Further guidance announced on the Job Retention Scheme

Plans to begin altering the Job Retention Scheme (JRS) from July onwards following the lightened lockdown measures are in full swing.

In conjunction with these plans which you can find more on in our blog here, the Government has now announced further guidance for those looking to reclaim.

What do you do if there is an error in your furlough claim?

If you’ve made an error when claiming for a furloughed employee that has resulted in an over-claimed amount, the additional funds must be paid back to HMRC.

Following the recent guidance, businesses are now able to easily rectify the over-payment in their next claim.

There is now an option when submitting a claim that asks whether you need to adjust the amount down to ‘take account of a previous error’.

Your new claim will now be adjusted to make up for the incorrect payment and no further actions are required apart for keeping a record of the adjustment for six years.

For those who have made an error but do not plan to submit any more claims, it’s currently somewhat unclear.

However, HMRC is working on a process that will allow you to notify them of an error and initiate a payback but this is currently not finalised.

Further guidance will be released once the new process is ready.

How do you claim for workers with pay periods across calendar months?

This is one of the more complex calculations for those looking to claim, however, the Government has clarified the process.

Those submitting the claim will have to split the calculations for those pay periods crossing the end of a calendar month.

For example, if employees are paid on 16^th August for work done between 16^th July – 15th August, it can’t all be claimed in a single calendar month.

Instead, you must claim from 1^st-31^st July but only include payments for the work done between 16^th–31 July.

The pay from the 1^st-15^th August must then later be claimed in August.

Looking for more guidance and support?

As more information and guidance becomes available, we’ll be updating our support hub which you can find here.

Also, for those looking to plan for the ‘next normal’, check out our informative content here to discover how your business can adapt.

Additionally, we want to assure all IRIS Payroll customers that we are continually updating our solutions in line with the guidance to support you throughout this period.