Understanding payroll corrections

When you select Complete Pay Run this confirms that:

The pay for that period is correct and completed
This is the amount paid to the employees

We send all the details to HMRC straight away even if you've not paid your employees yet.

Sometimes you'll need to make changes to your pay run after completing it. This could be because:

You've forgotten to add something, such as an expense claim or some overtime
You've entered the wrong amount, such as an employee's salary amount
You need to change the date something happened. Such as entering an employee's absence into the wrong pay period

If these changes affect an employee's net pay, you can choose whether to show the difference in the next pay run.

If you show it in the next pay run, you will see Correction appear in the Edit PAY section.

We work out the PAYE and NI for you. The correction appears as a Net value.

Find the reason for the correction

If you are not sure why a correction is showing, you need to find which pay period changed.

You can use reports saved from the completed pay periods if you have them. You can also view the Full Payment Submission (FPS).

Use saved copies of reports

If you have saved a report from a pay run, you can use it to check for differences with the reports. Look for differences from before and after making changes to the pay run.

We recommend saving copies of the reports below when you complete a pay run:

Detailed report
Payslip summary
Employee net pay

In the example below we will use the Detailed report to see the Employee Net Pay.

Open the saved report you have for the most recent pay period.
Re-run the report for the same period by selecting Pay Runs. Select the pay run you want to report on.
Select Open the detailed report.
Compare the net pay on both copies of your reports.

If the net pay does not match exactly, this is the period where the change happened.

NOTE: You may need to compare the reports for each pay period until you find the difference.

You can find a list of other payslip and employee net pay reports below.

Report name	How to run this report
Detailed report	Select Pay Runs then on the right side of the screen select the pay run you want to report on. Towards the top left corner of the screen select open the detailed report.
Payslip Summary	Select Reporting then Payslip Summary. Use the drop-downs to select the correct Tax Year, Frequency and Period you want to re-run the report for. Select Generate. You can create a PDF copy of the report by selecting Export then PDF.
Employee Net Pay	Select Reporting then Employee Net Pay. Use the drop-downs to select the correct Tax Year, Frequency and Period you want to re-run the report for. Select Generate. You can create a PDF copy of the report by selecting Export then PDF.

When you save a report, it doesn't update with the changes made in that pay run, until you run the report again.

Don't have saved reports

To see the values from the FPS, view it as an .xml file:

Select Pay Runs then select the pay run you want to check.
In the HMRC Real Time Information (RTI) Scheme section select View FPS then Download XML.

The file saves to your downloads folder.The name is from the date of the submission. For example: FPS-2021-2022-Month2.xml.

If you're using Windows, open the file using Internet Explorer or Edge.
Select Ctrl+F on your keyboard. Enter the employee's surname into the Find box.

The employee name highlights.
Compare the amount in the <TaxablePay> field to your employee's payslip.

We recommend comparing the <TaxablePay> field as the FPS doesn't include employee Net Pay.

In the example above, the taxable pay on the FPS.xml is 1500. The value on the employee's payslip is 1200 gross. This means the employee's salary has changed by 300.

As the salary is less and it is a gross payment (subject to tax and NI), the correction is only 192. The system makes the relevant corrections for tax and NI.

If you don't have saved reports, you can use the FPS submission file.

Your choices when you make a correction

When you need to make a correction, you then have choices. Your choices depend on what has happened to the pay run in Sage Payroll and what has happened in reality.

You can choose whether you want to show the difference in net pay in the next pay run:

Give the employee the difference in net pay the next time you pay them. Choose Show difference in the next pay run
The employee already received the difference in net pay in the corrected pay run. Choose Do not show difference in the next pay run

How corrections affect other parts of your payroll

Corrections may also have an impact on parts of your payroll, such as:

Employee Payslips
Pension submissions
Journals posted to your Accounts software

Learn what steps you need to take for each of these scenarios.

Read our article How payroll corrections affect other parts of your payroll (opens in new tab).

How to make a correction

Get help making changes to a completed pay run.

Read our article Correct a completed pay run (opens in new tab).

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