Edit employees in QuickBooks Online Standard Payroll

All the information you enter here is needed for payroll calculations and required by HMRC. For example, the employee's gender determines whether they qualify for statutory maternity leave, the employee's age determines eligibility for auto enrolment and so on.

• Title
• Legal first name and last name (not nicknames or familiar name, for example, David not Dave). Note: The last name will be used to generate a password for the employee to view their payslips. Alternatively, you can invite your employee to QuickBooks Workforce.
• Gender
• Date of birth
• Address, town or city and postcode
• Email address (this will be used to send the employee's payslips if QuickBooks Workforce is not selected). You can reinvite the employee to Workforce from here if you need to.

Make sure you fill in all the necessary fields in this section to complete setup successfully. If any of the fields are left empty then the employee record will show as incomplete.

• Enter the Start date the employee started working for you.
• Enter the employee's Payroll ID. This is a unique number for the employee and is required by HMRC to identify an employee during RTI (Real Time Information) submissions. This is included on the FPS (Full Payment Submission) submitted to HMRC every payday.
• If you’re Switching from another payroll provider, we recommend keeping your Payroll ID the same to avoid reporting errors to HMRC. QuickBooks will create a unique Payroll ID for any new employees.

• Choose the following if the employee is Paid irregularly. This is needed for RTI reporting requirements:
  • Select No if you pay this employee on a pay schedule, for example, every week or every month.
  • Select Yes if this employee is not going to be paid for at least three months. For example, seasonal employees, employees on unpaid maternity leave, employees on long term unpaid sick leave or employees who for any reason will not be paid for a period of three months or more. HMRC checks if an employee has not been paid for a certain period of time and will treat them as having left the employment. To avoid this from happening, set this indicator on every FPS submitted for the employee.
• For the Pay type, select Salary if you’ll be paying this employee a salary or select Hourly if you pay this employee by the hour.
• Enter the Pay rate amount that you pay this employee, for the year if they're on a salary or per hour if they're paid an hourly rate.
• Select the Pay method, whether you pay your employees by bank transfer, cash or cheque.
• Monday to Friday is the default Typical working days, but you can change this if the contracted working week is different.
• Enter the number Contracted hours per week the employee is set to work in their employment contract.

• Enter the Tax code for the employee. For a new employee, use the tax code on their P45 form unless it's in a different tax year. To learn more about tax codes, see letters in your tax code: what they mean and tax code notices.
• Choose the Tax calculation method. Select Cumulative if the tax is calculated on a year-to-date basis, or Week 1/Month 1 if it is on a pay-by-pay basis. This can be found on a new employee's P45, and sometimes the letter X is used as a suffix to show it's Week 1/Month 1.
• Enter the employee's National Insurance number –NI for short.
• Enter NI letter that is applicable to the employee (NI Letter A is the most common). If you enter another letter, you need evidence to prove that the employee is on that letter (for example, NI letter C is for employees over the State Pension Age or SPA, so a birth certificate is needed to confirm the NI letter). For more about NI letters, see NI letters and what they mean.
  • NI letter changes mid-tax year are only supported for regular employees. This isn't supported only for company directors. When this happens, there are two options:
    1. Move to Advanced Payroll where you can change the NI letter for the director at the time when the change was made.
    2. Remain on the 'old' NI letter in Standard Payroll and change it only at the beginning of the new tax year. You will then need to contact HMRC to let them know that they will only be changing the NI letter at the beginning of the tax year, then at year end HMRC will automatically calculate any NI adjustments needed for the director.
• Fill in the Starter declaration. This is required for new employees. Select whether this is the employee's first job this year, their only job, or if they have another job or pension.
• Select Yes if the employee is a Company director.
• Select if the employee has to repay Student loan.
  • A new employee’s P45 indicates whether you need to deduct student loan payments. If there is no P45, then use the Starter checklist to help determine if your employee has a student loan and which plan they’re on.
  • If it's not clear which plan type the employee is on, then Plan type 1 is the default choice. HMRC can also send a SL1 Form confirming the Plan type from which student loan payments should be deducted. For the differences in the repayment plan types and other questions about student loans, see Student loan repayments.

• Select this if the employee has to pay a Postgraduate loan.

If you have a workplace pension scheme or have a staging date, but have not run payroll for an employee, you’ll see “Worker Category: Not assessed.” Until we assess your employee’s eligibility, we don’t provide the option to auto enrol them into a pension scheme.

If you’ve moved from another software and you have employees already in a pension scheme, you can add their details before running payroll. You'll need to select the worker category that best describes how your employee was enrolled into the pension scheme.

• Eligible job holder – is an employee who meets the age and wage criteria, and has been automatically enrolled into a pensions scheme. Both the employee and employer contribute to the pension.
• Non-eligible job holder – is an employee who has met only one of either the age or wage criteria, and have asked to join the pensions scheme. Both the employee and employer contribute to the pension.
• Entitled worker – is an employee who hasn't met either the age or wage criteria, and have asked to join the pension scheme. The employee must contribute but the employer can choose to contribute to the pension.

Once you have selected one of the above options, you can then select if the employee is:

• Active in workplace pension – they are in a pension scheme and regular contributions occur.
• Inactive in a workplace pension – they are in a pension scheme but the contributions do not occur every pay run as they don't earn enough. The pension scheme is using qualified earnings, so a lower and upper limit is applied.
• Auto enrolment postponed – the employee was assessed but auto enrolment was postponed for up to 3 months.
• None of the above – usually if the employee was in a pension prior to auto enrolment.

If you're enrolled in a workplace pensions scheme and have run payroll, and the employee has met the age and wage criteria (salary is above the equivalent of £10,000 per annum for the pay frequency and is at least 22 years old), the employee will automatically be enrolled in the pension.

• Enrolled in pension - use this slider to opt the employee out of the pension or to cease their membership.
• Employee's contribution - select if the employee’s contribution will be a % or a £ amount of the employee’s gross salary, and the amount to contribute for each payroll run.
• Employer contribution - select if the employer’s contribution will be a % or a £ amount of the employee’s gross salary, and the amount to contribute for each payroll run.

Note: You won’t see this section if your company hasn’t set up a workplace pension scheme or doesn’t have a staging date. See Workplace pensions in QuickBooks.

QuickBooks Standard Payroll supports weekly and monthly pay schedules. You can have both weekly and monthly pay schedules, or a multiple schedules with the same pay frequency. Read here to learn more about setting up pay schedules for each employee.

The pay history section allows you to add any pay accumulated during the current tax year. However once the data is added and you run your first pay run,  you won't be able to edit this data.

To access your pay history go to Payroll > Pay History.

If the employee worked for another employer before you during the current tax year, switch on the Other employers have paid the employee since 6 April option. You will need the following information from their P45:

• Total pay to date – the amount the employee has been paid since 6 April.
• Total tax to date – the amount of tax the employee has paid since 6 April.

Note: P45 information from a previous employer will not show on the payslip from your current employer.

If you’re switching from another payroll in the middle of the tax year, switch on the Your business has already paid employees since 6 April option.

Use their last payslip, and their P11 Working Deductions sheet or details of their last FPS submission, to get the following information for payments already made to your employee for this tax year:

• Total taxable pay to date
• Total tax paid to date
• Total pay subject to NI (usually the same as taxable pay)
• Total NI paid by the employee to date
• Total NI paid by your business to date
• NI letter
• Earnings at LEL (Lower Earnings Limit), you can find employee contributions from the P11 or latest FPS submission
• LEL to PT (Primary Threshold), find this on the P11 or latest FPS submission
• PT to UEL (Upper Earnings Limit), find this on the P11 or latest FPS submission
• Other pays if applicable such as
  • SPP (Statutory Paternity Pay) or SMP (Statutory Maternity Pay) paid to date
  • Employee and employer pension contributions
  • Total student loans and postgraduate loans paid to date