Are you having difficulties following the instructions? Check the Year End FAQ... If you cannot find the answer you're looking for in the FAQ then please contact us (preferably by email unless you need an instant answer), or use the forum.

Some of the items outlined below don't apply to all users, and most of the points only take a minute or two of your time. We suggest that you consider printing this document out, and ticking off each completed item. Most of the items can be done in any order.

1. Enrol for HMRC PAYE online.  You need to register for a government gateway user ID and password (you may already have one of these for other reasons such as VAT online) and make sure that you have enrolled for PAYE online. You can do everything here. Here is some further HMRC information about the registration and enrolment process. We strongly suggest that you get this done now, because completing the process does involve a wait of a few days (HMRC has to send you a letter with your password in it, for security reasons).
2. Purchase a 12Pay premium licence. Once you have a premium licence you will be able to submit internet P14s/P35 virtually at the touch of a button. Not only does this save the time, effort, and worry associated with re-entering figures from 12Pay on different forms, but it is now compulsory to send P14/P35 returns to HMRC electronically!
3. Download and install the current release of 12Pay. You can do this any time before year end. You don't have to wait. 12Pay always uses appropriate deduction rates and bands and rules for the date of the payrolls being calculated.
4. Adjust NI in this employment where necessary. Did you take over an existing payroll that had already been processed manually or with different payroll software in the middle of the 2009-10 tax year? If you did then you should already have adjusted pay and tax in this employment (on the employee PAYE tab)  to get correct tax calculations from 12Pay,  You need to get the adjusted NI up to date before year-end, or you won't be able to submit valid P14s/P35 at year end. There is a video about this on the 12Pay website. If no other payroll software was used during the year then you don't need to worry about adjusting NI.
5. Register the names of all your 12Pay employer(s), and download their registration keys. You may be already registered on the 12Pay website, and probably you have registered your employer name(s) on the 12Pay website too. If you haven't then get that done, and retrieve the employer registration keys from the internet. This has the additional benefit that your company name won't keep reverting to "Unregistered Company" every time you start up the payroll software.
6. Make sure that your employee details are reasonably complete and up to date. Have you filled in everyone's NI number, gender, and birthday where it is known? Fill in their addresses on the personal tab of each employee if you know them.
7. Make sure that you have completed the main tab of the employer form in 12Pay.
   • Enter the address, tax office (the three digit number on correspondance from HMRC), tax reference (the string of numbers/letters that follow the 3 digit number on correspondance from HMRC), HMRC user ID, and HMRC password. When entering the tax office, reference, HMRC user ID, and HMRC password do not confuse O and 0, and do not confuse I, 1, or l.
   • Make the employer Report Year 2010, so that the reports and submissions you request will apply to the correct year.
   • Enter the contact details too. These will go on your internet submission, and they'll make it easier for HMRC to contact you if they have any questions.
8. Optionally, do a test transmission of the P14 and P35 data to HMRC. You can do a test transmission of your current data at any time once you have enrolled for PAYE online and completed the employer form. This has the dual benefits of familiarising you with the (simple) process of entering the year end data and reassuring you that when year end comes your live transmission will be acceptable.
9. Having difficulty getting the internet test submission to transmit successfully? Please read the "troubleshooting" information in the F1 online help in the software.

Once you reach year end, the procedure is as follows:

1. Run the final period of the year in every payroll. Be aware that this year if you have weekly payrolls that end on a monday there will be 53 weeks in the tax year (and likewise there is the possibility of 54 or 56 weeks in fortnightly or lunar payrolls that end on those days)
2. (Do this stage AFTER you have updated your 12Pay payroll software to at least Version 1.5.1) Once you are happy with the final period press the usual button at the bottom-right of the payroll form to advance to the next period. Note that in this case it will say => Year 2011. Normally this button would also increment employee tax codes for those employees with L suffixes, but this year there is no budget tax code increment.
3. Unlike a lot of other payroll software on the market the 12Pay software carefully stores each year's data so that you can still do your 2009-10 reports and submissions even though you've started processing 2010-11. The 12Pay software automatically uses appropriate calculations according the date of each payroll as it is calculated. This is particularly useful if you have weekly payrolls. You can carry on processing payrolls in 10-11 before you've submitted 09-10 to HMRC.
4. Print the reports on the employer form. Print the P11 (Tax), P11 (NI), and P32. You should find these reports quite easy to understand. Have a look at them to see if you think they look correct for your company, because this is the data that will be summarised electronically when you submit the P14s and P35.
5. Print the P60 report from the employer form. A p60 will be produced for every employee who was still employed at year end. Please note that P60s are not required for employees who have left. 12Pay prints P60s in colour on blank paper. If you have a lot of employees you can save coloured ink if you want to by selecting black and white printing in the Adobe Acrobat print dialog. You should give each employee their own P60, or send it through the post to them if that is more convenient.
6. Submit the year end data to HMRC. You have until the middle of May to do this, but don't delay. Get it done and out of the way! Then if you encounter a problem you won't be trying to solve that problem under time pressure. Press the "Internet P35 & P14" button on the employer form and read through the tabs on the P35 submission. Make sure that the "Test" box is NOT ticked. You will need to click the appropriate boxes on the Declaration tab, and everyone must tick the box that says: "I declare and certify that for the above tax year...forms P14 End of Year Summary for each employee or director for whom I was required to complete a form P11 Deductions Working Sheet (or equivalent record) during the year are all enclosed". Basically this is a declaration that you have told them about all of the employees. Once you've done a correct live submission you should get a message from the software telling you that the transmission succeeded. You should also get a "Success" email from HMRC.
7. Having difficulty getting the internet submission to transmit sucessfully? Please read the "troubleshooting" information in the F1 online help in the software.
8. Move the employer Report Year on to 2011. Once you've completed the internet submission and got all the reports that you need in 2009-10 you can move the Report Year on the employer form on to 2011 so that P11 and P32 you request subsequently will be for the new year. If you need any 2010 reports again you can just move the Report Year back again.

Please let us know if you have any suggestions about these procedures. . Let us know if you think there is anything more we should have said, or anything that we could have made clearer.