Coronavirus: Changes to Sick pay as a result of Covid-19
Article ID
12215
Article Name
Coronavirus: Changes to Sick pay as a result of Covid-19
Created Date
31st July 2020
Product
IRIS PAYE-Master, Earnie, IRIS Payroll Business, IRIS Earnie IQ, IRIS Bureau Payroll, IRIS GP Payroll
Problem
On the 4th of March, to combat the spread of Coronavirus, the Government announced that workers will receive statutory sick pay from their first day off, not the fourth. This means that employee’s will not have any waiting days associated with their SSP calculation.
Resolution
Contents
What does this mean?
Here we will assume the 2020/2021 SSP rate is £95.85 and a qualifying pattern of Monday to Friday.
SSP Rules
Normally the SSP calulation would be: If the employee was off for five days Monday to Friday, three are classed as waiting days and two are qualifying days. If the employee earns more than the LEL (£120 per week 2020/2021) they would be paid: 2* (95.85/5) = £38.34.
For those employees that self-isolate the SSP paid would be: 5* (95.85/5) = £95.85
How do I handle this in my payroll software?
Please follow the steps below for your software product
IRIS Payroll Business/IRIS Bureau Payroll/IRIS Payroll for Accountants
From Pay – Enter Variations, in the Statutory Payments | SSP field, amend the SSP value accordingly.
Earnie
From Payroll | Do/Redo Payroll, select Click arrow to view or alter details and in the Statutory Payments | SSP field amend the SSP value accordingly.
Earnie IQ
From Payroll – Do/Redo Payroll, in the Absence section, amend the Sick Pay: value
GP Payroll
In Payroll Calculations, double click the SSP field and change the Number of SSP days this month
PAYE-Master
In Pay – Variations – Enter Variations, select the Statutory Payments tab and amend the Amount field in the SSP section
IRIS Payroll Professional (formerly Star)
We recommend creating a component called ‘SSP Covid19’ or similar). You can record a comment against the sick days to help your reporting in the future.
IRIS Payroll Professional has designed a query that will report on any comments added within the absence calendar.
We propose that you enter the word Virus or Covid for recording those who are sick with the illness.
You can then run this query to return the days recorded which has this comment assigned. See the IPP COVID-19 Support guide here
Recovery of Covid-19 related SSP
Please see the government advice on claiming Covid-19 releated SSP:
Claims for Covid-19 related sick pay are not processed through your payroll software. These claims are processed by the HMRC’s own system:
For detail on the recovery of wages for furloughed workers see:
https://www.iris.co.uk/support/knowledgebase/kb/12221/
For information on how to process wages for furloughed workers please see:
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