Close a UK payroll

Hi there, @tobyjohnson. Our goal is to make QuickBooks as user-friendly as possible for business owners to achieve a better work/life balance. 

As much as I'd love to look into this further, I'm unable to open your account and guide you enter historical payroll data. Thus, let me route you to the right support who are experts in this field.

Here's how: 

1. Log in to your QuickBooks Online company.
2. Go to the Help (?) icon.
3. Choose the Payroll button below.
4. Click QuickBooks Standard Payroll Hub or QuickBooks Advanced Payroll Hub as required. 
5. If you want to contact support directly, type Chat in the field and use Enter. 
6. Click Live chat.
7. Enter your question, then select Let's talk.
8. Select Start a chat with a support expert.

After you enter the data, you can set up payroll properly to generate the P45s. 

Also, make sure to run your payroll reports from time to time to have a quick view of the transactions that you've created so far. Use this resource to get more details on how you can manage each report: Run payroll reports.

Drop your comments below if you have other questions or concerns. I'll be here to ensure your success. Stay safe and healthy always.

I have the same question, but the provided answer does not seem to help.

I have been running my payroll all through Quickbooks.  My Company is closing, and I need to Close the Payroll on Quickbooks and with HMRC, so that I don't need to pay the subscription, and don't need to keep sending the monthly NIL returns prompted by QB.   The HMRC Website says click a box to close the scheme, that option is not in the QB Software.   How do I proceed?

I wouldn't waste your time with Quickbooks support on this one - the official line is remains "go and find another piece of accounting software to do this and we will offer you no guidance as to what the process should be". Unbelievable that a software company with 6 billion revenue would consider this acceptable but hey ho.

I tried downloading HMRC's Basic Tools, but it just wasn't clear to me what I should be doing. In the end, here's what I did:
- Marked the employees as leavers in Quickbooks
- Run the payroll / generated P45s

- Called HMRC and explained the situation

Their response was - "are you telling me that a commercial accounting platform seriously thinks that all payroll continues until the end of time?" They sympathized and agreed they would mark the payroll as closed on my behalf.

Hopefully that works for you.

Thanks for the suggestion.   Might well do that.   In the meantime I've Downloaded HMRC Basic Tools.  There is an option to close a scheme, but it seems likely that I need to do the next EPS through this App with no employees before I will be able to close the scheme.  HBT does not seem to know there are no employees even though all the Co Data is with HMRC.

Turning to QB it is deeply frustrating that QB Payroll as a paid for service does not offer the ability to tell HMRC that you want to close the Scheme.

Quickbooks have you fixed this issue yet?

I have just wasted hours on this, absolutely shocking Quickbooks does not offer option  to close Payroll.

Having to completely refill in all the details again in basic Paye which I gave up with in the end. I have marked my staff as leavers on quickbooks but no support on this from Quickbooks is appalling. 

I was trying to close payroll to change to a ltd company to set up a new payroll scheme so not as if Quickbooks would be losing out - i think time to check other accounting options

I recommend you do this - after using Quickbooks for 5 years, this is not the only shocking example of half-baked product design, and lazy 'go and try some other software / fix it yourself' responses from their support team.

Quickbooks - any update on this issue ?  Can you now close a payroll scheme with HMR&C and QB in Standard Payroll ?

Hello Neil43, this has to be done through basic tools, on HMRC website .

My understanding is that if I'm on Standard Payroll I can't close my payroll account via Quickbooks but if I'm on Advanced Payroll I can close my payroll account via Quickbooks - so the Quickbooks system has the ability to do it, you just choose not to make that available to Standard Payroll customers.  So, if I'm a Standard Payroll customer can I upgrade to an Advanced Payroll customer?  If so, will all of my data transfer across to the Advanced Payroll system?  If so, will I then be able to close down my payroll account?  How much will it cost me to upgrade from Standard to Advanced payroll?

Thank you for joining the thread, @Lynnr59.

Let me clarify things and help you close your QuickBooks payroll account.

The information shared above is about closing a payroll scheme, and not a payroll account. If you're trying to close your payroll scheme, you can do it in your Standard payroll (without upgrading to Advanced payroll) using the HMRC's Basic PAYE Tools.

However, if you're trying to close or cancel your QuickBooks payroll account, you don't also need to upgrade to Advanced payroll. You can go to the Billing and Subscription menu and cancel your payroll subscription from there. Here's how:

1. Sign in to your QuickBooks Online (QBO) account.
2. Click the Gear icon, then select Account and Settings.
3. Go to the Billing & Subscription menu.
4. In the Payroll section, select Cancel.
5. Fill out the online cancellation form to complete the process.

Just in case you want to run payroll reports in your QBO account, you can check out this article for more guidance: Run reports in QuickBooks Online. Although your payroll subscription is canceled, you can still access your payroll data and export it to Excel.

Come back to this post if you have other concerns o follow-up questions about this. The Community team and I are always here to help.

Let me clarify for you @Mark_R .  Your basic PAYE product does NOT allow anyone to close down a payroll and you must instead use the downloadable (and free ) HMRC tool. This tool is not part of Quickbooks so it is not a glib "solution" to the problem as you seem to suggest. Question: What does Quickbooks Standard Payroll actually give me then for the money I paid as for the 1 or 2 employees I have I might as well as used the HMRC tool all along since your tool gives me nothing more and I can close down the payroll using the HMRC tool without having to add loads of additional information into a tool I am now only having to use cos your software does not do it.

Honestly how hard is this to understand! 

I have looked at so many threads about Quickbooks rip-off refusal to allow users to stop PAYE through Standard Payroll. I now have to use the HMRC Tool. I will cancel my Quickbooks now.

Hi Karlshah, we're sorry to hear that you're thinking of leaving due to this. We appreciate it can be an inconvenience running the final payroll using HMRC's Basic Tools, and we've passed this on as a development point for consideration with our team.