How to Set Up an Employee as a Director Part-Way Through the Year in BrightPay

You can set up an employee as a director during the tax year in BrightPay, even if they have already been processed as a regular worker earlier in the same year. 

This is useful if someone is promoted to director part-way through the year. 

BrightPay will ensure their National Insurance contributions (NICs) are calculated correctly according to HMRC rules for directors, which are different from standard employees.

Here’s how to do it:

• Go to Employees - Select the Employee Name 

• Click into the Tax NIC RTI Tab - Tick the option Employee is/was a director during the tax year 

   

  

   

• Enter the Start date of Directorship -  Specify the exact date they became a director. This is important for correct NIC calculations.
• Save 

Note: If the software will not allow you to save the option 'Employee is/was a director during the tax year' this is due to a payslip being finalised. If the director was appointed in a previous pay period, you would need to re-open that payslip to enable the setting. The 'Start of directorship' and 'End of directorship' fields are only available for dates that fall in the current open pay period (or future dates).

The director's NIC thresholds for employee and employer are pro-rata'd based on the tax week they became a director. However, if a director is appointed in the middle of a pay period (ie mid-way through the month), the software will classify the whole period as them being a director for NIC purposes.

The Start of directorship date is only required if they started the directorship in the current tax year, if they started prior to this you can leave it blank.