Hi If you don't have staff, you can skip most of this email. Just scroll right down to see what local salon The Garden Room is doing to help key workers right now.
If you do have staff, then we've had communications from HMRC which tell us their system for reclaiming the 'furlough grant' will go live on 20th April.
It's an oddly specific date, considering that are we only about half-way from the date the scheme was announced. Kudos to HMRC if they can pull this off, but on the same token, expect an overwhelm of the site on that date! When something has been built from scratch in a month, we fully expect teething issues! What We DO KNOW
- To apply for the money, employers WILL need to be registered for PAYE online. In other words, you have a Government Gateway account which is linked to your PAYE account with HMRC. Call me if you're not sure what you have.
- The system has been designed to be "self serve with guidance in place" (HMRC's words), i.e. most organisations should be able to make the claim themselves, without an accountant.
- It appears that agents who already prepare the payroll for their clients WILL be able to process the grant applications on behalf of their clients. This is GOOD NEWS.
- HMRC will be writing to employers next week to outline how the grants will work. They will be advising them to call their agent 🙋♂️ rather than HMRC for advice: in short, because their phone lines are already close to collapsing, they are trying to shift the burden to accountants. I'd probably do the same in their position...
- Where your accountant doesn't currently process your payroll, they will need to obtain authorisation from HMRC; this process takes at least FOURTEEN DAYS, so if you are thinking you'd like your accountant to complete this for you, NOW is the time to ask them to start the ball rolling. What we DON'T KNOW
Part of being transparent and honest (rather than bullsh%%ing out way through), is to be clear about things which aren't yet confirmed, even if we wish they were:
- How involved will the claim process be? We don't know if it's going to be a case of entering a single figure for each employee, or chapter and verse including payslips, copies of furlough agreements, contracts of employment and so on.
- Can you claim in advance, e.g. make a claim on April 20th for the furlough wages payable at the end of April?
- And, finally, the question on everyone's lips...how long after making the claim will the cash arrive in the bank? Can You Handle All This For Me? Yes, if you wish. We are offering as much free support as we feasibly can at the moment, but this is something we will need to charge for. We will be providing guidance (via these emails) and instructions on how you can make the claims yourself, and are very happy for people to make their own claims if they are comfortable doing so. Indeed, where you have furloughed staff with a regular salary and everything is straightforward, I'd encourage you to make the application and revert to us if you have any trouble. That said, many people may not have the time or inclination to navigate the HMRC portal, nor to make all the relevant calculations; especially where you have lots of zero-hours/variable working patterns and things become more complex. For clients where we already process their payroll, we will charge the same fee as you pay for your monthly payroll to make each month's claim. This is regardless of the complexity of the eventual system or the number of staff you have furloughed. In reality, we expect our time cost to be well in excess of this fee, but this is hopefully a reasonable balance between working for free, and supporting your business at this critical time. We will not charge for the grant application until the cash is in your bank. If you process your own payroll but would like us to handle the grant application, talk to us NOW to get the agent authorisation in place - that has to happen before anything else. We can let you know the cost based on the complexity of your payroll.
Supporting Each Other If your business has been hammered by CV19 but is still able to continue trading in some capacity, can we use the power of everyone in this group, and their contacts, to generate some work for you? Regardless of whether you're a client or not - it really doesn't matter - tell us about your business, how it's been affected, how we can help and what services you are still able to offer under lockdown. Perhaps, someone might just be after that right now... 🤞 | 
