Payroll for accountancy practices and businesses in the United Kingdom
Payroll for your clients, in the same books
Run each client’s payroll where its accounts are kept: employees, pay runs, payslips, the P32, P60s and P45s, with PAYE and National Insurance worked out from HMRC’s published rates and thresholds for 2026-27. Each run posts one journal into the client’s books. The figures for RTI are given for HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools or your RTI software, and a contractor’s CIS300 figures for HMRC’s CIS online service; Mini Accounts does not submit either.
✓ Payroll and CIS are on the second of the two plans, and the free first month includes them.
What it does
Employees, pay runs, the forms and the journal
The payroll screen sits in the client’s menu beside its accounts. A UK business keeping its own books has the same screen for its own staff.
Employees
Name, National Insurance number, date of birth, address, start and leaving dates. Tax code, cumulative or week 1 / month 1, for the rest of the UK, Scotland or Wales. National Insurance category letter, with a director on the annual earnings period or the alternative method. A designation if you use one — Site foreman, Office manager — which shows on the employees list and on the payslip, and on nothing sent to HMRC. Student loan plan 1, 2, 4 or 5, and the postgraduate loan. Pension enrolment, and an opt-out. Salary a period or an hourly rate. The pay frequency, which is the employee’s own. The starter declaration, and the P45 figures from a previous employment in the year. Standing allowances — a car allowance, a tool allowance — each taxable, NI-able and pensionable or not, put on every pay run. Contracted hours a period and the overtime rate, as a multiple of the hourly rate or in pounds an hour. Bank details for the payment list, and an email address for the payslip.
Pay runs
A timesheet first, one for each pay period: every employee on it with the contracted hours from the record, the hours worked, overtime hours at the multiple, and unpaid absence. Finalised, and only then the run, which is worked from it — an hourly-paid employee’s basic pay from the hours, overtime for anyone at the hourly rate or its equivalent times the multiple, absence off a salary at the same equivalent. A payroll with no use for timesheets turns them off under Settings. Monthly, weekly, fortnightly or four-weekly — on the employee’s own record, so a business can run a weekly payroll and a monthly one side by side, each with its own periods, its own pay day and its own runs — with the next unrun period offered on each; one row per employee on that payroll: the pay this period, additions and deductions with the standing allowances already on the row, days of sickness and weeks of maternity. The run works out the tax, the employee’s and employer’s National Insurance, the loan deductions, the pension contributions and the net pay, with the year-to-date figures under each. Calculate, then approve and post.
PAYE
HMRC’s method: free pay from the code, taxable pay rounded down to the pound, the bands by region scaled to the period, cumulative or non-cumulative, K codes with the 50% overriding limit, refunds where the cumulative basis gives one, and BR, D0, D1, D2, D3, 0T and NT codes.
National Insurance
The exact percentage method, rounded to the penny, for category letters A, B, C, H, J, M, V, Z, F, I, L, S, N, E, K, D and X: the employee’s contribution and the employer’s, band by band. A director’s contributions on the annual earnings period, or on the alternative method with the year-end true-up.
Loans, pensions and statutory pay
Student loan plans 1, 2, 4 and 5 and the postgraduate loan, in whole pounds. Auto-enrolment pension contributions on qualifying earnings or on total pay, relief at source or net pay arrangement, at the scheme’s percentages. Statutory sick pay from the qualifying days, and statutory maternity pay from the average weekly earnings, with the recovery and the compensation a small employer is due.
The Employment Allowance
Set against the employer’s National Insurance in the P32 as the year runs, where the employer has claimed it, and the small employers’ relief on statutory payments recovered from what is due to HMRC. One allowance for the employer, drawn across every payroll the business runs until the year’s £10,500 is gone.
CIS, for a contractor
A subcontractor is a supplier with its UTR, verification number and deduction status from HMRC’s reply — gross, 20% or 30%. Its bill carries the cost of materials, and the deduction is worked on the rest, VAT excluded, credited to CIS Payable and taken off what the subcontractor is paid. The month’s return figures by subcontractor, and a payment and deduction statement for each subcontractor deducted from, follow the date the subcontractor was paid, which the bill asks for. A limited company that is itself a subcontractor types the deductions it suffers by tax month; they are set against what is due on the P32 and shown with the EPS facts. Where the VAT domestic reverse charge applies to a subcontractor’s bill, the bill posts it: the subcontractor is paid no VAT, the VAT goes in box 1 and, where it may be reclaimed, in box 4, and the deduction is still worked on the net. The bill says why it is reverse-charged, and the answer is switched off only with a reason. The CIS300 is filed on HMRC’s CIS online service; Mini Accounts sends nothing to HMRC. CIS is on the same plan as payroll; the reverse charge, being VAT law, is on both.
The documents
Payslips, P32, P60, P45 and the figures for RTI
Payslips
One PDF for the run, a page for each employee, with what section 8 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 asks for: gross pay, each deduction and what it is, net pay, hours where the pay varies with them, the employer’s name and PAYE reference, the National Insurance number, the tax code, the period and the pay date, and the year to date. A footer the practice types once. Hours worked and overtime at their rates where the pay varies with them, and the last four digits of the account it is paid to.
P32
The employer’s payment record by tax month: PAYE, employee’s and employer’s National Insurance, student loans, the Employment Allowance used, statutory pay recovered and the compensation, what is due, and the date it is due by. Quarterly payers are marked. As a table, and as an Excel file.
P60 and P45
A P60 for each employee at the year end, and a P45 for a leaver, drawn from the posted runs and the previous-employment figures, as PDFs for you to give the employee. The leaver is reported to HMRC on the FPS, through HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools or your RTI software; the P45 itself is for the employee, and no part of it is sent to HMRC.
The FPS figures
For each run, the figures a Full Payment Submission carries per employee, as a table and a CSV, and the facts an Employer Payment Summary needs for the month: the Employment Allowance claimed, statutory pay recovered, a month with no payment, and a limited company’s CIS deductions suffered as a subcontractor. You enter them in HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools or your RTI software, which files them. Mini Accounts sends nothing to HMRC. A contractor’s CIS300 figures are shown the same way, for HMRC’s CIS online service.
The journal
Posting a run writes one entry in the client’s books, in a series of its own: wages and salaries and directors’ salary to their cost heads, the employer’s National Insurance net of the Employment Allowance used, the employer’s pension contributions, and the three creditors — PAYE and NI payable, pension contributions payable, and net wages payable. Statutory pay recovered is credited against the wages cost, and the narration says so. A deduction typed on a payslip — a loan taken back, a subscription — is credited to deductions from pay until it is paid on.
Paying, on the bank statement
Wages paid to staff, PAYE and NI paid to HMRC, pension contributions paid to the scheme and CIS deductions paid to HMRC are four items on the plain-words list the bank statement is coded with, each clearing its payable. Wages paid in cash go through a business’s cash book as well; HMRC and the pension scheme are paid from the bank.
The payment list
One CSV a run for the bank’s bulk payment upload: sort code, name on the account, account number with its leading noughts, net pay, and a reference of the employer and the pay date — never the National Insurance number. Every bank’s template differs, so it is a file to map to yours.
Payslips by email
Each employee’s payslip as a draft email to the address on their record, the one-page PDF attached, saved as an .eml file that Outlook, Thunderbird or Apple Mail opens ready to send — from your own mail program, and nothing passes through our server. On a phone a payslip goes to the share sheet.
The CIS300 and the statements
For a contractor, the tax month’s figures by subcontractor — payments, materials, deducted, in the whole pounds and pence the return asks for — as a table and a CSV, and the payment and deduction statement each subcontractor deducted from is due within 14 days of the month end, as a PDF. For HMRC’s CIS online service; nothing is sent.
The un-posting of a run is allowed only for the latest posted run of the year, and a run is refused outside the books’ accounting period and while the accountant holds a business’s shared books — the same two rules every entry in Mini Accounts keeps.
What next
The dates, on the client’s calendar
A client with a payroll gets its PAYE rows on the compliance calendar, with the rule beside each date — PAYE is paid by the tax month whatever the pay frequencies are, so a weekly payroll and a monthly one share one set of dates. The payroll screen and the CIS screen each carry the reminders that are theirs.
- The FPS on or before the pay date, through HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools or your RTI software
- The EPS by the 19th of the following month where the Employment Allowance or a recovery is claimed, no employee was paid, or a limited company paid as a subcontractor suffered CIS deductions
- PAYE and National Insurance paid to HMRC by the 22nd (the 19th by post); the final FPS or EPS by 19 April; P60s to employees by 31 May
- The P11D, P11D(b) and Class 1A dates where the client record says benefits are provided — the P11D itself is prepared elsewhere
- The CIS300 and the subcontractors’ statements by the 19th, and the deductions paid with PAYE by the 22nd, where the client record says it pays subcontractors under CIS
Read this before you rely on it
What the payroll does not do
Said plainly, so a practice can decide where this fits beside the software it files with.
It does not submit RTI.
No FPS, no EPS, no EYU. Mini Accounts is not recognised by HMRC for RTI and has no connection to HMRC’s systems. The figures it gives you go into HMRC’s free Basic PAYE Tools or the RTI software you use today, and that software files them. The CIS300 is the same: the figures are given for HMRC’s CIS online service.
No pension provider files.
The contributions are worked out and posted, and the figures are on the run. The file a provider such as NEST or The People’s Pension takes is not produced; enter the figures on the provider’s own site.
No P11D, no attachment of earnings.
Benefits in kind and the P11D and P11D(b), and attachment of earnings orders are outside it. So is a holiday pay accrual: holiday pay is entered as pay when it is paid. CIS is worked for a contractor’s bills and a company subcontractor’s set-off, but the CIS300 is not submitted and a subcontractor is not verified from here — both are done on HMRC’s CIS online service.
The figures are the employer’s to check.
Mini Accounts applies HMRC’s published rates and thresholds for 2026-27 and 2025-26 as they were published. A payslip is only as right as the record behind it — the tax code, the category letter, the starter figures — and the employer, or the practice as its agent, checks each run before it is paid and filed. Nothing here is advice; see the Disclaimer.
Questions
What a practice asks about the payroll
Is it HMRC-recognised payroll software?
No. HMRC recognises software that has completed its formal recognition process for RTI, and Mini Accounts has not. It calculates the payroll and produces the figures; the FPS and EPS are filed from HMRC’s Basic PAYE Tools or your own RTI software.
Which tax years does it cover?
2026-27, and 2025-26 behind it, each with its own table of rates, thresholds and allowances. The pay date decides the year and the period.
Does it handle Scottish and Welsh tax codes?
Yes. An S code uses the Scottish bands and a C code the Welsh rate; everything else uses the rest-of-UK bands.
Can a director be paid through it?
Yes. A director’s National Insurance is worked on the annual earnings period, or on the alternative method with the true-up at the year end or on leaving, and the gross pay posts to the directors’ salary head.
Where do the payroll figures go in the accounts?
Each posted run is one journal in the client’s books, so the trial balance carries the wages, the employer’s National Insurance and pension contributions, and the three creditors. Payments to staff, HMRC and the pension scheme are coded on the bank statement to those creditors.
What if a run was wrong?
The latest posted run of the year can be un-posted: its journal is removed and the run goes back to draft to be corrected and posted again. An earlier run stays as it was filed, as it should.
Does it do CIS?
For a contractor, yes: subcontractors on the Suppliers screen with their UTR, verification number and deduction status, the deduction on each bill less the cost of materials, the month’s return figures and the statements. For a limited company that is a subcontractor, the deductions suffered are set against PAYE on the P32 and given for the EPS. It does not submit the CIS300 or verify a subcontractor; both are done on HMRC’s CIS online service.