With more than three decades of experience of supporting businesses manage their finances, our team of Chartered Accountants have plenty of experience when it comes to producing a Full Payment Submission (FPS).

A Full Payment Submission, or FPS, is an integral part of any company’s bookkeeping. 

This document must be supplied to HMRC continually throughout the year. Fail to submit your FPS within the correct time window, and you’ll be having to explain why.

In this blog, we discuss what an FPS is, what it entails and when it should be submitted.

Read on for our guide to Full Payment Submission.

What is a Full Payment Submission?

Every time an employer pays their employees, they must complete a Full Payment Submission (FPS) and submit it to HMRC.

An FPS provides HMRC information about everybody on the company’s payroll and details how much money is owed to HMRC each pay cycle.

Note: every time an employee’s information changes, HMRC’s records should be updated in real time. This is where payroll software really comes into its own.

Let’s look more closely at the information included on an FPS.

What information is included on a Full Payment Submission?

HMRC provide detail on what should be included on an FPS.

The key points to be aware of are:

  • Employer information: Ensure HMRC has accurate and up-to-date information on your business
  • Employee information: An FPS must include an employee’s personal details including their NI number and tax code
  • Salary information: Details of all employees’ salaries should be included – even those being paid less than £120 per week
  • Workforce changes: Has anyone joined or left the workforce since the last FPS was submitted?
  • Tax information: The amount of tax and NI contributions from each employee, and the total owed by the employer to HMRC must be detailed.

There are instances where additional details should be included on a Full Payment Submission. 

These include when an employee goes on jury service, reaches state pension age, or becomes a director.

For a full list of all information potentially required on an FPS, or to discuss your companies FPS, speak to an accountant.

When should an FPS be submitted to HMRC?

An FPS should be submitted on or before payday.

Note: even if the date of payday changes due to a Bank Holiday, the usual payday date should be included on an FPS.

If you pay your employees weekly, you’ll need to submit 52 Full Payment Submissions over the course of year. Monthly, and it would be 12 times.

It is worth being aware that UK tax months run from the 6th of a month to the subsequent 5th – and details of how much you owe in tax and NI contributions will be published by HMRC on the 12th.

While you can submit an FPS in advance, submitting too early may result in needing to amend the FPS to reflect changes to employee details.

Try to avoid late submission of an FPS – but there are a couple of valid situations for doing so, detailed by HMRC.

Getting support for a Full Payment Submission

If you’re not using payroll software already, we’d strongly advise doing so. 

It makes the process of submitting an FPS a lot more straightforward and is preferred by HMRC. Additionally, if you have any concerns at all around Full Payment Submission our friendly team are on hand to help.