as a test but will validate the contents as acceptable.After setting this option you will be asked to confirm this is a ‘test’ submission.

Selecting the RUN option begins the process – you will be warned whether you have selected to process a test or live submission.

Employers Name }

Address } confirm/enter the requested employer.

Post Code } details

Contact Title }

Forename }

Surname } confirm/enter the contact details to be

Telephone } included on the year-end submission.

Fax }

Email }

Inland Revenue Office / PAYE confirm/enter the HMRC office and the company PAYE reference.

Inland Revenue User-Id } confirm/enter the user-id and password supplied by

Password } the HMRC

Employers Cont-Out Cert No If any employees have a contracted-out NI Category then enter your employers contracted out certificate number here.If no employees applicable then leave blank

SMP Small Employer Relief Set if eligible for relief as a small employer (total NI contributions less than £45,000).

SMP% Recovery Rate If set for Small Employer Relief set this as 100% else set at 92%

NIC% Compensation Rate If set for Small Employer Relief set this as 3% else leave as 0%

Form P11D Due Select if Forms P11D – Expenses and Benefits are still outstanding (processed outside of DF). If already processed or not required leave blank.

Date Ceased Trading If the company ceased trading during the tax year enter the date as appropriate.

If you are submitting as the employer then you leave the second page of ‘End of Year XML Options’ blank.If submitting as an agent on behalf of the employer then enter your agent details as follows.

Agent Id Enter Agent Id supplied by the Inland Revenue

Company }

Address } enter name/address details as prompted.

Post Code }

Contact Title }

Forename }

Surname } enter the contact details to be included on

Telephone } the year-end submission

Fax }

E-mail }

The next four pages will be familiar to those who have completed the P35 form as supplied by the HMRC previously. Where possible, values are accumulated from the details entered throughout the year in the Datafile Payroll system and are displayed for you. Where values are required that are not input or calculated in the Datafile Payroll system (advanced funding for tax refunds for example) then these are prompted for you to enter.

The details you are asked to input are (the numbers correspond to the box inputs on the P35 itself):-

7) Advance Received from the Inland Revenue to refund tax

12) Statutory Sick Pay Recovered

20) Funding Received from Inland Revenue to pay SSP/SMP/SPP/SAP

23) Deductions made from Sub-Contractors

25) NIC’s and Tax Paid Already

26) Tax Free Incentive Payment Received during the year

28) CIS Deductions Suffered

Inputs 13-18 are calculated for you by the Datafile Software based on values calculated throughout the year.These values are based on the year totals and, where values are recorded monthly/quarterly to the HMRC on the P32-Payment Summary you may have some slight rounding issues were calculating recovery amounts at 92% or compensation amounts at 3%. You can overtype the values suggested by Datafile with an accumulation of your P32 responses as necessary.

The fourth page of the P35 checklist asks the series of questions that are included on the P35 form.

Q1) Have you sent a form P14 for every person in paid employment during the tax year?

Q2) Did you make any ‘free-of-tax’ payments to the employee

Q3) Did anyone else pay expenses to your employee

Q4) Did anyone employed outside the UK work for you in the UK for more than 30 days?If yes, are they included?

Q5) Have you paid any of the employees pay to someone other than the employee? If yes, is it included on their P14?

Q6) Are you a Service Company? If yes, have you operated the IR35 legislation?

After confirming these details a printout of the accumulated/entered P35 details is produced for you to review. Print this to the Print Spooler or directly to printer as required.

After printing the P35 summary the system proceeds with the XML generation and output.

If commence output then the submission file is created and a summary screen shows the number of employees processed and whether any errors have been generated in the submission.The creation of the XML submission file may take some time with large employee files, particularly on legacy operating systems such as Windows 98.

If any errors have been generated then the XML printout includes details of the error. Typically the major errors, such as invalid NI codes, are protected against within the system. The only likely errors remaining are inputs which are valid in DF but not on the XML submission – a name starting with a non-alphabetical character for example, or an invalid NI category (a man with a ‘B’ code etc.). If you have spooled the XML printout use <F5> to search for the text ‘Error’ this will give further details on the actual error found.

If any errors have been detected the system does not proceed to output the XML file and you have to correct the data for the reported error.

If no errors are detected then after any printout of the XML file the submission process is begun.

The submission process goes through several stages in communicating with the HMRC Government Gateway.At the end of the process the system will report whether the submission was successful or whether any business level errors were detected – these might include an invalid ECON reference for which you are not registered. If a business level error occurs then you need to correct the advised error and then re-submit the file.

A common business level error of 1046 indicates that your HMRC credentials have been rejected – this may mean the tax office details are incorrect or your HMRC user-id / password have been supplied incorrectly. Check and update these details if necessary and submit again.

If the gateway is busy or off-line you may get the ‘Submission Poll’ message repeated. If this is the case keep trying for a few loops but if it continues select the SKIP button – the submission will have been made to the HMRC and you can use the ‘Check for Active Submissions’ option within the Payroll Utilities menu to check whether the submission has been accepted / rejected later.

Processing the P14 Part Submission

This option is used when the payroll company contains only some of the employees for a particular PAYE reference with the remaining employees being in another payroll company.You would run this option in each individual company before proceeding to the P35 stage.

Selecting the option you will be warned if the payroll company is not at the year-end (payroll not having been run for the final period).

Next the system checks whether any other Datafile companies share the same PAYE reference, if no other companies found you are warned accordingly and asked whether you wish to proceed with a separate P14 / P35 submission or whether you wish to swap and submit a complete P14/P35.

The system will also validate the NI codes for all employees to check they match allowed formats, and also check whether required SCON and ECON references have been entered. You will not be allowed to proceed unless you correct any warning messages arising from this.

If tests are successfully passed then the system begins the filing procedure.

The process is reasonably identical to that of the P14/P35 complete submission above with the exception that you are not prompted for the P35 summary details and the initial pre-amble asks for a unique id.

Unique Id - Defaulting to the application company this is used by the Inland Revenue to indicate whether a submission is to replace any previous submission or is in addition to submission. You should not have any requirement to change this value.

Processing the P35 Submission

Once you have successfully submitted all your P14 part-submissions for a particular PAYE reference then you can submit the P35. You can submit the P35 from any payroll company with the set PAYE reference in the same tax year.

If all the required companies are listed select ‘P14 Complete’. If some companies are not listed select ‘Incomplete’ to return to the menu.

Test vs. Live Submissions – if submitting a ‘Test’ P35 then the process will pick up previous ‘Test’ P14 submissions, if submitting a ‘Live’ P35 submission then the system will pick up the previous live submissions.

If you select ‘P14 Complete’ then the system proceeds through the General XML Detail parameter screens and the P35 Detail screen as discussed in the complete submission option earlier – details having been accumulated from the previous P14 submissions where appropriate. After printing the P35 Audit Trail and (if set) the XML submission, the P35 summary is submitted to the HMRC Government Gateway.

Repeated Polling – in the first two weeks after 6^thApril the Government Gateway is very busy and often suspends validation of separate P35 submissions against previously submitted P14’s when submitting a live submission. If you have repeated polling messages select the SKIP option and use the Payroll Utilities option to ‘Check for Active Submissions’ later to see whether the submission has been accepted / rejected or is still awaiting judgement.