HMRC is now allowing agents (such as accountants who run your payroll) to make furlough claims for clients. However, it’s not necessarily all plain sailing. If you know you want to make a furlough claim, you need to start preparig now especially if you or your accountant does not have access to your business’ online PAYE account.
HMRC Furlough Portal is open
The HMRC portal is open and appears to be functioning this morning and indeed requires the straight input of the data HMRC has said that it needs with a declaration before submission. There is no room for errors or resubmissions.
To access it as a company from your HMRC governement gateway account,
- click on the PAYE service
- Click on either of the following links: “See all upcoming PAYE payments”, or “Annual Statements and payment record” or “All your overdue payments”
- From there click on the link “File Returns and forms” on the right hand side menu under the heading “PAYE for employers”
- You will see the link to the portal called “Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme” (third option down on the right hand side menu under the heading “PAYE”
There may be different versions of the HMRC company gateway. THe trick is to navigate to the “File returns and forms” link.
What you need to claim furlough grants
- A PAYE scheme up and running as at the end of February, and
- A business bank account, and
- An online PAYE account for your company that either you or your agent can access
Not all agents who run payroll have access to their client’s online PAYE account. If your agent doesn’t have access to your online PAYE account then you can either get access yourself or it may be possible for your agent to help you by applying for you although you will have to give your agent the explicit authority to do that as it isn’t what HMRC intended.
The codes you need
if you have registered your company for its own HMRC taxes accounts, then you just need to request access to PAYE services. To do that you will need your:
- PAYE reference code (like 123/AB12345)
- PAYE accounts office reference (like 123CD00123456)
If an accountant or payroll bureau does your payroll, they can provide you with these references.
Message for Moorgate Clients
All Moorgate clients who have payrolls have been contacted and we have had a discussion with HMRC which indicates that we will be able to process furlough claims for clients if they wish. This is what HMRC have told us bu remains to be verified when the portal is released to the public. Client payrolls for April are being run and furlough and normal pay calulated as the priority. Claims will be input after payroll have finalised your payrolls (which means after you have approved them). Our payroll team is understandably very busy at the moment. if you would like general advice about furloughing employees please do not call our payroll team but instead call or email your account representative or either Peter or Rachel. We will do our level best to make sure that our clients get their claims in as fast as possible and hopefully in time for the end of the month. Please respond to emails or calls from the payroll department as quickly as possible.
How to get an online PAYE account
- You need to register for HMRC online services which is almost the same as having a government gateway account
- When you set up a government gateway account by providing an email address
- A confirmation code is sent to the email address registered
- You have to enter your name
- Create a password – make a note of it somewhere
- Set up a recovery word
- You are then given a government gateway account ID (12 numbers long) – IMPORTANT – write this number down as it is impossible to get this back
- Once you have a government gateway account, you can request access to HMRC’s PAYE online service. If you have already applied under a different gateway account you will not be allowed to proceed and will have to call HMRC, which in the current circumstances, is going to take a very long time and may require more verification by post.
- HMRC then send you an activation code by post to the address that was registered. This normally takes 7-10 days but could be considerably delayed due to the outbreak.
- You have access to online PAYE services and can now apply for your furlough grant.