During these difficult times, we’re 100% committed to supporting all clients and our team is working hard to ensure that our guidance remains clear, reducing unnecessary stress and inspiring optimism in the future.

Our team have already seen a number of calls and emails from clients, asking for more information on what is required for processing over the coming months in many different circumstances and what to do when guidance is constantly changing.

Talk Staff provides an outsourced payroll service for over 100 employers throughout the UK and includes support for different sized accountancy practices too.  This includes calculating, processing and issuing pay reports to employers within industries ranging from retail, through to manufacturing and care.  The service that we provide is essential to keeping the economy moving.

Authorised Contact(s)

Payroll information should still be uploaded via the portal in the same way.  If the usual point of contact is either on furlough or other leave of absence, you will need to submit an Employer Portal Setup Form via the system and this can be obtained from our team by emailing [email protected] in the first instance, otherwise please call them on 0333 358 3414.

Furloughed Workers

*** CLICK HERE FOR FLEXIBLE FURLOUGH SCHEME CHANGES.

Where all or some workers are furloughed, we are recommending that clients add additional columns using the terminology as:

• furloughed salary; or
• furloughed pay

This will help us identify the pay which is related to the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and easy for our team to calculate when making any submissions using our new reclaim packages (see reclaiming from HMRC).

For more information on how to calculate the 80% earnings for your employees, please follow this link:

• Calculating Payroll for Furloughed Workers

Sick Pay (SSP) + Isolation Notes

For employees who are currently affected by COVID-19, either as an individual or their household, you are able to claim back the SSP from HMRC.  The first 3 waiting days can be paid and you ideally obtain an isolation note from the employee, or if under 7 days then a Self Certificate is acceptable.

To assist our team, please include either in the payroll notes or on the file submission:

• Reason for sickness
• Confirmation of their usual pattern of working (e.g. Monday to Friday)
• Start and end date

For more information on paying sickness during the coronavirus pandemic, please follow this link:

• Calculating Sick Pay for Coronavirus + Isolation Notes
  

Reclaiming SSP & Furlough Pay from HMRC

It’s expected on 20th April 2020, HMRC will release details of their new portal for reclaiming this money and is outside of the usual payroll processing services that you may be contracted into with us.

We are currently working on offering two packages (subject to change) to assist with this:

• Standard Claim (£79.00), where only 80% is paid with minimum auto-enrolment contributions made and employees remain furloughed until the scheme comes to an end
• Advanced Claim (£POA), where the employer chooses to pay above 80% and/or auto-enrolment contributions are higher than the minimum requirement and/or employees are furloughed on a rotation basis

It is important, where possible, that you continue to pay employees inline with the guidance and then reclaim this at a later date.