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Process week 53 for your payroll in QuickBooks Online

SOLVEDby QuickBooks12Updated March 27, 2023

Depending on the day you pay your employees, you may end up with a week 53 when you run your final payroll.

This will normally apply to you if you pay your employees weekly, fortnightly, or on a four-weekly basis, and the last pay date falls on April 5 of the current tax year.

You will not have a week 53 if you pay your employees monthly, so you can schedule your payroll as normal.

Do I have a week 53?

The 2022/23 tax year's Week 53 is on Wednesday, April 5. If you pay employees on a Wednesday this year, you'll have Week 53.

If you use Advanced Payroll, you'll have a week 53 if you last processed payroll for your:

  • fortnightly paid employees on Wednesday 22 March, 2023.
  • four-weekly paid employees on Wednesday 8 March, 2023.

These are the only times you must process a Week 53. Processing for all subsequent pay dates falls into the following tax year.

When you process a week 53, tax is calculated on a week 1/month 1 basis. This ignores past periods where tax was calculated on a cumulative basis. This means it only considers what the employee(s) earned in this period, not what they earned in previous periods.

NI is calculated the same way as every other period. It's calculated based on what the employees earn in a period, and it doesn't calculate based on year-to-date amounts.

If you have directors on the payroll, and their calculation is on the alternative method, then there is an annual recalculation. This recalculation will be automatic when you reach week 52.

If there is a week 53 (director is paid on 5 April), another calculation will happen. This doesn't apply to directors using the annual NIC method.

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