Hired your first member of staff? You now need a PAYE scheme, a workplace pension assessment and an FPS every month. PayAdjust does all three for £15/month, and your employee gets a proper payslip.
Tom Okafor · your first hire · £26,000 a year
Auto-enrolment assessed
Eligible jobholder · enrolled from day one
HMRC does not have a smaller rulebook for small employers. From the day your first employee starts, you must register as an employer, operate PAYE, send a Full Payment Submission on or before every payday, assess them for a workplace pension, give them a payslip, and produce a P60 in April. Miss the FPS and the penalties are the same ones a company with a hundred staff would get.
What is different is how much of your time this deserves. PayAdjust is priced and built so that one employee takes a few minutes a month: £15/month covers up to 10 people, and the first 30 days are free. Your employee gets a login for payslips and pension changes, and you get an HMRC-recognised system that files for you.
£15/month includes up to 10 employees, so with one person on the payroll you pay the base price and nothing else. Add a second hire later at no extra cost.
A setup checklist walks you through PAYE references, pension scheme and your first employee. Each step says what you need and where to find it.
Your employee is assessed against the auto-enrolment thresholds automatically, enrolled if eligible, and their contribution schedule is produced for your provider.
Invite the second and third hire when they come. Holiday, absence, expenses and the employee portal are already there waiting for them.
This is the full list of employer obligations for a single employee, and how each one is handled.
You do this once on GOV.UK and receive a PAYE reference and Accounts Office reference. PayAdjust’s setup checklist tells you the format and where to find them on HMRC’s letters.
Your employee completes their own starter declaration, P45 details if they have one, address, NI number and bank details through their invite.
Calculated from their tax code and salary with the current year’s rates. Pro-rata is applied automatically if they start mid-month.
One click files it with HMRC. You see the acceptance in seconds, and the HMRC mark is stored with the run.
Automatic assessment against the earnings trigger and age bands, enrolment, opt-out window tracking and the provider schedule.
Payslips are generated each month and available in your employee’s portal. P60s are produced for them after the tax year ends.
Every payslip, submission and change is kept with an audit trail, and exportable if HMRC ever asks.
Invite employees by email. They fill in their own address, NI number and bank details, so you never chase a form.
Create the month and every payslip is calculated: PAYE, National Insurance, pension, student loans and statutory pay.
Release payslips for preview. Employees see their pay before payday and can adjust pension contributions with live tax impact.
Approve the run, file the FPS with HMRC in one click, download the BACS file and pension schedule. Done until next month.
Everything included
Includes 10 employees, then £2/month each. Pay annually and save 40%.
| Employees | Monthly | Annual |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | £15/mo | £108/yr |
| 3 | £15/mo | £108/yr |
| 5 | £15/mo | £108/yr |
With one to 10 employees the cost is the base price. You will not pay for a second seat until you have an eleventh employee.
Full pricing detailsYou need something. Real Time Information means every payday has to be reported to HMRC electronically, and that cannot be done on paper. Your options are an accountant, HMRC’s free Basic PAYE Tools, or payroll software you run yourself.
For one employee, an accountant will often cost more per month than the software and adds a delay whenever something changes. Basic PAYE Tools is free and handles the FPS, but it is desktop software, does not assess your employee for a workplace pension, and gives them nothing to log in to for payslips or P60s. Payroll software is the middle path: a small fixed cost, the pension and statutory work done for you, and a payslip your employee can see for themselves.
If your only employee earns below the Lower Earnings Limit, has no other job and receives no pension, you may not need a PAYE scheme at all, although you must still keep records. The moment their pay crosses the threshold, or they take a second job, you do. Most employers find it simpler to run proper payroll from the start than to work out whether the exception applies each month.
Employing someone in your home is employment like any other: you register as an employer, operate PAYE and assess them for a pension. PayAdjust works the same way for a household employer as for a business. The only thing to know is that PayAdjust runs monthly pay periods, so if you have agreed weekly pay you will need to pay monthly or use a different tool.
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From the founders’ salaries to the fiftieth hire, with pricing that scales by headcount.
Free calculator
What an employee really costs: salary plus employer National Insurance and workplace pension contributions.
30-day free trial · No contracts
Set up in an hour, file with HMRC in one click, and give your people a payslip they can read.
Start 30 days free