Running payroll in AccBooks AI

Overview

AccBooks payroll processes pay for all active employees, calculates PAYE tax, National Insurance and other deductions, generates payslips and submits the Real Time Information (RTI) Full Payment Submission (FPS) to HMRC — all in one workflow.

Step 1 — Open the payroll run

Go to Payroll → Runs → New run.

Select:

• Pay period — the period you’re paying for (e.g., March 2026).
• Pay date — the date employees receive their pay (usually the last working day of the month).

AccBooks lists all active employees scheduled for this pay frequency.

Step 2 — Review pay elements

For each employee, review and adjust:

• Basic pay — pre-populated from their salary/rate.
• Additional payments — bonuses, commissions, overtime.
• Deductions — salary sacrifice, cycle-to-work, other voluntary deductions.
• Statutory payments — SSP, SMP, SPP (auto-populated if applicable — see individual guides).

Click any employee row to edit their pay for this period.

Step 3 — Review calculated deductions

AccBooks calculates for each employee:

Deduction	Calculated from
Income tax (PAYE)	Gross pay, tax code, year-to-date figures
Employee NI	Gross pay, NI category
Employer NI	Gross pay, NI category (not deducted from employee — a business cost)
Student loan	Gross pay above plan threshold
Pension contribution	Gross pay or pensionable pay (see pension settings)

The payroll summary shows total payroll cost, employee net pay, and amounts due to HMRC.

Step 4 — Check the payroll journal

Before finalising, review the proposed payroll journal under Payroll → Preview journal:

• Debit Wages & Salaries (e.g., 7000)
• Debit Employer NI (e.g., 7010)
• Debit Employer pension contribution (e.g., 7020)
• Credit PAYE liability (e.g., 2210)
• Credit Employee NI liability (e.g., 2211)
• Credit Employer NI liability (e.g., 2212)
• Credit Pension liability (e.g., 2213)
• Credit Net wages payable (e.g., 2100)

Step 5 — Finalise the payroll run

Click Finalise payroll run. AccBooks:

1. Locks the pay period figures.
2. Generates payslips for all employees (downloadable as PDFs).
3. Posts the payroll journal to the ledger.
4. Submits the Full Payment Submission (FPS) to HMRC in real time.

If HMRC accepts the FPS, the status changes to Submitted. HMRC’s response typically arrives within 30 seconds.

Step 6 — Pay your employees

AccBooks creates a BACS payment file (standard 18 format) for bulk payment to employees. Download it and upload to your bank’s online payment portal, or provide the net pay amounts to your bank directly.

For single-employee or smaller payrolls, many businesses simply make individual bank transfers.

Step 7 — Pay HMRC

PAYE and NI due to HMRC must be paid by the 19th of the following month (22nd if paying electronically). The amount is shown on the payroll summary and on the PAYE liability account in AccBooks.

When you make the HMRC payment, reconcile it in AccBooks against the PAYE liability account to clear the balance.

Corrections after finalising

If you made an error, go to Payroll → Runs → [the run] → Reopen. This reverses the journal and FPS. Make your corrections and re-finalise. AccBooks submits a corrected FPS automatically.