Access P45s in FreeAgent

This article explains how to access and print employees’ P45s in FreeAgent.

A P45 is a document an employer must give a departing employee on paper when their employment comes to an end and automatically sends this to HMRC online through RTI. The P45 shows how much tax the employee has paid on their salary in the current tax year.

Please note:

  • FreeAgent's payroll functionality won't be available if you have an unincorporated landlord or non-UK account type, or if you're preparing your accounts using cash basis accounting.
     
  • To generate a P45 in FreeAgent, you’ll need to have full (level 8) access to FreeAgent and enter a leaving date in the employee's payroll profile first.

1. Enter a leaving date in the employee's payroll profile

Navigate to the ‘My Money’ tab at the top of the screen and select ‘Payroll’ from the drop-down menu.

Payroll highlighted in drop-down menu under My Money on the overview page.

Select ‘Edit Profile’ next to the relevant employee's name in the 'Employees' section.

'Edit Profile' button highlighted next to employees' listings.

Next, select ‘Yes’ next to ‘Employee leaving during the next pay run?’ and enter the date that the staff member's employment with your business will end. The date you enter can be up to 30 days in the future.

Leaving details section for detailing if employee is leaving during next pay run and employee leaving date.

Select ‘Update Payroll Profile’ to save your changes.

2. Access the employee’s salary information

Navigate to the 'My Money' tab at the top of the screen and select 'Salary' from the drop-down menu. 

Salary highlighted in drop-down menu under My Money.

Choose the employee's name from the ‘Show’ drop-down menu and then select ‘View P45’.

'View P45' button highlighted in salary for tax year [x] page header.

This will display parts 1A, 2 and 3 of the P45, which you can then download as a single PDF file to share with employees via a secure online portal. The P45 will be pre-populated with information from your payroll; you won’t need to enter any data manually.

Example P45 for employee.

By law, you must give your employee a physical copy of their P45 when their employment comes to an end. Be sure to save the P45 as a PDF, print it out and either hand it to the departing employee in person or send it to them in the post.

P45s and user access levels

Users with level 2 (‘My Money’) permission and above can see their own P45 in FreeAgent. Users with level 7 (‘Tax, Accounting and Users’) access can view other people’s P45s. Only users with full level 8 access can enter a leaving date in an employee’s payroll profile and generate a P45.

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