Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is paid to employees who are unable to work because of illness. SSP is paid at the same time and in the same way as you would pay wages for the same period.

As an employer you're responsible for paying SSP to employees who meet certain qualifying conditions.

You'll need to:
 

• determine whether an employee meets the qualifying conditions
   
• calculate how much SSP they're due
   
• pay the SSP to them
   
• keep a record of the SSP you pay

Employers may choose to opt out of fully operating the SSP Scheme in favour of their own Occupational Sick Pay scheme.

SSP Entitlements

Qualifying Days

These are the employee’s contractual or normal working days. SSP is paid for each qualifying day. You can however decide not to use the contracted working days if, for example, your workforce operates a varied work pattern each week but for simplicity you may want to have the same days each week as the QDs.

Recovery of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)

The SSP reimbursement scheme known as the Percentage Threshold Scheme (PTS) was discontinued with effect from 06th April 2014.

 

Entering Statutory Sick Pay in BrightPay

To access this utility, simply click 'Payroll' and select the employee’s name on the left:
 

1. Under Statutory Pay, click Calendar
    
2. On the Calendar, select the date range the employee is out sick (include any non-working days which fall within the date range)
    
3. Click Sick Leave at the top right of the screen -  the number of Qualifying Days, SSP days will be displayed on the screen.
    
4. Close the Calendar and the programme will automatically apply any SSP due to the employee.

Overriding the 'Average Weekly Earnings' Calculation

If existing payment records have not been recorded in BrightPay or there is insufficient historical payroll data to determine the employee's AWE, the automatic calculation performed by the software after completing the above may be inaccurate or not possible. Where the user otherwise determines that the employee does qualify for SSP,  they may override the AWE by doing the following:
 

1. On the main Payroll screen, click the Edit icon in the employee’s Statutory Payments section
    
2. In Sick Leave, select the option ‘Override average weekly earnings calculation’
    
3.  The software will now automatically calculate SSP

To override the SSP amount on the payslip directly, click on the spanner icon next to the SSP amount > Override Amount.

SSP & Finalised Pay Periods
 

In the event that a payroll operator is notified of an employee's sick leave status after the pay period in which it falls has been finalised, BrightPay facilitates a retrospective adjustment to be made to the employee's calendar record which will simply pay or refund any SSP difference in the following (or later) pay period.
 

Examples of scenarios:
 

• An employer may only inform their payroll bureau in November that an employee was sick in October, but the October payroll has already been run and the employee paid.

• A company pays their employees on the 25th of every month for month ending the 31st of the month. An employee is out on sick leave at the pay date but continues to be sick up until the 31st of the month.  These subsequent sick days may not have been accounted for in this pay period if there was uncertainty on whether the employee would be able to return to work after the 25th. 

Making an SSP adjustment in BrightPay to already finalised pay periods:
 

• Click 'Payroll' and select the employee’s name on the left
   
• Select the employee's current open pay period
   
• Under Statutory Pay, click Calendar
   
• On the employee's Calendar, highlight or un-highlight the employee's sick days depending on the adjustment needed. 
   
• Click Sick Leave at the right of the screen
   
• Select the Payroll tab again to return back to the Payslip 

BrightPay will then compare the total SSP that should have been paid in previous pay periods against the total SSP that was actually paid in previous pay periods, and will calculate the difference. This difference will then be added to the employee's current open payslip as an SSP carry-over or refund amount.

In addition, any previous payslips which has had some or all of its SSP carried forward to a future pay period will show a yellow alert explaining what has happened and will reference the amount carried forward.

In the event you don't wish the SSP amount to carry forward, but instead wish to re-open the previous payslip and apply the SSP to this:

• In Payroll, select the finalised payslip and click 'Re-open Payslips' on the menu toolbar
   
• If you wish to apply the SSP amount to this payslip, simply click 'Reset SSP' 

If you cannot see the 'Reset SSP' option, please try the following:

1. Ensure that the pay period is open (Reopen employee payslip if required).
2. Go to Employees tab and select the relevant employee.
3. Open the employee's Calendar and mark the entire month as Sick Leave, then close the calendar.
4. Go to the Payroll menu and click Reset SSP at the top of the employee's payslip.
5. Return to the employee's Calendar and remove the sick leave entries by highlighting the dates & clicking on 'sick leave' from the leave options on the right hand side of the screen.

SSP1 Form

In the event that an employee is not entitled to SSP or their SSP has come or is coming to an end, employers are to provide the employee with form SSP1.

Managing Sick Leave
 

Managing sick leave can be a challenge for every employer. It is essential that businesses find the balance between supporting those employees who are genuinely sick and minimising unnecessary absences in order to reduce costs.

Guidance for employers on how to manage sickness absences can be found here.

If you wish employer contributions to continue to be based on the employee’s “normal” or “notional” salary (i.e., their pay before sick leave), while employee contributions may be based on actual pay received (which could be SSP or zero if the employee is on unpaid leave).

How to manage this in BrightPay:

• You can manually override the pension amount while the employee is on sick leave.
• To do this, when processing payroll for the employee on sick leave, click into the pension contribution field and change the % to £ and enter the pension contribution manually as an amount. 

If you need further guidance on your specific pension scheme requirements, it’s always best to check with your pension provider or refer to your scheme documentation. 

Note: When you record sick day(s) in BrightPay and SSP is calculated, the software will not automatically reduce basic pay or working hours for that sick period. You must manually deduct or adjust the hours / pay for any unpaid sick periods, as BrightPay only adds the SSP amount to the payslip and does not adjust salary or wages for absence.

BrightPay does not support enhanced company (employer) sick leave schemes—such as paying full salary for the first week followed by Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). Any company sick pay policies or adjustments to sick pay must be handled manually by editing the employee’s pay in BrightPay.

If you cannot see the Sick Leave option or SSP is not applying, go to Employer > Edit Employer Details > Typical Employee tab.
In the Options section, ensure the checkbox for “Do NOT pay SSP if alternative scheme is used” is NOT ticked unless you specifically do not want to process SSP (for example, if you use an occupational sick pay scheme). If you want SSP to be available and calculated, leave this option unticked. If the SSP is still not showing on the payslip, you can also try removing the sick leave from the calendar & re-applying the dates again.

If you have a company sick policy and want to keep sick days recorded in the calendar but do not want SSP to be paid on the payslip, go to Employer > Edit Employer Details > Typical Employee tab, and tick the box labelled ‘By default, do not pay Statutory Sick Pay (i.e. where you are using an alternative scheme)’. This will record the sick leave for attendance purposes but prevent SSP from being calculated or shown on the payslip.

BrightPay requires 8 weeks of data to calculate SSP, so if you have recently moved to BrightPay or this is a new employee, the software may say that the employee is not entitled when they are. Please check on the HMRC SSP calculator for confirmation.

To remove sick pay (Statutory Sick Pay/SSP) in BrightPay Cloud:

1. Go to the employee’s calendar in BrightPay.
2. Locate and remove the sick leave entry for the relevant dates by highlighting the dates & selecting 'Sick leave' on the right hand side.
3. Once removed, the SSP will no longer be calculated or pulled through to the employee’s payslip.
4. Recheck the payslip to ensure the sick pay has been removed.
5. If submitted already, send an additional FPS/correction to HMRC if needed.

Q. Why can’t I remove or override the “Refund of overpayment of SSP in previous periods” on an employee’s payslip in BrightPay?

A. While BrightPay allows you to override the Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) amount for the current pay period, it does not provide an option to override or directly remove the “Refund of overpayment of SSP in previous periods.” This refund appears because dates previously marked as sick on the employee’s calendar have since been changed or removed. BrightPay automatically recalculates SSP based on the updated calendar entries. If sick days are removed or altered after SSP has already been processed, BrightPay will attempt to recover any overpaid SSP as a refund in the next open pay period.

This refund entry ensures SSP payments align with the actual sick days recorded in the calendar. To address this, review the employee’s calendar and ensure sick dates are correct for the pay periods involved. Manual override of the refund is not available.

Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) for SSP — where to find and how to override

From April 2026, BrightPay calculates Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) automatically based on the employee's pay history — you do not need to enter this manually in most cases. To view the AWE BrightPay has calculated, or to override it: go to the employee's calendar and locate the sick leave entry. At the bottom right of the screen, click Edit on the sick leave box. From here you will see the AWE figure BrightPay has calculated, along with the following options:

• Employee is not entitled to SSP in this period — tick this if the employee does not qualify for SSP for this absence
• Manually enter AWE — select this from the dropdown if you need to override the calculated AWE figure, for example if the employee is new and has insufficient pay history for BrightPay to calculate an accurate average. Enter the correct AWE and save.

If the AWE appears incorrect and you are unsure what figure to use, check that the employee's full pay history for the relevant eight-week reference period is entered correctly in BrightPay before overriding manually.

Note: When calculating Average Weekly Earnings for SSP, BrightPay uses the 8 weeks immediately before the first day of sickness. This is 8 calendar weeks, not 8 weeks of earnings — if an employee had no earnings in any of those weeks, those weeks are still included in the calculation with a value of zero. If nil earnings weeks bring the AWE below the Lower Earnings Limit, SSP will still be paid at 80% of that lower AWE figure.

If SSP is not appearing on the payslip, it's worth checking the employee's payslip settings. In Payroll, open the employee's payslip and click the 'Edit Settings' icon on the right-hand side. Check whether the 'Do not pay Statutory Sick Pay (where using alternate scheme)' option is enabled — if it is, BrightPay will not add SSP to the payslip. If the employee should be receiving SSP, disable this option and recalculate.

If SSP appears incorrect when sick leave spans across multiple weeks or pay periods, the most common cause is the sick leave not being entered as one continuous block in the calendar.

When sickness continues into a following week, you should highlight all days between the start and end of the sick leave; including non-working days such as weekends, in a single continuous selection. Do not enter the sick leave in separate blocks for each week.

To correct this:

1. Remove the existing sick leave entries from the employee's calendar
2. Re-enter the sick leave as one continuous block, from the first day of sickness through to the last day, covering every day in between (including weekends)

This ensures BrightPay calculates SSP correctly and continuously across the full period of incapacity for work.