Company benefits are a taxable income for the employees, in addition to salary and bonuses.
Payrolling benefits allows employers to run benefit taxes through payroll each month, via PAYE.
Such benefits can be:
Private healthcare insurance
Critical illness cover
Company cars
Phone subsidies
Non-Payrolled benefits are:
Living accommodation provided by the employer
Interest-free or low-interest loans
*the two lists of benefits are not exhaustive
Non-payrolled benefits must be reported with a P11D form at the end of the year.
Some advantages of payrolling benefits are:
Reduced admin – no need to issue P11D forms at year-end, saving time and reducing the risk of manual error.
Transparency for employees - they’ll see the cash value of their benefits on their pay slip and pay due tax every time they receive them.
Accurate taxation - the correct tax is paid regularly, minimising PAYE tax code errors and underpaid tax liabilities.
How do I start payrolling benefits?
To start payrolling benefits, you must register for this with the HMRC, before the beginning of the tax year. If you don’t do this, you'll need to submit electronic P11Ds for every employee, at the end of the tax year.
After this, you can update your company benefits status in Tide Payroll. Simply go to:
Admin > Payroll > Payroll Settings > Payroll > Benefits > Update and confirm that you're registered to payroll benefits > Save.
You can now add your payrolled benefits in Tide Payroll, and assign them to your team.
To assign a benefit to an employee, go to:
Admin > Payroll > View Team > select an employee > Work & Pay > Benefits > select the benefit type and add details > Save.
You must record the benefit details for each employee who’ll be receiving it. This ensures accurate tracking and proper taxation through payroll or reporting.
These details include description, value and how much the employee will contribute towards this benefit. The contribution won’t be deducted from their pay slip – this could be an out-of-pocket payment made directly to the benefit provider, such as for covering dependents.
Once you set this up, it’s all automated:
Benefits will be populated in your payroll every month
Tide Payroll will work out the due tax and deductions
What is Made Good?
When you’re adding benefits for an employee, you’ll see the ‘Made Good’ field on the screen. Populate this field when you need to record payments made outside of payroll for taxable benefits reporting. It tracks contributions employees make directly (e.g., adding a partner to a medical plan) but does not reduce the taxable amount on their pay slip.
For example, if an employee has a £200 benefit and pays £100 directly, the full £200 remains taxable income, and the £100 Made Good is recorded for reporting purposes only.
You can use the 'Made Good' field to track and report taxable benefits to HMRC, ensuring compliance with P11D forms or payrolling requirements.
Learn more about this here.
