Employer Payment Summary (EPS) - Frequently asked questions

Every time you pay your employees, you must notify HMRC by sending an FPS on or before the pay date. You may not have tax and National Insurance (NI) to pay in the period or currently have no active employees. You must still notify HMRC that no payment is due. To do this you send a nil payment EPS at the end of the tax month.

What if the P32 payment amount is negative? >

If the P32 payment amount is negative, you can specify how you want to receive the refund.

You can use the HMRC Refunds panel to set your preferred refund method.

You can choose either:

Bank Transfer

If you choose this option, you can then enter your bank details, which HMRC use to pay you the refund.

TIP: Please ensure the bank information you enter here is correct. HMRC will update these details in your record. HMRC will only issue a refund if the values they hold on record for your business say one is due.

If you also subscribe to Accounting, the refund amount also posts to your accounts. This happens when you complete the payroll submission. When you actually receive the refund, reconcile this amount against the earlier posting.

P32 Adjustment

An EPS to HMRC isn't always required. For example, if there are no statutory payments to recover. Any refund appears on the P32 report in the next tax reporting period. It offsets against your HMRC liability in that period.

TIP: Please note you can’t offset the final P32 submission of the tax year! Please contact HMRC to arrange this refund.

In the next P32 tax reporting period, postings are made to your accounts. This reflects both the offset amount and the P32 payment amount.

What if I submit an EPS containing an error? >

You can’t resubmit an EPS submission. You may enter the wrong value for CIS Deductions suffered. You correct this at the end of the next P32 tax reporting period. Enter the correct YTD value within the next EPS you submit.

A wrong date or value in the P32 payment doesn’t need correcting. This information isn’t part of the HMRC submission. If you use Accounting, the totals post to your accounts and you need to correct these yourself.

Sometimes, HMRC asks you to resubmit an earlier EPS. You must do this using HMRC Basic Tools (opens in new tab).

What if I correct a pay run in a previous tax reporting period? >

The P32 Employer Payment Record shows any corrections made to earlier periods.

For example, You complete month 1 pay run and then edit some pay. If the EPS for this period has not been sent, the edited values will update for month one..

If the EPS has been sent, the changes will reflect in the next period.

In month 2, the month 1 NI and PAYE changes are in the P32 report. Changes are in a section called Amendments from corrections made in earlier periods.

You may have offset a previous reclaim of your P32 liability in an earlier month from future P32s. You see this in the HMRC Refunds brought forward from previous P32 periods section.

What if the wrong reporting frequency is set up? >

You can’t change your reporting frequency once you start to process pay for the current tax year. You would need to either wait until the end of the tax year or, restart and reprocess payroll. Ensure you select the correct reporting frequency.

Why doesn’t the NI Allowance brought forward value reduce? >

You may forget to record the P32 payment for a previous tax reporting period. This can cause issues with the NI Allowance brought forward value.

If you print the P32 report in month 2, but haven’t recorded the P32 payment for month 1. The NI Allowance Brought forward value still shows as £5000. It should show £5000 minus the NI value reclaimed in month 1.

This can result in the NI allowance being over-claimed. To avoid this, you must record the P32 payment for month 1 (submit the EPS) and then print the P32 report for month 2.

What do I do if HMRC wants me to resend an earlier EPS? >

Sometimes, HMRC asks you to resubmit an EPS from a previous payroll period.

You can't use payroll to resend an EPS.

You must do this using HMRC's free software.

Download from their website HMRC Basic Tools (opens in new tab).

HMRC provides support for this software themselves.