The BIG news is…

….that the furloughing portal has opened today with HMRC. This is the portal through which we can claim back the free monies that HMRC have promised under the furloughing scheme. We’ve been working all day trying to get as many claims posted onto the portal as possible. But please bare with us as we have A LOT! of clients that need this service and we are working through them as quickly as possible to try and get as many done before Wednesday evening.

Why Wednesday?

HMRC have said that for those claims submitted by Wednesday, they will try and get the payments through to you before the end of the month. Although, no promises. We have therefore prioritised some payrolls over others to process more quickly. This is where we know that the business really, really needs the cash. We know that everyone is hurting at the moment and needs this support and we will get to everyone but, from our conversations with businesses, we know that some businesses have more people depending on them for the cash than others and we are having to support them first. Please rest assured that all the furlough claims will get done.

Just to let you know..

…there is extra work in furloughing, over and above the normal payroll. This is not a simple upload; but involves doing the calculations for the amounts that can be claimed, setting up the employer account on the portal and manually making the claim for each employee. This means putting extra resource into payroll and so we will be charging a nominal sum for doing this work. The actual cost will depend on the size of the payroll and the number of people that we need to furlough. To give you an example, for a payroll with 5 people to furlough the additional cost will be about £60 for each furlough claim that we make for you. This will be added to your payroll invoices and if you find you need to spread these costs over a longer period then please get in touch and we can work out a payment plan together.

What if I do not want to pay these fees?

If you do not want to pay for this furloughing service then please let us know as soon as possible. We can then direct you to where you need to go to run the furlough claim yourself.

What else is new?

As a result of the recent extension in martial law the government have increased the period over which you can furlough employees by an extra month and it is now open until the end of June.