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tobyjohnson
April 6, 2021
Solved

Close a UK payroll

  • April 6, 2021
  • 1 reply
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I would like to close payroll for a UK business. As far as I can tell from similar questions asked previously, the response has been 'Quickbooks can't do this - you need to use HMRC's Basic PAYE Tool'. As a side point, I really don't think that's an adequate response for commercial payroll software. A bit of feedback to your management: my trust in intuit and likelyhood of using yourselves in future is significantly impacted by being told you can't expect intuit software to handle common scenarios in a business lifecycle. But so be it.

 

What I need is for the 'you can do it in HMRC's tool' advice to be unpacked a little. HMRC's tool doesn't appear to have any tools to import from Quickbooks. So how can I do a submission without manually recreating all historical payroll data in their tool? Or is the suggestion that I should mark employees as leavers in Quickbooks, run a payroll to generate their P45s, then somehow run something in the HMRC tool that doesn't have any actual payroll data?

Best answer by ReymondO

Quickbooks have you fixed this issue yet?


Thanks for joining the thread, @JamesW2.

 

Currently, the option to close a scheme is only available for Advanced payroll.

If you're using a Standard payroll, I'd recommend using the HMRC's Basic PAYE Tools. This software allows you to perform most payroll tasks, including working out the tax and National Insurance for your employees and sending this information to HMRC.

 

If you're using the Advanced payroll, I recommend contacting our Payroll Support Team, as they have the specific tools to pull up your account in a secure account. Also, they can perform a screen-sharing session to help guide you in closing the PAYE scheme. 

 

Simply log in to your QBO account and click the Help button at the top-right corner. Then, select Contact Us to talk with a live agent. Or fill out this form to chat with an expert. Ensure to review their support hours to know when agents are available.

 

To help you manage employees, payroll settings, process payroll, and reports, here's our QuickBooks Online Advanced Payroll hub you can check.
 

Don't hesitate to drop a comment below if you have other questions. I'm more than happy to help. Take care!

1 reply

Rubielyn_J
Rubielyn_J
April 6, 2021

Hi there, @tobyjohnson. Our goal is to make QuickBooks as user-friendly as possible for business owners to achieve a better work/life balance. 

 

As much as I'd love to look into this further, I'm unable to open your account and guide you enter historical payroll data. Thus, let me route you to the right support who are experts in this field.

 

Here's how: 

 

  1. Log in to your QuickBooks Online company.
  2. Go to the Help (?) icon.
  3. Choose the Payroll button below.
  4. Click QuickBooks Standard Payroll Hub or QuickBooks Advanced Payroll Hub as required. 
  5. If you want to contact support directly, type Chat in the field and use Enter. 
  6. Click Live chat.
  7. Enter your question, then select Let's talk.
  8. Select Start a chat with a support expert.

 

After you enter the data, you can set up payroll properly to generate the P45s. 

 

Also, make sure to run your payroll reports from time to time to have a quick view of the transactions that you've created so far. Use this resource to get more details on how you can manage each report: Run payroll reports.

 

Drop your comments below if you have other questions or concerns. I'll be here to ensure your success. Stay safe and healthy always.

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CaptNoglos
May 31, 2021

I have the same question, but the provided answer does not seem to help.

 

I have been running my payroll all through Quickbooks.  My Company is closing, and I need to Close the Payroll on Quickbooks and with HMRC, so that I don't need to pay the subscription, and don't need to keep sending the monthly NIL returns prompted by QB.   The HMRC Website says click a box to close the scheme, that option is not in the QB Software.   How do I proceed?

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trianglet
May 31, 2021

I wouldn't waste your time with Quickbooks support on this one - the official line is remains "go and find another piece of accounting software to do this and we will offer you no guidance as to what the process should be". Unbelievable that a software company with 6 billion revenue would consider this acceptable but hey ho.

I tried downloading HMRC's Basic Tools, but it just wasn't clear to me what I should be doing. In the end, here's what I did:
- Marked the employees as leavers in Quickbooks
- Run the payroll / generated P45s

- Called HMRC and explained the situation

Their response was - "are you telling me that a commercial accounting platform seriously thinks that all payroll continues until the end of time?" They sympathized and agreed they would mark the payroll as closed on my behalf.

Hopefully that works for you.

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