If you need to change how often you pay an employee, do this:

• At the beginning of a new tax year

• Before you start to process pay

In either of these scenarios, you can swap the employee to any pay frequency you need.

See the section in this article "How to change an employee's pay cycle". 

It is possible to change during a tax year in some circumstances.

You must ensure tax and national insurance (NI) are calculated correctly for the employee.

The first pay run after changing the pay cycle must not overlap with the final pay run in the old pay cycle.

Make sure to change the employee to another pay cycle at a logical time.

For example: Don't move a monthly employee to a weekly pay cycle and pay outstanding monthly salary. They will pay more NI and PAYE than expected. 

 TIP: Unless it is the start of the tax year, an employee can only between a weekly and a monthly calendar. 

 TIP: It's not possible to move to or from a 4 weekly or 2 weekly pay cycle until the start of a new tax year. 

Weekly to monthly >

For example:

You want to switch an employee from weekly to monthly and want their first monthly wage to be August. The last weekly pay run you should process is week 17. You must not process any weekly pay runs within tax month 5 (6 August to 5 September).

If you’ve already processed weekly pay for the employee in tax month 5, continue to pay weekly until tax week 21.

After tax week 21, and before tax week 22, you can change the employee’s pay cycle to monthly. Begin processing them as a monthly employee in tax month 6.

The following table shows the last weekly pay run to process on the old pay cycle:

Last weekly pay run that can be processed before switching	First monthly payment
Week 53 (4 or 5 April)	Month 1: April
Week 4 (27 April – 3 May)	Month 2: May
Week 8 (25 May – 31 May)	Month 3: June
Week 13 (29 June – 5 July)	Month 4: July
Week 17 (27 July – 2 August)	Month 5: August
Week 21 (24 August – 30 August)	Month 6: September
Week 26 (28 September – 4 October)	Month 7: October
Week 30 (26 October – 1 November)	Month 8: November
Week 34 (23 November – 29 November)	Month 9: December
Week 39 (28 December – 3 January)	Month 10: January
Week 43 (25 January – 31 January)	Month 11: February
Week 47 (22 February – 28 February)	Month 12: March

Monthly to weekly >

The following table shows the last monthly pay run to process in the old pay cycle:

Last monthly pay run that can be processed before switching	First weekly payment
Month 1 April	Week 6 (11 May-17 May)
Month 2 May	Week 10 (8 June-14 June)
Month 3 June	Week 14 (6 July-12 July)
Month 4 July	Week 19 (10 August-16 August)
Month 5 August	Week 23 (7 September-13 September)
Month 6 September	Week 28 (12 October-18 October)
Month 7 October	Week 32 (9 November-15 November)
Month 8 November	Week 36 (7 December-13 December)
Month 9 December	Week 41 (11 January-17 January)
Month 10 January	Week 45 (8 February-14 February)
Month 11 February	Week 49 (8 March-14 March
Month 12 March	Week 1 (6 April-12 April)

If you have overlapping pay runs >

If you can't process the first pay run in the new pay cycle because it overlaps with a completed pay run in the old pay cycle, you can either: 

• Continue processing using the old pay cycle
  
  If you want to switch from weekly to monthly, it may be easier to continue processing using weekly. Do this until the next available monthly processing date.
• Wait until the new tax year
  
  The best time to change a pay cycle is at the start of the new tax year and before you process a pay run. This avoids the possibility of overlapping pay runs.

How change an employee’s pay cycle >

1. Go to Employees, then select the relevant employee to open their record.
2. On the Pay Cycle list, select the relevant pay frequency option.
3. Select Save.

 CAUTION: If you find the system doesn't let you change the frequency, the cause is either:

• You are trying to move the employee from a 2-weekly or 4-weekly payroll (not allowed in our system)
• You have overlapping tax periods - check the payroll tax calendar (link below) 

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• For reference, get our Payroll tax calendar 2023/2024 (opens in new tab)
• To remove unwanted pay calendars read our article Unused pay calendars (opens in new tab)
• Read the article Create and manage payments (opens in new tab)