For new employees commencing mid-year, set up your employee's details in the normal manner by selecting Employees > New Employee. For further assistance with setting up your employee, please see the relevant help topic within the Support section. 

For a new employee starting mid–year, a start date is essential in order to ensure that the employee is added to the payroll in the correct pay period. It is also an RTI requirement that the employee’s starter details are included in your Full Payment Submission (FPS) to HMRC the first time you pay them.

If the new employee started at the end of the previous period and is only getting paid in the current pay period, you can finalise the first pay period with zero pay and submit the FPS created HMRC. This zero FPS will have the employee's start date on and will inform HMRC of their new employment.
 

Entering Your Employee's Starter Details In BrightPay

1) Within the employee's record, click the tab Starter/ Leaver.   

2) Enter the employee's Start Date in the field provided or select the start date using the calendar.

3) Oversea Employer - if the employee continues to be employed by an overseas employer (who has been sent to work for you), tick the box provided. Under Seconded to work in UK, select the option that applies to the employee and tick the associated statements, if applicable. If you have reviewed the employee’s passport as part of checking that they have the right to work in the UK, the employee’s passport number should be entered in the employee’s ‘HR’ section for inclusion in your Full Payment Submission to HMRC.

4) After the employee’s start date has been entered a ‘Starter Declaration’ menu will appear. Select the statement that is applicable to the employee from the drop down listing.

5) If the starter declaration that your employee makes is statement B or C, then enter the employee’s taxable pay and tax paid from their previous employment in the fields provided. 

6) Click Save to save your employee's starter details. 

Your new employee will now be added to the payroll in the pay period which corresponds to their start date. If you do not want to them be paid in this period due to the timing e.g. end of the month then you will need to finalise them with zero pay in order to move them into the next pay period. 

If you do not see the new employee in the Payroll tab, please check that they have been assigned a payment schedule in their record under the 'Payment' section.

Please note, since 6th April 2013 with the introduction of RTI, employers are no longer required to submit a P45 or P46 to HMRC informing them of a new employee. Instead, HMRC will be notified of the new employee in the Full Payment Submission you submit to them the first time you pay the employee. 

TUPE

If the employee is to be protected under the Transfer of Undertaking (Protection of Employment) regulations, tick the box provided.

This will allow you to enter the employee's Pre-transfer start date, which will supersede the new employment start date when determining length of service for statutory payments etc.

Employee starts at the end of the tax year but is not paid until the new tax year

If an employee starts employment in late March / early April but will not receive their first pay until the new tax year (6 April onwards), you should set them up in BrightPay in the new tax year only.

Do I need to enter their P45?

When an employee provides a P45, always check the leaving date on the P45 before entering any figures.

If the P45 leaving date is before 6 April (previous tax year) Do not enter the P45 figures into BrightPay. Those figures belong entirely to the previous tax year and have no relevance to the current one. Entering them will incorrectly inflate the employee's year-to-date pay and tax totals for the new tax year.

If the P45 leaving date is 6 April or later (current tax year) Enter the P45 figures as normal in the employee's record under previous employment details.

Only enter P45 information that relates to the current tax year. If the entire employment on the P45 took place before 6 April, leave the previous employment fields blank entirely and treat the employee as a brand new starter with no prior figures to carry forward.

Example

An employee starts with you on 31 March 2026 but their first payslip will be 30 April 2026. They hand you a P45 showing a leaving date of 28 March 2026.

Because that leaving date falls in the 2025/26 tax year, you should not enter those P45 figures when setting the employee up in BrightPay for 2026/27. Set them up as a new starter in the new tax year with no previous employment figures entered.