Furlough CJRS Guidance |
  
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Furlough CJRS Guidance |
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This release provides users with an optional tool to assist with calculating and paying furloughed pay to employees who have been placed on furlough under the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.
Our development team began work on this new facility when the scheme was first announced on 23rd March and is based upon the guidance available from Gov.uk at the time. As this is a unique situation, the guidance is still evolving and changes at short notice and so our team will continue to develop Site Manager as more information becomes available.
Please note: This is an optional tool for those who wish to use it, as with all aspects of CleanLink, it is your responsibility to ensure data being used and submitted is accurate. This Guidance Document has been produced to assist users with the process, we strongly recommend following the document.
This document aims to explain what changes have been made and provide step by step instructions of how to use this new facility. The processes allow the user to identify those employees who are being furloughed and when the pay cycle is calculated the system will pay the selected employees appropriately based on their pay history unless you have chosen to override the system’s calculation with a figure of your own (For example, this may be necessary for TUPE employees where the pay history is not available in the system).
1. Set up Furlough Parameters – choose Furlough Pay Item, Furlough Site and Status Code, you may also be asked to set Pay Item mapping.
2. Select which employees are on Furlough with start and end dates and which remain as normal working staff.
3. Check Average Pay Figures and amend if necessary using ‘Override Pay Amount’ field.
4. Open Pay Cycle as normal.
5. Make amendments to NON Furlough employees only.
6. Calculate Pay Cycle for 1st time – Furlough employees will have Regular Pay removed and replaced with Furlough Pay only. NON Furlough employees will calculate as normal.
7. Reset Calculation and enter any additional pay for Furloughed employees (E.g. hours worked on Sites before/after furlough period, amend Furlough Pay amount if required, enter any top up pay).
8. Calculate Pay Cycle again – All employees will calculate as normal. Calculation can be reset if necessary to make further amendments.
9. Check reports thoroughly, produce Bacs, send payslips, submit FPS as normal. New ‘Furlough Reclaim’ report available in pay cycle – check details thoroughly before use.
In subsequent pay periods repeat steps 2 to 9 as necessary.
A new Furloughed Staff button has been added to the Staff tab, this allows the user to easily mark employees from being ‘Normal Staff’ to Furloughed Staff. This will still need to be carried out if you have created a new staff status for furloughed employees but this will make the process much quicker.
WARNING: Do NOT use this option if you currently have any cycle open in which you have entered manually calculated furlough payments as these will be lost for any staff marked as furloughed using this system.
This system is designed to pay all furlough payments through a single site so if you have not already set up a site for this purpose we would suggest doing so before proceeding beyond this point. If using the CJRS pay item then your chosen site should have the default pay type set to “Fixed”.
The first time you enter this section you will see the screen below, use this to set the parameters for the system as indicated below.
Gender Pay Gap Mapping
If you have used new pay items since the Gender Pay Gap was last completed then you will be asked to map the type of pay these represent at this point. Click OK to proceed. If you do not get this screen then your mapping has already been completed and you can continue to the next section.
This screen enables you to move staff to furloughed. You can use the filter options below to select staff that have already been given a status of Furloughed if applicable.
Example of Furloughed Staff Record:
This section is a handy reference to see how the system will calculate the average pay for each employee. Please note that staff will be available to view here whether or not they have been furloughed. You can override the figures with your own calculation if required in the Override Pay Amount column. For example, you will need to do this for TUPE employees where the pay history will not be available in CleanLink Site Manager from the previous company.
When you first enter this section the system will create three reports in the relevant Data folder for this company containing the data shown in this screen. These reports are T620.csv, T621.csv and T622.csv.
1. Full 12 Months: This will be set to “Yes” if the employee was included in period 1 of 2019/20 and “No” if not. If “Yes” then the furlough calculation for this employee will be based on item 4, if “No” then the calculation will be based on item 5.
2. Pay Periods worked: How many periods the employee was paid in during 2019/20 – relevant where item one is “No”.
3. Notional Weeks: This is only used in some specific circumstances, when it is needed to calculate the correct average amount of pay for an employee:
a) Where a person has not been an employee since week 1 / month 1 of the previous tax year, so they have not had a full 12 months of employment,
and
b) The employee has been in more than one pay cycle during the 2019/20 tax year
In this situation, the employee may have been in any combination of Weekly, Fortnightly, 4 Weekly or Monthly cycles, so the number of worked periods in each of these are not directly comparable and cannot simply be added together as the divisor of the total pay to get the average. In such circumstances, we use the sum of the notional number of weeks instead.
4. Total Eligible Pay This Year: The employee’s total furloughable pay in 2019/20.
5. Avg Eligible Pay Over Year: Employee’s total pay divided by the number of pay periods in the year.
6. Avg Eligible Pay Part Year: Employee’s total pay divided by the number of pay periods they have been paid in for 2019/20.
7. Pro Rata For Feb Starters: If the employee has a start date in February 2020 then this figure will be used in the calculation.
8. You can override the figures the system has calculated and enter your own figure here (click Modify to enable amendments). Please note that any figure entered here will be used as it is when calculating furlough pay, the system will not calculate 80% of this amount.
9. Shows the holiday accrual rate for this employee, if the employee has regular pay at multiple sites this will be the largest of those.
10. This window displays the period by period totals for this employee in 2019/20.
11. This window displays a breakdown of the pay items paid to the employee in the selected pay period.
12. Opens the Pay Item Map window, here you can amend which Gender Pay Gap (GPG) pay type each item will be classed as.
13. Recalculates the totals to reflect any changes made in Pay Item Map.
14. Not generally accessible. Please contact Support if changes are required to which GPG pay types are classed as Furloughable.
15. Opens a screen providing an audit trail for any changes made to “Override Pay Amount”.
16. Filter the staff displayed, only one cycle can be viewed at a time.
Furloughed Staff Report
There are two formats of report available from the Furloughed Staff section, “Staff List” and “Audit Trail”.
The Staff List Report includes the following fields: Staff ID, Name, Title, NI No., Pay Cycle, On Furlough (Y/N), % of Pay, Date/Time Furloughed.
The Audit Trail Report includes the following fields: Staff ID, Name, Title, Date/Time/User of last change to Furlough status, Furloughed (Y/N), % of Pay.
When you first open the pay cycle the data will pull through in the normal way as per your settings. Please note that you should NOT make any amendments to the pay for furloughed employees at this point as these will be lost at the point of the first calculation when the system will calculate the furlough pay for the pay period. Where the Furlough Start Date is within the period being calculated a pro-rata amount will be used. Any amendments or entering of hours for furloughed staff should be made after this by resetting the calculation. Non-furloughed employees will be dealt with in the normal way.
On running your first calculation in a pay period you will see this message. Clicking Yes will remove the pay of any Furloughed employee and replace it with the calculated Furlough pay. Clicking No will cancel the calculation.
According to HMRC via the Gov.uk website, it is not possible to place employees who are currently absent on SSP, SMP, or SPBP on Furlough until the end of their SSP, SMP, or SPBP absence – If you have marked employees as on Furlough whilst they are still absent for SSP, SMP, or SPBP you will see the message below and will need to make amendments to their furlough pay as this will be paid in addition to the SSP, SMP, or SPBP and will be reported to HMRC in the usual way via the FPS.
If an employee comes to the end of their SSP, SMP, or SPBP absence mid-way through a pay cycle and is being furloughed for the remainder of the pay cycle you may need to amend the furlough pay amount to account for only being furloughed for part of the period. Anyone who is receiving SSP, SMP, or SPBP pay as well as furlough pay in the pay cycle will be included in the Anomalies & Summary report as usual as a reminder to check the details are correct.
After Calculation
After running the first calculation furloughed staff will no longer show against their regular sites. See the Making Amendments section below for details on adding pay after the calculation.
Site Summary
Pay By Staff
Making Amendments
If amendments are needed after the first calculation, these will need to be done by resetting the calculation. For technical reasons the Partial Calc facility has had to be withdrawn while any employees are on Furlough. To reset the calculation select F. Calculate > Reset Calculation.
It should not be necessary to amend the Furlough pay as the system will calculate this based on the rules laid down by HMRC using the information already in the system and the Furlough Start/End dates for the given employee. However, should you wish to override the Furlough pay in an individual period, go to the appropriate Staff/Site and double click on the current pay amount to bring up the list of available items for that column. You will then be able to amend the amount as necessary and enter a note if required. Once amendments have been made you can re-calculate as normal.
You can also add a new employee to the furlough site even if they have not been marked as “Furloughed” using the process above. To do this, access your chosen furlough site via the Site Summary and follow the steps below.
Top-up Pay
If required you have the option to pay employees extra above the 80% of their average that is eligible to be claimed back under the CJRS. This must be entered separately to the furlough pay under a different pay item to the one set in your Furlough Parameters as anything paid under this item will be treated as part of your claim in the Furlough Reclaim report outlined in the next section.
Top-up payments can be made either through your selected Furlough Site (using a different pay item) or through another site (using the designated Furlough Pay Item), only payments made using the designated pay item at the designated site will be counted as Furlough Pay in the Furlough Reclaim Report.
Once the cycle has been calculated there is a new report available to use for processing your claim through the Government portal. This is available from the Pay Period H. Reports > AB. Furlough Reclaim.
Example report:
1.Furlough Pay: Amount paid to employee using the designated Furlough Pay Item at the designated Furlough site.
2.Furlough Top-Up Pay: Other amounts paid through the designated Furlough Site (not eligible for reclaim).
3.Other Pay: Anything paid to the employee through a site other than the designated Furlough site.
4.ER NICs: Amount based on the amount in (1).*
5.Pension: ER Pension Contributions based on the amount in (1).*
6.Reclaim value: Total of (1)+(4)+(5).
*Please see the appendix below for details on how these values are calculated.
Appendix: Reclaim Value Calculation Methods
F = Furlough Pay (1) (Pay using designated Furlough Pay Item at designated Furlough Site)
T = Furlough Top-Up Pay (2) (Pay either at Furlough Site using a different Pay Item or Furlough Pay Item at a different Site)
Y = Other Pay (3) (Any pay at a site other than the designated Furlough Site using a pay item other than the designated Furlough Pay Item)
N = ER NICs (4) (Claimable amount of ERs NIC for employee, see calculation A)
P = ER Pension Contribution (5) (Claimable amount of ER Pension for employee, see calculation B)
R = Reclaimable value for employee (6).
A. ER NICs
a)Calculate ratio of furloughed days to total days in period using Furlough Start/End Dates: (Furloughed Days in Period)/(Total Days in Period) = X (round to 2 decimal places)
b)Calculate total ER NICs: ((NIable Pay) – (NI Secondary Threshold))*0.138 = A
c)Multiply total ER NICs by ratio in a): A*X = B
d)Find ratio of (Furlough Pay) to (Furlough Pay + Top Up Pay): F/(F + T) = C
e)Multiply amount in c) by ratio in d) to find claimable total: B*C = N
f)N cannot be more than A (total ER NICs for period), if the calculation somehow produces an amount larger than A then the amount will be capped at A.
B. ER Pension Contributions
a)Calculate ratio of furloughed days to total days in period using Furlough Start/End Dates: (Furloughed Days in Period)/(Total Days in Period) = X (round to 2 decimal places)
b)Calculation to work out how much of LEL to apply to Furloughed Pay: X*(LEL for cycle) = L
c)Claimable ERs Pension: (F - L)*0.03 = P
C. Total Reclaimable Amount for Employee
a)Total of Furlough Pay, Reclaimable ER NICs and reclaimable ER Pension: F + N + P = R
