WFM UK: Printing or Emailing P45s

Overview

Once an employee leaves an employment they must be given a P45 form. Employers are required to do so by law as it is a record of the employee's pay and tax deductions within their employment. It also shows when the employee was last paid, the gross pay they received in the tax year until they stopped working for the employer, along with any tax deducted from it.

Key Points 

• An employee must receive only one P45 when they leave an employment
• Any employees that are deceased do not receive a P45 (the system will not allow them to be sent)

Actions for an Employer to Enable Employees to Receive their P45 via Email (EP45) 

• The employee must have their P45 delivery method set to Email
• For all new employees to have their P45 delivery method set to Email, the company pay basis must also have the P45 delivery method set to Email
• The employee must have a personal email address

Actions for an Employer to Enable Employees to Receive a Paper P45 

• The employee must have their P45 delivery method set to Paper
• For all new employees to have their P45 delivery method set to Paper, the company pay basis must also have the P45 delivery method set to paper
• If using P45 forms supplied by HMRC then the global setting within Portal Settings: Use P45 forms supplied by HMRC must be set to yes (box ticked)
• If using plain A4 paper then the same setting: Use P45 forms supplied by HMRC must be set to no (box not ticked)
• The user who prints the paper P45s must have the user access setting P45 Administration set to yes (box ticked)

P45 Administration

To manually start the process of printing or emailing P45s: 

• Go to Payroll Module > HMRC Data Exchange > P45 Administration

Fig.1 – P45 Administration 

• Select the Company, Pay Basis, and Pay Run that P45s are being processed for
• Select the required Delivery Method
  • ​All will process all P45s via email and paper
  • Paper will process all P45s via paper
  • Email will process all P45s via email
• Dealt With? 
  • Yes will return employees who have already received P45
  • No will return employees who need a P45

Any column or combination of columns of Leaving Date, Pay Date and Payrun Closed date can be highlighted. This is a warning that those employees could be due a final payment. It is still possible to process P45s for these employees, but it will remove them from the following pay run.
 

Fig.2 – P45 Administration Highlighting 

• The Print check box against employee records needs to be ticked for P45s to be processed for both emailing and printing
• The Select All or Deselect All buttons will update the Print check boxes accordingly for multiple employees in the list#
• Once all employees have been selected to receive their P45, selecting the Process button will start the process 

Fig.3 – Processing P45s 

• All employees set to Paper will have a PDF P45 generated that will then need to be printed and delivered to them
• All employees set to Email will have their P45 sent to the personal email address held in their HR record 

Automated Email P45s

When approving a payroll, a request will be added to queue P45s for sending. 

• To see the queued P45s, got to Payroll Module > HMRC Data Exchange> P45 Administration
• Select List Queued Email Leave P45 Runs

Fig.4 – List Queued Email Leaver P45 Runs Hyperlink
 

Fig.5 – List Queued Email Leaver P45 Runs

A daily service will run to check the dates that email P45s are to be processed (Pay Date). On this date if there are email P45s to be processed they will automatically be sent out.

If any employees are set to Paper then these will be ignored and will need their P45 delivery method updating to Email or be processed manually through the P45 Administration screen.

Updating P45 Delivery Method for All Employees on a Pay Basis

To update the P45 Delivery Method on all employee records:

• Go to Payroll > Administration > Company Setup

• Select a Company and then View Pay Basis

• Select a Pay Basis 

• Chose a P45 Delivery Method and Save to apply the setting

All employees associated to that pay basis will have their P45 Delivery Method updated accordingly, whether it is Email, Paper or ESS.
 

 
Fig.6 – P45 Delivery Method setting within a Pay Basis

It will still be possible to have individual employees on different Delivery Methods by updating them individually.

• Go to Payroll > Employees > Employee List

• Search for and select an Employee

• Go to Employee Payroll Info > Pay & Tax Details

• Update the P45 Delivery Method accordingly

‘ESS’ as a Delivery Method

A Global Setting exists which allows ESS (Employee Self Service) to be selected as a P45 Delivery Method at both Pay Basis and employee level.

• Go to Payroll > Administration > Global Settings > Portal Settings

• Tick the box next to P45s in ESS

• Save to apply the setting 

Fig.7 – New P45s in ESS Global Setting

Please Note: Only individuals using ESS will be able to apply this Global Setting.