Payroll miscalculating NI

chris448 · ‎April 07, 2025

To paint the picture: I started running in payroll in Jan 25, it's just me as director, so fairly straightforward. I have all the usual settings for running director's payroll, I.e National Insurance letter-A, standard tax code, cumulative and annual, etc. I'm set up for irregular adhoc payments, based on weekly payments. So some weeks there's nothing and others have varying amounts. My aim is to keep the amounts under £9,100 threshold for employer's NI contributions as I'm sure many director's do. Between Jan and Mar this year, all the payroll payments I did make were absolutely fine, showing no contributions for either employer or employee as you'd expect (kept under £9100 total). Now comes the issue. I went to run a payrun the other day in the last week of the financial year (prior to Apr 5th), but it started calculating as if the amount I was entering was the amount paid every week... showing big tax and NI contributions. I did some investigation and this made sense as when entering £175 it showed zero contributions, but they started appearing at £176 (£175 is 9100/52 weeks). I thought possibly it was a quickbooks-ism for the last week of the tax year. However, now we're in the new tax year, with all cumulative totals reset, it's showing big contributions for amounts way under the 9100 annual allowance. Any ideas...?

Rob - RJBS

For the current tax year, the limit you can earn before employers NI has reduced to £5,000 p/a (£96 per week). Also check you have ticked the box in your details to show you are a director and you are using the annual method and not the alternative method on NI calculations.

Jessavell_A

QuickBooks calculates National Insurance (NI) based on your setup, Chris. Since you've mentioned that everything is set up correctly, I'll direct you to the appropriate department for assistance with correcting this issue.

I recommend contacting our QuickBooks Payroll Live Support team as they have the tools necessary to help you with your NI calculations. They can also guide you through the steps to resolve this problem. Here’s how to reach them:

Log in to your QuickBooks Online account.
Click on the (?) Help icon.
Use the QB Assistant by typing in your question or topic; provide you with solutions. Alternatively, you can use the Search tab to enter a keyword or topic of interest, which will yield a selection of related articles.
If you still need assistance, click on Contact Us to connect with an expert. Please note that you must enter a question or search for an article before the Contact Us option will be available.

For more details about our supporting ours, please visit this resource: QuickBooks Live Support hours.

With QuickBooks Online Payroll, you have the flexibility to decide how you want to manage your payroll taxes and filings. If you're set up to handle them electronically (e-pay and e-file), you can pay and file your federal, state, and local taxes directly through QuickBooks.

If you have additional questions about handling your tax calculations or any QuickBooks-related concerns, please let me know by using the Reply button below, and I'll respond promptly. Have a good one.

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Payroll miscalculating NI

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