If you are paying on time for the current period, always remember to use your 13-character Accounts Office reference. You can find this on your Payment Advice Sheet (top right-hand corner) issued with your payroll reports each period. To be on time you have until the 22nd of each month following the relevant tax period to make payment to HMRC. For example, if your payroll processing date is the 20th of May 2022 (which falls into the tax period 6th May-5th June) you have until the 22nd of June to make payment on time. This applies to online payments only. Otherwise, the cut-off date for HMRC payments is the 19th of the month.
If for some reason your payment to HMRC is late you need to add 4 extra characters to the end of your Accounts Office reference. This is to make sure HMRC allocates your payment correctly to your PAYE account. The final 4 characters represent the year and the month your payment is for. You will need to enter all 17 characters without any spaces:
- Characters 14 and 15 reflect the tax year — for example, ‘23’ for the tax year from 6 April 2022 to 5 April 2023
- Characters 16 and 17 reflect the tax month. Your pay periods April-March on your Payment Advice Sheet represent tax months 01-12 (01-13 if paying 4-weekly).
For example, if your payment for May mentioned in the above example is late you must add the 4 extra characters ‘2302’ to the end of your Accounts Office reference. Because each tax period has a different payment reference number it is important to make separate payments for each period.
Please note you only have to add the extra 4 digits if your payment to HMRC is late. Any late payment will accrue interest on your HMRC account so it is important to make payment on time. For further help and support please do not hesitate to contact the Payroll Team.