New job - getting paid

[daimbarsatemydogsbone]

I started a new job on 8th March. It's a monthly paid job, paid on or around 21st.
I didn't get paid on 21st, so asked why.
Apparently the cutoff for payroll is 7th, so I was never going to be paid - not that anyone thought to tell me.
What makes this worse is that they plan to pay the whole amount in April - 45 days after I start, and they will treat it as if it was all earned in April which will mean I will overpay NI.
I know this is all very first world - but I really don't see why I should lose out due to their ludicrous cutoff and refusal to process my pay in the period when it was earned, in accordance with the law.

I used a number of online calculators including the HMRC one using up to date rates and the previous ones. No combination of splitting or totalling my pay makes the NI as high as the value they have deducted, so it’s not the rate increase.

This is not correct and in my experience rarely applies. In the current as in most of the many jobs I've had, on payday you are paid for the whole calendar month (or part of it if a starter/leaver) - the period for which you are paid has nothing to do with cutoff.

@daimbarsatemydogsbone

have you not had a payslip? Legally that have to provide one on or before payday.

if you do I’d be happy for you to PM it to me and I could see if anything screams out.

Good Employers take paying staff seriously.

we pay last Friday of the month. My boss came to see me yesterday to check we were ok to pay Thursday as it’s a BH weekend approaching and that way we had a day to sort people out before the weekend of any issues.

whilst it’s only 100 people to pay it’s a significant amount of work for 2 people so I prioritise it.

Friday, not yesterday obviously 🙄

"Payroll love to pretend it’s highly complex. It’s not."

I disagree. A very knowledgeable skilled payroller is like gold dust.

It's definitely quite complex if you understand all the ins and outs of Tax, NI, Court orders, Student Loans, BACs, RTI, Pensions auto enrolment, IR35 etc. If you have outsourced it then you're not a proper payroller though :)

Thanks - I have a payslip but I can't PM it to you - I have posted a redacted version though. Annoyingly they don't show the value for Ni'able pay so it's hard to see how they have done it - but nothing I can plug into any of the online calculators (including the HMRC one) can make the NI deduction as high as it is.

I cannot think of anything else that would push up my Ni'able pay - and even if there was, it should surely be on the payslip?

I have had a quick look and no I cannot deduce where they have got the NI from, but I might get a pen and paper out and take a harder look.

I just wanted to say regarding your pay being processed in the wrong period. As you know your Income tax will adjust itself and you seem more concerned about the NI. But this may have worked in your favour, rather than having a monthly allowance and then pay at 12% you have had no monthly allowance but you have paid at 3.25% on account of it being added onto April. The incorrect payment periods will certainly disadvantage some people, but it can advantage other people and I think you fall into the latter bucket (apologies if I have it wrong, I have only done it in my head but just wanted to flag that it is not always bad).

Just to reiterate, whilst theoretically the NI could be to your advantage, I still don’t know how they have come up with this particular number.

Yes, thank you, I realised after all my vociferous comments upthread that it's probably be advantageous to have all NI done in this period - but not the way they've done it.

Well I have written down your numbers now and I am going to say that yes in theory on your salary, you ought to benefit on NI by receiving March pay in April. On the other hand you did not get full benefit of your 2021/22 personal allowance for income tax but this will correct itself. Also you have overpaid income tax this month because of the back pay but that will correct itself too.

But no I haven’t come up with anything that would produce £1035 of NI, I make it £725.

*2021/22 income tax will correct itself via a refund not through payroll of course

Sadly very normal. My old company was the same - I started on the 1st and missed payroll so didn’t get paid for almost 7 weeks. Honestly the hardest time financially but nothing they could do!

They seem to have taken the worst possible combination of possibilities. The 2 months appear to have been calculated separately, but based on the 22/23 rates, rather than the March element on the 21/22 rates.

If they had of processed the March payroll in March you would have paid approx £430, but have paid an extra £60. (Approx £490).

Seems they were clued up enough to spilt the months, but did not fully consider the change in tax year.

Figures (ballpark) as per pic…

@WeeFinbar i agree with your assessment - whilst not done the calcs your theory makes sense.

it’s not how I’d have done it but for the sake of £60 ish quid I’d probably put it behind me.

Well that’s very magnanimous but after waiting 45 days to get paid I don’t see why I should write off £60 to their incompetence. Thanks folks I appreciate the confirmation. Whatever way you cast it, they have done it wrongly.

I'm surprised they didn't tell you about payroll cut off. Before I started my job I read in the paperwork about the cut off date and changed my leaving date at my previous job so I could get paid for the first month.

Pretty shit you are going to over pay NI in April. There must be a way around that.

Thanks @WeeFinbar I couldn’t see a way to get to their figures. I don’t believe what they have done is correct but presumably HMRC won’t mind as it’s in their favour.

They didn’t tell me about anything - I could log on for the first day because no-one had bothered to set up my login and they acted as if it was my fault/my problem. I am going to quit this organisation for one that actually operates like an actual employer. The amount of stuff I am having to do/figure out on my own I might as well be self employed.

Couldn’t log on of course

I was without a log in for weeks so I feel your incompetence pain. Except my previous organisation was worse (if you can believe it) so I just rolled with it (although if it cost me money I would have been less generous).

It would be good to review your review your income tax position too and if they record the March element on your 21/22 P60. It might not matter in the grand scheme as rates have not changed, but it depends on what your prior salary, pension contributions, childcare clawback, etc came to. If your salary was lower in 21/22 you may have some of the basic rate tax band to use.

Similarly, you seem to now be on £85k pa with no pension. If you were to get a bonus or other taxable benefits, this £5k could easily land in the +£100k bracket where you start to lose your personal allowance and have a marginal tax rate of about 60%.