Hi David,

HMRC state that the FPS must be submitted on or before the date your employees receive their pay. In Sage 50 Payroll, when processing your employees' pay, you must set your process date to this date also. Therefore, if you submit an FPS after this date, HMRC want to know why.

In Sage 50 Payroll for tax year 2014/2015, a new option has been introduced to help HMRC understand why an FPS may be submitted late. When you submit the FPS, Sage 50 Payroll checks your system date and compares it to the last updated date in your software. If the system date is after the last updated date, before you can continue you must select a late reason from a drop-down menu.

HMRC use the reason supplied to help determine whether any late filing penalties are due, so it's important that you select the correct reason. If you're unsure of what reason to use, you should contact the HMRC Employer Helpline on 0300 200 3200. For more information, please refer to www.hmrc.gov.uk

If you find yourself in a position where changing your software process/pay date to align with the date your employees are paid means you either miss a tax period or you try and process an employee twice in the same period, please refer to the Workarounds tab of Ask Sage article 29962.

This message can also incorrectly appear if you're using the Advance Pay option. If this is the case, in this instance you should choose None and continue with the FPS as normal. HMRC can see from the process date within the FPS that it is not a late submission.

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