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Adding an employee and running your first pay period

Add the employee, run the pay period, FPS goes to HMRC automatically.

Payroll lives at Payroll in the Tax menu. Before you can run it, you need at least one employee and an active Payroll add-on on your plan.

Add the Payroll add-on

If you haven't already, open Packages and add the Payroll & HR module. The base price is £5/month plus £2 per employee per month — you can see the per-seat preview before confirming. Add-ons activate immediately and the per-seat count updates automatically when you add or remove employees.

Add an employee

Payroll → Employees → Add employee asks for:

  • Full name, date of birth, gender.
  • National Insurance number (or leave blank if you're sending an NVR — see below).
  • Home address (HMRC requires it).
  • Tax code — usually 1257L for the 2026/27 tax year. New starters without a P45 get a default code from their starter declaration (A/B/C).
  • NI category — A for most adult employees; check HMRC's table if unsure.
  • Start date + payroll ID (any unique reference).
  • Pay basis — monthly hourly or salaried; pay frequency.

If you didn't supply a NINO, go to NVR and submit a NINO Verification Request — HMRC returns the correct NINO within a few days.

Run a pay period

Payroll → Pay periods → New pay period opens the form for the next period:

  1. The form lists every active employee with their default pay.
  2. Adjust amounts for the period (bonuses, overtime, sick pay, deductions).
  3. Save. We compute PAYE, employee NI, employer NI, student loan and pension contributions for each employee, plus the totals.
  4. Click Submit FPS to HMRC. We send the Full Payment Submission and store the IRmark receipt against the period.
  5. Print or email each employee their payslip — links are on the period detail page.

That's it. The FPS receipt is your audit-immune proof of submission to HMRC. Repeat each pay period.

Last updated 5/30/2026.

Adding an employee and running your first pay period · AccountantUK help