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Payroll Software

Running payroll for your employees: pay runs, RTI, PAYE, NI, pensions, and statutory payments.
Nicolas Croix
By Nicolas Croix
• 11 articles

Payroll Software: What Is Included

The Moonworkers payroll software is a web application available at payroll.moonworkers.co.uk. It is designed for UK employers who want to run payroll for their employees without using a payroll bureau or external accountant. RTI submissions to HMRC Every time you run a payroll, the software automatically sends a Full Payment Submission (FPS) to HMRC. At the end of each tax month, it sends an Employer Payment Summary (EPS) where required. These submissions are made without any manual action from you. Moonworkers is listed as HMRC-recognised software for RTI. PAYE, National Insurance, and pensions The software calculates Income Tax under PAYE for all employee tax codes, including cumulative and non-cumulative codes. It calculates employee and employer National Insurance contributions across all NI categories (A, B, C, H, J, M, V, X, Z, and others). Auto-enrolment assessment is run on each pay period and pension deductions are calculated and reported accordingly. Statutory payments The software handles the following statutory payment types: Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), Statutory Sick Pay (SSP), Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP), Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP), and Shared Parental Pay (ShPP). Variable hours and holiday pay Zero-hours and variable-hours workers are supported within a single payroll scheme. Holiday pay for irregular-hours workers is calculated using the 52-week average method as required under UK employment law. CIS payroll and subcontractors Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) deductions are calculated automatically for registered subcontractors and submitted to HMRC alongside standard PAYE payroll. Gross payment status is supported. Pay schedules You can run weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly, or monthly pay schedules within the same account. Multiple pay schedules can run concurrently under a single employer PAYE scheme.

Last updated on May 26, 2026

Creating and managing pay schedules

A pay schedule sets how often and when you pay a group of employees. You need at least one pay schedule before you can run a payrun. Choosing a pay frequency A schedule can be Weekly, Fortnightly, Four-Weekly or Monthly. You can run several schedules of the same frequency in parallel, for example two monthly payrolls that end on different dates. Setting up a schedule To create a schedule, give it a name so you can identify it, then choose its cycle. You also set the index, which tells Moonworkers which tax month or period the schedule starts in for HMRC. If this is your first run of the tax year, the index should be 1. Choosing the pay date You decide how Moonworkers works out each pay date. You can pick a fixed date in the period. Same date working day keeps the same date but moves it to a working day if it falls on a weekend or bank holiday. Last day is the last calendar day of the month, last working day is the last working day of the month, and last weekday is the last weekday nearest your chosen date. A tip on dates If you use a fixed date, choose a day number of 28 or lower, because not every month has a 29th, 30th or 31st. February is the obvious example. Reporting to HMRC Remember to submit your Full Payment Submission (FPS) to HMRC after you finalise the payrun and before you pay your employees. Get started In Moonworkers, go to Settings > Payroll to add or edit a pay schedule. Not signed in yet? Log in at https://payroll.moonworkers.co.uk/auth/login

Last updated on Jun 20, 2026

Holiday, leave and working pattern settings

The Time and attendance tab controls how Moonworkers calculates holiday, leave and worked hours. These settings affect both leave balances and pay. Bank holiday policy You decide whether bank holidays count as ordinary holiday, deducted from the leave allowance, or as normal working days. Treating them as working days means you do not give them as paid time off. This choice affects the number of allowance days and how salaries and pro-ratas are calculated. Pro-rata rules Pro-rata rules work out holiday for part of a year, which matters most for new joiners and leavers. They determine how much leave someone builds up in a partial year, and what happens to unused days when they leave. Leave year and the allowance reset date The allowance reset date is the date your leave year restarts. It sets when leave balances reset and, together with your carry-over rule, whether any unused days are lost or roll into the next year. Accrual and the 12.07% rate Statutory holiday entitlement is a minimum of 5.6 weeks a year. Moonworkers can accrue holiday as employees work. The standard accrual rate is 12.07%, which comes from dividing 5.6 weeks of leave by the 46.4 working weeks in a year. Rolled-up holiday pay Rolled-up holiday pay adds holiday pay as a 12.07% uplift to each pay period instead of paying it when leave is taken. It is only allowed for irregular-hours and part-year workers, and only for leave years that begin on or after 1 April 2024. Moonworkers offers an automatic payment in lieu option for this. Carry-over Carry-over lets employees move unused holiday into the next leave year, rather than losing it at the reset date. Working patterns A working pattern is the set of hours an employee is expected to work. For each day you set a start time and a finish time, and you can optionally add a lunch break. The lunch break is not counted as worked time, so it is subtracted from the day. For example, 9am to 5pm with a 12pm to 1pm lunch break is 7 worked hours rather than 8. You assign a working pattern to one or more employees, and it is required for each employee. The pattern also tells HMRC, on the FPS, which hours band the employee falls into. Get started In Moonworkers, go to Settings > Time and attendance to set these up. Not signed in yet? Log in at https://payroll.moonworkers.co.uk/auth/login

Last updated on Jun 20, 2026

Understanding pay codes

Pay codes are the calculation rules Moonworkers applies to the different parts of an employee's pay, from basic salary to other elements of their package. You manage them in the Pay codes tab. What a pay code controls For each pay code you set whether it is an addition or a deduction, and how it is treated for tax and reporting: whether it is taxable for PAYE, Niable for National Insurance, pensionable for auto-enrolment and your qualifying pension scheme, and whether it is Class 1A Niable. A pay code can also be flagged as a notional payment. System, control and custom codes Pay codes are grouped into three tabs. System codes and control codes are built in and part of the HMRC-driven engine, so you cannot edit them, but you can open each one to see how it is treated. Custom codes are the ones you create yourself. Built-in system codes include BASIC (salary), ROHLPAY (rolled-up holiday pay), PAYINLIEU (payment in lieu), SEVERPAY (severance pay), AEOFEE (admin fee for an attachment of earnings order), PAYE (PAYE tax), NIC (National Insurance), STDLOAN (student loan), PGLOAN (postgraduate loan), CISDEDUCT (CIS deduction), CISCOST (cost of materials), PENSIONRAS (pension, relief at source) and PENSIONSS (pension, salary sacrifice). Creating a custom code To create a custom code, give it a code in capital letters as a reference, a clear label that people will read, and choose what it applies to: a fixed amount such as £500, a percentage of basic pay, a percentage of gross pay, or a percentage of net pay. You then assign the code to employees and enter the amount or percentage for each one. A few terms explained Class 1A National Insurance is the employer-only National Insurance charged on benefits in kind. An attachment of earnings order is a court instruction to deduct money from an employee's pay, and the AEOFEE code is the admin fee you are allowed to keep for processing it. A qualifying pension scheme is a workplace pension that meets the auto-enrolment standards. Changing a code that is already in use You cannot edit system or control codes. To change a custom code that has already been used in finalised pay, either create a new code with the rule you want and assign it instead, or remove the code from the affected pays, reopening them until the code is no longer referenced, then edit it and reprocess those pays. Get started In Moonworkers, go to Settings > Pay codes to view or create codes. Not signed in yet? Log in at https://payroll.moonworkers.co.uk/auth/login

Last updated on Jun 20, 2026

Adding an employee from scratch

You can add an employee in two ways: fill in a short wizard from scratch, or import a file. This article covers the wizard. To bring in several people at once, see Importing employees from a CSV or FPS file. To start, go to People, open your employee list, and click Add employee. Choose to create the employee with the wizard. Choose the employee type First you select the type of employee, because it changes how pay and National Insurance are handled. The options include permanent employee, company director, apprentice, off-payroll worker, CIS subcontractor and casual or zero-hours worker. See Employee types explained for what each one means. Personal details Enter the employee's title, first and last name, date of birth and National Insurance number. Moonworkers checks that the National Insurance number is in a valid format as you type. Address Add the employee's address and country. The country matters because it helps determine where tax is due. Payroll code Each employee has a payroll code. Moonworkers suggests the next one automatically, and you can change it if you prefer your own reference. Start date and starter declaration Set the employee's start date. For a new starter without a P45, you also record their starter declaration, which sets the correct tax code. See Starter declarations explained. Working pattern A permanent employee has a fixed working pattern, the regular hours set out in their contract, which must be reflected here so payroll is correct. Casual workers do not have a fixed pattern and are paid by shifts instead. See Holiday, leave and working pattern settings for how patterns work. Additional information You can add further details, including National Insurance settings such as the employee's NI category, which affect how National Insurance is calculated. Save when you are done, and the employee is created. Get started In Moonworkers, go to People > Employee list > Add employee. Not signed in yet? Log in at https://payroll.moonworkers.co.uk/auth/login

Last updated on Jun 22, 2026

Importing employees from a CSV or FPS file

If you are moving from another payroll system, or just want to add several employees at once, you can import them from a file instead of typing each one in. Moonworkers accepts a CSV file or an FPS XML file you previously submitted to HMRC. Starting the import Go to your employee list, click Add employee, then choose Import from file. Select CSV or FPS XML depending on your file. Mapping your fields Your file appears in a mapping table. On one side are the Moonworkers fields; in the dropdowns you choose which column of your file matches each one. Map the fields you have, and leave anything without an equivalent unmapped, for example an internal works number that Moonworkers does not use. Common fields to map are the payroll ID, which becomes the Payroll Code in Moonworkers, the first, middle and last name, National Insurance number, title, gender, marital status, date of birth, the address lines, postcode, email and tax code, the Week 1 / Month 1 basis, the director status and director National Insurance method, any student or postgraduate loan, the start and leaving dates, and the working hours or pay frequency. One thing to watch: the field labelled address line 3 maps to the Town or City. Field names in other payroll systems All UK payroll software ultimately maps to the same HMRC Full Payment Submission data items, so the meaning of each field is the same even when the column heading differs. Exact headings vary by product and version, so use this as a guide and match on meaning. The Moonworkers Payroll Code is the Works Number in BrightPay, the Payroll Code or Employee ID in Staffology, and the Payroll ID or Employee Reference in Sage 50 Payroll. The National Insurance number, date of birth, gender, marital status, address lines, postcode and email carry the same meaning in all three. The Moonworkers NI category is the National Insurance Table in BrightPay, the NI table in Staffology, and the NI Category in Sage. The Week 1 / Month 1 basis is the Week/Month 1 Basis in BrightPay, W1/M1 in Staffology, and Wk1Mth1 Basis in Sage. Director status maps to Is a Director in BrightPay, a director flag in Staffology, and Director Status in Sage, and the alternative director National Insurance method appears as Is Using Alternate Director NI Calculation in BrightPay. The student loan plan maps to Student Loan Plan in BrightPay and Student Loan Set in Sage. Start and leaving dates map to the join and leave dates in each. After the import Import the selected rows. Your employees then appear in the Onboarding tab, not in Active, because their profiles are usually incomplete after an import. For example, a missing country, a working pattern, or a pay schedule may still need to be set, since Moonworkers cannot guess which schedule an employee belongs to. Complete the missing details on each profile and save to publish the employee. Get started In Moonworkers, go to People > Employee list > Add employee > Import from file. Not signed in yet? Log in at https://payroll.moonworkers.co.uk/auth/login

Last updated on Jun 22, 2026

Understanding the employee profile

Every employee has a profile that holds all the information Moonworkers needs to pay them and report to HMRC. It is organised into sections: Personal details, Work information, Pay and compensation, Time and attendance, Pension and auto-enrolment, and Payslips. Personal details This section holds contact information, the National Insurance number, which you can verify, and the address. It also holds the employee's Payment information, which is their bank details. These feed the payment instructions file produced at the end of each payrun, which you can upload to your online banking to create batch payments, or use with a connector such as Modulr. Work information Work information holds the employee's employment details and tax information, which you also set during onboarding. From here you can take actions on their employment. Put on hold places the employee on stand-by. Their pay is set to zero, so they still appear in the payrun but with a zero salary. Mark as leaver records that the employee is leaving. You enter their final working day, and Moonworkers calculates any pro-rata pay if they leave mid-period. You can add a termination award, and flag where an employee has left because of a death. The other sections Pay and compensation is covered in Editing pay and compensation. Time and attendance, Pension and auto-enrolment, and Payslips hold the employee's hours and leave, their pension settings, and their payslip history. Get started In Moonworkers, open People > Employee list and select an employee to view their profile. Not signed in yet? Log in at https://payroll.moonworkers.co.uk/auth/login

Last updated on Jun 22, 2026

Editing pay and compensation

The Pay and compensation section of an employee profile is where you set and change what they are paid. You set a starting figure during onboarding, and you can always edit it here. The screen scrolls horizontally, so check across for all the columns. Additions and deductions You can add additions and deductions using pay codes, which are the same calculation rules you set up in your employer settings. A pay code can be a built-in system code or one of your custom codes. For example, you might add a payment in lieu or a termination award. Each one can be a fixed amount or a percentage of gross or net pay, and you can set a time frame so it only applies between certain dates. See Understanding pay codes for more on these codes. Termination awards A termination award is a payment made when employment ends, such as redundancy pay. The first £30,000 is tax free. Anything above £30,000 is subject to Income Tax and to employer Class 1A National Insurance at 15% for the 2026 to 2027 tax year, reported in real time through payroll. The employee pays no National Insurance on a termination award. Benefits in kind You can also add benefits in kind to an employee from a list, such as an asset transferred to them. A benefit in kind is something of value on top of salary, and each one is subject to employer Class 1A National Insurance. You enter its cash equivalent and whether the employee contributed anything, and you choose whether to payroll it or report it on a P11D. See Adding company cars and vans (benefits in kind) for how benefits are reported. Opening balances If you start using Moonworkers part way through the tax year, or take on a new employee who has a P45, you can enter opening balances so the year-to-date figures continue correctly. You record the previous gross pay to date, tax paid to date, National Insurance, and any student or postgraduate loan deductions to date. Get started In Moonworkers, open an employee profile and go to Pay and compensation. Not signed in yet? Log in at https://payroll.moonworkers.co.uk/auth/login

Last updated on Jun 22, 2026

Running a payroll run in Moonworkers

A payroll run is how you process a pay period in Moonworkers: you start the period, check and adjust each employee's pay, review the totals and reports, and then finalise it. This article covers starting a run and working through it. A companion article, "Finalising a payroll run: payslips, FPS and closing the period," covers the last step. How do I start a payroll run? Go to Payroll > Payroll Run. Here you find the list of your payroll schedules, for example a monthly schedule and a weekly schedule. To begin, click Start next payrun on the schedule you want to run, which opens the payroll run and its Action panel. Each run corresponds to one pay period of that schedule, so you always run the next open period. The panel gives you the main actions for the period as a whole before you drill into individual employees. What do Refresh, Finalise and Delete do? The Action panel offers three period-level actions. Refresh recalculates the run, which you use when you have changed something that affects pay, for example an employee's salary or their holiday, so the figures pick up the change. Finalise is a shortcut to close the period straight away without stepping through the detailed checks. Delete removes the run, which you use when you need to go back and start the period again. Take care with Delete: if you delete the period, the base values are reset, so any manual changes you made in the run are not saved. How do I see and edit an employee's pay? Click a line in the run to open the details, where you see the list of employees and their gross totals for the period. From there you can open an individual employee to review how their pay is made up and edit their paylines directly. If you want to change a salary you can do it here, but remember the same rule as above: if you later delete the period, the base values are reset and your changes here are not kept. You can also see how each total is calculated, with a full breakdown of the deductions that produce the net figure. What are paylines and paycodes? A payline is a single line of pay or deduction on an employee's payslip, and each one is linked to a paycode. Paycodes are defined in your employer settings and control how an item behaves (for example whether it is taxable or subject to National Insurance), so when you add a payline you choose the paycode that matches what you are paying. You can add paylines, edit them or delete them within the run, and move from one employee to another as you check them. For how paycodes are set up, see the companion article on understanding pay codes. Can I preview a payslip before finalising? Yes. From an employee you can download a preview of their payslip, which is produced with a "draft" watermark so it is clearly not the final document. The preview lets you see exactly what the payslip will look like before you commit. If you have made a change that turns out to be wrong, for example an amount you updated in error, you can reset the employee back to their initial values rather than trying to unpick the change by hand. What do Zeroize and Exclude mean? These two options handle employees who are not being paid normally in this period. Zeroize sets an employee's payslip to zero: you use it when the employee did not receive any salary this month but is still on the payroll and should remain part of the run. Exclude leaves the employee out of this period entirely, so their pay is not processed at all for this run. The two are different: a zeroized employee is still processed (at zero), whereas an excluded employee is not processed for the period. Can I apply actions to several employees at once? Yes. Back at the run level you can select employees with the checkboxes and apply an action to all of them at once, which saves time when the same change applies to several people. The batch actions include downloading a preview of the payslip, resetting the payslip, zeroizing, and excluding from the run. You can also apply each of these to a single employee individually from that employee's actions menu, so you can work either in bulk or one at a time. What reports can I see during the run? While the payslips are still in draft you can review several reports for the period. The main one is the payroll journal, which breaks the run down by employee and gives the gross-to-net picture, and there is a matching CSV file you can download. There are also sub-tabs for the year-to-date values across all employees, the pension contributions for any employees who are enrolled, and a Summary, which is the payroll journal. Reviewing these before you finalise is the best way to catch anything unusual while it is still easy to change. What is a payroll journal and why does it matter for accounting? A payroll journal is the accounting summary of a pay run: it takes the total gross pay, all the deductions (such as PAYE tax, National Insurance, pension contributions and student loan) and the resulting net pay, and sets them out as the debits and credits your bookkeeping needs. It matters because payroll is one of the largest costs in most businesses, and the journal is what lets you post that cost correctly into your accounts, keeping your books balanced and your liabilities to HMRC and the pension provider clearly recorded. Moonworkers produces the journal for each run and can export it as a CSV, and where you have a supported accounting package connected it can send the journal straight through, so you do not have to key the figures in twice. Getting the journal into your accounts each period keeps your management accounts accurate and makes reconciling what you owe HMRC much simpler. Get started To run a pay period, sign in and go to Payroll > Payroll Run, then click Start next payrun on the relevant schedule. Sign in at https://payroll.moonworkers.co.uk/auth/login.

Last updated on Jul 06, 2026