More information form HMRC on the Wage Support Portal
The details of what information needs to be completed in the new portal has been published:
- you can claim for employees that were employed as of 19 March 2020 and were on your PAYE payroll on or before that date; this means that you will have made an RTI submission notifying us of payment of that employee on or before 19 March 2020 For Clearways Accountants clients this means on payroll at the end of February 2020.
- the online claim service will be launched on GOV.UK on 20 April 2020 – please do not try to access it before this date as it won’t be available.
- the only way to make a claim is online – the service should be simple to use and any support you need available on GOV.UK; this will include help with calculating the amount you can claim.
- you can make the claim yourself even if you usually use an agent. Clearways Accountants will make this claim for you if we run your payroll. We will contact you if we are not set up as your PAYE agent.
- claims will be paid within 6 working days; any queries should be directed to your agent, representative or our webchat service.
In addition to the information in our previous email, you will need to have the following before 20 April 2020:
The following information for each furloughed employee you will be claiming for:
- Name
- National Insurance number
- Claim period and claim amount
- PAYE/employee number (optional)
Please note:
- Agents authorised to act for you on PAYE matters can make the claim on your behalf using their ID and password.
- You will need to tell your agent which UK bank account you want the grant to be paid into, in order to ensure funds are paid as quickly as possible to you.
Clearways Accountants will have name, NI number and claim amount but we will need clients to confirm the claim period and the bank account details.
A quick note about the date of furlough….
For some companies this will be obvious, for example all football stopped on 13 March 2020 and so for outside broadcast workers all TV work stopped that day. For other employees it may be less obvious. A number of companies use the services of a spouse or older child to provide company administration services, for example, social media feeds, billing and collection and bookkeeping. At 1st March nothing had been closed down, schools, shops, sports events and festivals were still open and taking place and people were still going on holidays. Please consider the correct date that furlough took place as the employee can have done nothing after that date but should have been working before the furlough date; you should have issued the furlough notice by now.
For Clearways Accountants clients, please confirm the information required for the claim to be made by 20th April. If you are not a client, you will need to contact your PAYE agent or make the claim yourself.