Pay yourself or your staff, properly
The moment your company pays anyone a salary — including you as a director — it becomes an employer in HMRC’s eyes and needs a PAYE scheme. Registration must be in place before the first payday.
Directors often assume PAYE only applies once they hire someone. It applies to them too. If the company pays a director’s salary, it is operating payroll, and HMRC expects a PAYE scheme registered before the first payment is made — not afterwards. Registration takes up to a few weeks, so leaving it until payday is already too late. We register the scheme, set up Real Time Information reporting so each payment is filed as it happens, and handle the moving parts that make U.K. payroll fiddly: the National Insurance thresholds, the employment allowance, and workplace pension auto-enrolment duties that begin as soon as you have an eligible employee.
What’s included
- PAYE scheme registered with HMRC
- Employer PAYE and Accounts Office references obtained
- Real Time Information (RTI) reporting configured
- Director salary structured tax-efficiently
- Payslips and P60s produced
- Auto-enrolment pension duties assessed
Simple, from start to finish
Register the scheme
We register your company as an employer with HMRC and obtain your PAYE references.
Set up payroll
RTI reporting is configured and your salary structure agreed, taking the NI thresholds and employment allowance into account.
Run it monthly
Each pay run is reported to HMRC on or before payday, and payslips are issued.
Good to know
Do I need PAYE if I am the only director?
If the company pays you a salary, yes. Directors are employees for payroll purposes. If you take only dividends and no salary, you may not — but that is a decision to make deliberately with an accountant, because it affects your National Insurance record.
When do I need to register?
Before the first payday. Registration can take up to a few weeks, so starting the week you intend to pay someone is leaving it too late.
What is RTI?
Real Time Information — HMRC requires every payment to an employee to be reported on or before the day it is made, not annually. Late RTI submissions attract penalties, which is why the reporting is automated rather than left to memory.
What about pensions?
Once you have an eligible employee, auto-enrolment duties begin and are legally enforced. We assess whether they apply to you — a sole director with no employment contract is often exempt — and tell you plainly either way.
Can I run payroll from outside the U.K.?
Yes. The company is the employer, not you personally, and everything is handled online. Where you live does not change the obligation or the process.
What is the most tax-efficient salary?
It usually sits around the National Insurance threshold, with the rest taken as dividends — but the right number depends on your other income, your NI record and current rates. That is genuine tax advice, so we set it with a qualified accountant rather than applying a rule of thumb.
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