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Issue a P45 form in QuickBooks Payroll

by Intuit19 Updated 4 weeks ago

Learn more about how to email, download and issue P45 forms in QuickBooks Payroll. When an employee leaves or retires from your business, it's essential that you complete a P45 form in QuickBooks to help ensure accurate recording of their tax and National Insurance contributions.

This article is for customers who use QuickBooks Online Core, Advanced, and Standard Payroll.

Before you begin

 A P45 is given to employees who leave before the tax year ends and shows their earnings and tax up to their leaving date. Once you terminate an employee, their P45 form will be available in the HMRC/AE section of their employee profile. Before accessing the P45, make sure that you've made all the final payments to the employee and finalised their payslip. This will help ensure that the P45 includes accurate year-to-date figures.

For official guidance, visit the government P45 guide.

Note: A P45 is given to employees when they leave before the tax year ends. If they are still employed on 5th April, you will need to issue a P60 form instead.

Run the final payroll

Once you reach the employee’s final payroll, you’ll need to send the FPS (Full Payment Submission) to let HMRC know that you’ve paid the employee. If you’ve already paid the employee, the next FPS submission will include all the final details.

You can submit your Full Payment Submission (FPS) to HMRC directly from either QuickBooks Payroll Core or Payroll Advanced.


Issue a P45 form

Follow the steps below to issue a P45 form based on your Payroll subscription:

Step 1: Mark the employee as a leaver

  1. Go to Payroll and select Employees (Take me there). 
  2. Select the name of the employee to open the profile. 
  3. Select Actions Image Alt Text, then select Change status
  4. From the Status dropdown ▼, select Terminated
  5. Select the Leave date and the Reason for status change.
  6. Select Save

The P45 form will be available once you run their last payroll.

Step 2: Give the employee their P45 form

  • The P45 form closes the employment record. 
  • If the employee returns, you’ll need to add them as a new employee with a new payroll ID. 
  • For more help, see the HMRC link on what to do when an employee leaves.
  1. Go to Payroll and select Employees (Take me there). 
  2. From the Active Employees Image Alt Text, select Inactive Employees.
  3. Select your employee. 
  4. Select the Documents tab. 
  5. Next to P45, select View. This will open the form in a new tab.
  6. Download the form and send it to your employee.

Email or download a P45 form

  1. Go to Payroll, and select Employees.
  2. Select the employee name to open the profile.
    Tip: If you can't find their name in the list, use the filter and select All employees.
  3. Select HMRC/AE forms.
  4. Select View to open the P45 form.
  5. You can choose to Email the form to the employee or Download it.
  6. If you want to send an email to the employee with their P45 as an attachment, select Send notification. You can also re-send a notification if needed.

Step 1: Mark an employee as a leaver

Once an employee is marked as a leaver and submitted to HMRC, it's not possible to reactivate them in QuickBooks. You'll need to create a new employee profile, which will create a new payroll ID for that employee.

  1. Go to Payroll and select Payroll.
  2. Select the employee's name to open their profile.
  3. Select Actions and choose Mark as leaver.
  4. Provide the leaving date and reasons for leaving in the Details of leaving section.
  5. Select Save.

The P45 form will be available in the Documents tab of the employee's profile after you run their last payroll.

Unmark the "leaver" status for an employee:

If an employee is mistakenly marked as a leaver, you can easily undo this by unmarking them. This will let you to include the employee in your next payroll run. To do this:

  1. Select Actions.
  2. Select Edit leaver status.
  3. Select Unmark employee as a leaver. The employee's profile is active again.
  4. Save.

Step 2: Run final payroll and send FPS

Once you process the final payroll for the employee who is leaving, QuickBooks will notify you that it's their last payroll.

Step 3: Give the employee their P45

Creating a P45 marks the end of an employee's employment record. If the employee returns, you'll need to add them again in QuickBooks with a new payroll ID.

  • You can find the employee's P45 form in the Documents section of their employee profile.
  • If you can't see the leaver's profile in the Employees tab, select Active employees and switch it to list Leavers.
  • See the official government guidance on what to do when an employee leaves.

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