To Send a Full Payment Submission (FPS) to HMRC

This submission includes pay details for the pay period: for example payments, Income Tax, NI, and other deductions such as student loans. It also includes details of new starters and leavers, and settings from the employee records entered on the Additional Information tab of the Payroll - Processing - Details & Bank form. Each employee's address is also included.

You send at least one FPS per month to HMRC. You will be informed via the 'Generic Notification Services (GNS)' - a service for Real Time Information messages - if an FPS is not received. The GNS is part of the Data Provisioning Service (which is used to notify you of tax code changes, for example).

Creating & Submitting Submission Files

The creation and submission of RTI files is done in two steps:

  1. The file is created in Opera.

  2. The file is submitted to the Government Gateway from Pegasus Online Filing Manager. If Pegasus Online Filing Manager is installed on the same computer you can run it directly after creating the file. The respective submission wizard will then be opened automatically in Pegasus Online Filing Manager.

Important - BACS Payments: If you pay your employees by BACS using either the 'STDBACS RTI' or the 'Standard 18' format (selected on the Payroll - Utilities - Set Options form), you must create your BACS file in the Payroll - Payment Reports - Produce & List BACS command before sending your Full Payment Submission to HMRC.

When these formats are used, the Produce & List BACS command creates a random reference 'string' that is included in the payment file and is used to create a cross reference ‘hash’ number for each employee included in the Full Payment Submission. This is used by HMRC to reconcile the BACS payment data against the pay details in the Full Payment Submission. If you do not create the BACS file before sending the FPS, HMRC will not be able to do the reconciliation.

  1. Open the Payroll folder and then click RTI Submissions or click the Payroll & HR tab on the Ribbon Bar and then click Payroll - RTI Submissions.

  2. Click Full Payment Submission.

  3. If you are using groups, in the Select Payroll Groups list, click to select the group(s) you want to process and then click OK.

  4. On the first page, choose the Report Only option to print a report with FPS details or choose the Create FPS and Report option to create an FPS file to submit to the Government Gateway using Pegasus Online Filing Manager.

  5. Under FPS Details, choose 'Regular FPS'.

  1. If you want to include only some employees in the FPS, select the I only want to include specific employees in the FPS box. Then select the employees on the next page.

  2. Select the Compress the submission option to compress the file in Pegasus Online Filing Manager before it is submitted to the Government Gateway. There is a maximum file-size limit that can be submitted - approximately twenty five Megabytes. Selecting this option will reduce the size of the file and thereby help with the speed of the submission to HMRC. The submission will also be quicker even if the file size is much smaller than the maximum size allowed.

  3. Click Next.

  4. The final page summarises the details in the FPS, including the following:

  5. Check the information on the screen to make sure the details are correct.

  6. Click Start. Then submit the file to the Government Gateway using Pegasus Online Filing Manager. You can do this straight away or at another time using the Online Filing Manager option on the RTI Submissions menu. The latest version of Pegasus Online Filing Manager  must be installed on the computer.

The Submission Information form (Payroll - RTI Submissions) displays details about the most recent Full Payment Submission, Employer Payment Summary and NINO Verification Requests.