If your work accidentally paid you a huge bonus would you tell them?

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I've been paid a big bonus in my last pay and I know my company has made mistake - I changed roles, and I don't know what they've done but it's along the lines of them paying me my full years sales commission, despite already being paid it quarterly throughout the year. It's about 2 months salary. I work for a huge company with complex bonus/sales commission rules and I'm pretty confident they would never notice or ask for the money back if I said nothing. The money would be nice, since I've already quit to be a full time carer for my disabled son and going forward things will be very tight (I'm just working out my notice). I had to take 6 months unpaid leave already this year to care for him, another reason why the money would be handy and also why I'm confident I'm not entitled to the bonus!

I'm a good honest person so I've already told HR and they are looking into it. I assume they will rectify their mistake and ask for the money back, although I suppose there's a chance the admin will be more hassle than it's worth and they'll let me keep it! It did make me wonder though, how many people would be this honest/stupid?

They can put you back on the payroll to correct it, if it is incorrect. They are able to amend a previously submitted payroll (HMRC link), in which case the tax and NI will show on record what it was always supposed to and it shouldn't mess anything up.

I'm hoping like a PP said, they'll tell you it's right numerous times and you get to keep it OP, but you've definitely done the right thing in telling them. I would too. I'd be too stressed thinking about them coming after me!

Have you double checked the detailed payslip? Did you usually get formal commission calculations for you to check yourself?

It could be a combination of earned commissions that had been accruing but not paid, plus holiday pay for any unused leave, so here's hoping you get to keep it!

I would tell my employer - otherwise it's surely dishonest and a kind of theft.

This happened to a couple of colleagues, they were paid their bonuses twice. It was at least £10k each and the company never noticed. That was over 5 years ago now and they kept schtum. (One of them told me a few months ago when we both left the company)

Please make sure you do everything in writing and keep it all.

This happened to me a few years ago and it caused hassles for ages with tax, child benefit and tax credits at the time and the following year.

That said I still have a print out of the screen shot of the balance - my account has never and will never look so good as it did those few days!!

It's definitely my bonus payment and not something else. I can see roughly how it's happened and I can see that it was checked by HR/finance and they've marked it as checked/correct but I can see where they've made a mistake. It's a log if money to me (5 figures) but a drop in the ocean to my company (many billions in turnover). They're looking into so I do expect them to rectify it, only question will be how I pay it back and how much it screws up my tax etc.

As PP have stated, this should be picked up in an audit.
However, you are leaving, so anyone analysing the cost centre/financials etc, would most likely believe it is a payout of some sort (redundancy/ accrued holiday etc) because people in finance really do not have time to check every cost in every cost centre etc.
when prepping the payroll data it might look a bit odd but then they'll see a leaving date and make a quick assumption.
And in my experience when Payroll/HR make mistakes like that, they try their best to cover it up! The HMRC corrections will be an absolute nightmare for them!
Even auditors only check a sample of payments and are allowed limited personnel data.
It's good that you've reported it, but I'd be quite surprised if they sort this before your leave date.
If it's a big company, and this isn't a really crazy amount, even if it is picked up at the next audit. The chances are, they'll write it off.

Something similar happened to me about 20 years ago. I got paid twice for 6 months of mat leave.
I told my boss, who was the managing partner and he said to keep it as he really didn’t want to reopen the previous years accounts to fix it.

I work for a very large company and this happened to me - I told them straight away, I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had kept it.

Having said that, being an accountant, I know that it would have been picked up quickly. As a former auditor, I very much doubt it would have been spotted by the auditors, due to payroll being a relatively low risk area.

Again you just transfer it back to them, you aren’t going to need a payment plan because you’ve not spent the money, and then they rectify payroll for your tax on their end. I don’t understand why you keep wondering how you’ll be able to pay it back.

What exactly do some people on here think an auditor does?

I think it would slip through as you changed roles.

You have done the right thjng reporting though.

I am the point of contact for pay queries where I work. It's amazing how people will call on payday if they think they're a few pounds short, but somehow "never check" when it's over. No one believes that they didn't notice that big over payment. I'd definitely report it because I wouldn't want anyone thinking I'd tried to steal deliberately.

The auditors at my place go through everything with a fine tooth comb. They chase every paper trail and will trace everything, including payments to former employees, who will then be chased for repayment, via bailiff's if necessary.
We had a former employee who ' borrowed ' a sum of money from the petty cash, the auditors traced it back to him.
He ended up in court for theft and fraud.
That is what the auditors do.

I take it you are not an accountant at a multinational. Because actually, yes, yes they would be monitoring monthly cost centre expense and would be investigating anomalies. So would the cost centre owner, this would be a critical part of the financial controls that they have in place. I am genuinely dumbfounded that people believe a major employer does not have financial control in place.

@MissTerri 🙂

Auditors don't analyse every single transaction. That would take way too long. They take samples and test them. That's why if she was a higher paid employee her pay might be chosen. If not it might slip through the net. Whether she's left or not is irrelevant.

@Aprilx

It depends on lots of things doesn't it. How much monthly pay fluctuates according to starters/leavers/bonuses/commissions/overtime etc. if everyone is on a basic salary then yes it will stand out.

Also employee numbers. If there's only ten in the cost centre it will stand out. If there's hundreds it wouldn't.

In my experience managers wouldn't see pay breakdown by pay elements/pay slip details, just totals per person so it wouldn't necessarily be noticeable on their reports.

So many variables 😊

This happened to me a few years ago, but it was only about 1.5k. I had switched jobs and was getting a severance check from another job so I honestly didn't notice until months later. They never asked for it. I'm sure it was not enough money to come up on their radar.

Do you actually want a professional answer or not. 🙄. This has been my job for thirty years, I am not commenting to be argumentative.

In my professional opinion, this would be discovered in a multinational company within two weeks of month end, because the costs would be reported by cost centre and cost centre managers would be held responsible for managing costs. The cost centre manger would be required to review their costs versus budget and then also the finance team would review costs versus budget. And then in a multinational, a regional or group function would review as well.

As a matter of course, no the cost centre manager would not receive a pay breakdown every month. But they would receive the cost centre costs and they would query any anomalies and if they don’t understand the costs, they would request a more detailed breakdown. And this would definitely be an anomaly. And as I say, I have been responsible for finance departments with a $billion + budget on salary costs. I would not expect this to go unnoticed. There are processes to detect errors.

Actually I give up.

OP just keep it, nobody will notice. There you go, that is the answer mumsnet wants.

You have done the right thing by telling them. You also are right to be concerned about the impact it could have on you for tax, ni etc. if it pushes you over the thresholds then it is not as simple as just getting you to give them a cheque. The payroll team should issue you with a corrected payslip and adjust your records before the end of this tax year to show your true earnings.

Yes this is what bothers me - I only have one more pay cheque to come, so not much time for them to sort it out!

I doubt this would be picked up where I work (large, rich, global company).

Not a popular answer but, for me, if what had happened felt like it was covered by plausible deniability, I wouldn’t flag it. It would mean nothing to the organisation so I’d feel no guilt. I’m sure I’d feel different if I worked for a small company.

I’ve always fessed up if I’ve been overpaid, even of it just a couple of hours from day one. I’m an awful liar and the worry of getting caught would stress me out too much.

Despite that few years ago I was caught out in that I was overpaid small increments each month for a year but hadn’t noticed because it was in line with the annual pay increase so I just thought it was the new hourly rate. A year down the line they told me they realised they’d been paying me the wrong rate and wanted it all back and were going to take the several hundred pounds back as a lump sum the next month! My manager had to speak with payroll and explain that as it was their cock up they needed to accept a payment plan because as a single parent I couldn’t afford to take that hit. It was so stressful. I’m now hyper vigilant about checking my pay and declaring any perceived faults as I don’t want to be in that position again. I even work out the pay rise figures now to be safe. Last time I declared overpayment (latest payrise) they assured me I definitely wasn’t overpaid I’d just mis-calculated the new hourly rate but I’d rather double check than get stung down the line.

Given OP's comment that this is a 5 figure sum in a company that turns over billions, I suspect the auditors won't care as it will be beneath their audit materiality level. Chances of them selecting that particularly salary for testing are very, very unlikely.

Realistically, it's more likely to be spotted at departmental level as part of a management reporting process, but even so, if OP is part of a department that has a decent number of staff, even a 5 figure bonus/commission at this level might not show up much of a % variance.

Update: it turns out a few people got incorrect bonus payments, so it's likely my company would have noticed even if I hadn't told them. It's taken them this long to investigate and they've now come back with a calculation which means I owe them back about half what they paid me. I think the calculations probably wrong and I actually owe them more, but it's so complicated I can't really be bothered to argue any more. At least it hopefully means I don't have to literally pay them, they can just not pay me for my last month if work as long as they sort the payroll in time. I'll try & get a proper updated pay slip etc

A big corporate company will be able to account for every single penny, that's what makes them successful. Disclose the error and work it out from there.