Payroll basics for employers

Take on your first employee and you take on payroll — a system with weekly rhythm and no tolerance for “we’ll sort it later”. Here’s the shape of it.

The essentials

• Register as an employer with HMRC before the first payday.
• Run payroll under RTI (Real Time Information): a Full Payment Submission goes to HMRC on or before every payday — not monthly in arrears, every time you pay.
• Pay HMRC the PAYE and National Insurance you’ve deducted, usually by the 22nd of the following month (electronically).
• Give payslips to every employee, every payday.

What employment actually costs

Beyond gross pay, employers pay employer’s National Insurance at 15% on each employee’s earnings above £5,000 a year. The Employment Allowance wipes out up to £10,500 of that bill for most smaller employers — worth claiming, easy to miss. From April 2026 the National Living Wage is £12.71/hour for workers 21 and over; paying under the wage floor is one of the fastest routes to an HMRC letter.

Auto-enrolment

Every employer must assess staff for a workplace pension, enrol eligible ones automatically, contribute at least the statutory minimum, and re-enrol leavers every three years — with declarations to The Pensions Regulator to match. It applies from your very first employee.

The annual cycle

What	When
Final submission of the tax year	On or before the last payday before 6 April
P60s to employees	31 May
P11Ds (benefits in kind)	6 July
Class 1A NIC on benefits	22 July (electronic)

Common traps

Directors’ salaries need a payroll scheme even in one-person companies. Statutory payments (sick pay, parental leave) have their own rules and reclaim mechanics. And holiday pay for irregular-hours staff is a genuinely awkward calculation that catches even careful employers.

How we help

We run payroll end to end — payslips, RTI, pensions, year-end forms — or set up your software and train you to run it in-house. Either way, fixed fee, no missed paydays.