Freeagent payroll questions.

[Hans Gruber]

I've been using BrightPay for many years, but I can get FreeAgent for free through NatWest.

I only have two employees, including myself. I pay myself a single annual salary. My other employee is paid on the 6th of each month for the previous calendar month.

This setup was very straightforward in BrightPay, but I can't see how to replicate it in FreeAgent.

For the monthly payroll, would I set the payslip date as 31st March for the work period, or 6th April when it's paid? If I use 31st March, FreeAgent wants to file it in the current tax year, even though in BrightPay I've already completed this year's payroll and the final payment was 6th March for February’s work.

I also can’t set anything up for the new tax year yet. FreeAgent says the next year will only become available on 6th April, but that’s the day I need to run payroll for the period 1–31 March, which gives me no time at all.

On top of that, I can’t even see how to set myself up properly. It keeps defaulting me to monthly pay, even though I’ve selected “infrequent pay” and set my hours to other.

Can anyone please help me figure this out?

 

[Newchodge]

You cannot set it up until you can access the payroll for 2026/27. When you can, the payroll frequency ends on the last day of the month and the paydate is 6th of the month, which will be Month 1 in the new financial year.

Even if your frequency is 'infrequent', you are required to tell HMRC what payments you received every month, so a nil return for you will be generated during the months you receive nothing. HMRC will not accept infrequent, it is either weekly, 2-weekly, 4-weekly, monthly or annually.

 

[Hans Gruber]

You cannot set it up until you can access the payroll for 2026/27. When you can, the payroll frequency ends on the last day of the month and the paydate is 6th of the month, which will be Month 1 in the new financial year.

Even if your frequency is 'infrequent', you are required to tell HMRC what payments you received every month, so a nil return for you will be generated during the months you receive nothing. HMRC will not accept infrequent, it is either weekly, 2-weekly, 4-weekly, monthly or annually.

Thanks for your reply.

Looking back through my BrightPay XML files from the past year, it seems nothing was ever submitted for me personally until I ran my own annual payroll. At that point a separate RTI submission was created. Is that because I’m set up as a director?

FreeAgent seems like it will work, but I’m really not impressed that I can’t even set up next year’s payroll until the exact day I’m supposed to run it and submit RTI. It leaves no breathing room at all.

EDIT: Also is there an option to enable employer allowance in FreeAgent?

 

[Newchodge]

Thanks for your reply.

Looking back through my BrightPay XML files from the past year, it seems nothing was ever submitted for me personally until I ran my own annual payroll. At that point a separate RTI submission was created. Is that because I’m set up as a director?

FreeAgent seems like it will work, but I’m really not impressed that I can’t even set up next year’s payroll until the exact day I’m supposed to run it and submit RTI. It leaves no breathing room at all.

EDIT: Also is there an option to enable employer allowance in FreeAgent?

Nothing would have been submitted for you personally if nether Brightpay nor HMRC had been told you had started as an employee.

I don't know how FreeAgent works, but every payroll system must be able to deal with employer allowance. You are entitled to claim provided the employee earned over the threshold on at least one pay period.

Choosing a pay date on the first day of the financial year will create this problem in a lot of software. The system I use has the new software available now, but some are not available until the last minute, possibly because recent governments have made very late changes - the Spring statement was only last week.

 

[Karimbo]

freeagent looks and feels incomplete, like you dont have full features. But actually everything is there, just hidden away in various places. I often have to click around the various pages to find specific settings I need.

I have done SMP in freeagent. claimed employment allowance, started people middle of financial year etc.

The only question I would have for you how do you do the transition from your exisiting payroll onto freeagent.

Middle of financial year might be difficult with IT calculations, so started from April might be a good shout.

Edit: I use freeagent.