Using PayFlow Ireland

How PayFlow fits together

There are three stages. You do the first once, the second every pay period, and the third when you need it.

The words you will see most

Sign up and create your company

This is the path for an employer running its own payroll. Accountants and bureaux follow the same first two steps, then read the next section.

You can belong to several organisations with one sign-in. To move between them, click the PayFlow Ireland logo to go back to your home page, then Open the one you want.

Accountants and bureaux

A practice runs payroll for client companies. You create one practice organisation for your firm, then one organisation for each client.

A client who already uses PayFlow

If a business already has its own PayFlow organisation, ask the owner to invite you as a team member: Account › Administration › Invite someone, with your email and a role such as Payroll administrator. You then open their payroll from your home page like any other organisation.

Your team and what they can do

Invite colleagues from Account › Administration › Invite someone. Enter their email, pick a role, and click Create invitation. PayFlow emails them a link that works for 14 days and only for that email address. If the email cannot be sent, the link is shown on screen for you to send yourself.

To change someone's role or suspend them, use the Team access table on the same page: pick the Role or set Status to Suspended, and click Update. An invitation that went to the wrong address can be cancelled with Withdraw.

The setup checklist

Your company Home page shows Let's get you set up with seven steps and a progress bar. Each step ticks itself off when it is done. Two are marked If it applies.

Connect to Revenue

PayFlow uses your ROS digital certificate to fetch RPNs and file your payroll. Only an owner can do this. Open Revenue and click Revenue certificate, or use the first step of the setup checklist.

Getting RPNs

When you create a pay run, PayFlow attaches each employee's current RPN. To fetch one for a single person, for example a new starter, open them and click Request Revenue RPN. It usually arrives within a few minutes.

If there is no RPN for someone, Revenue requires them to be taxed on the emergency basis, which usually takes too much tax. The checks before locking warn you about it.

Pay calendars

A calendar sets how often you pay, when each period ends and when people are paid. PayFlow creates every period for the year from it. Open Setup › Pay calendars.

You can have more than one calendar, for example weekly staff and monthly staff. To run two calendars on the same frequency, give the second one a Calendar name. At year end, use Set up 2027 on the calendar list.

Employees

There are three ways to add people. Use whichever suits; you can mix them.

One at a time

Employees › Add employee opens Onboard Employee.

From Revenue

Employees › Import from Revenue lists everyone Revenue holds a tax record for under your registration number this year. Nothing is imported until you choose.

If someone has two jobs with you, Revenue lists both, and the import adds the second job to the same person rather than creating them twice.

From a spreadsheet

Use Setup › Opening balances (the page is called Import Employees). Download the Excel or CSV template; it has one example row. A row for someone not yet in PayFlow creates them, as long as it has their first and last name, start date, employment type, pay frequency and pay basis. The same file can carry year-to-date figures; see Switching mid-year.

Bank details

Open the employee and click Bank details. Choose How is this employee paid?: Bank transfer, Cash or Cheque. For a bank transfer enter the IBAN; the BIC is optional. Account holder name can be left blank to use the employee's legal name. Click Save. PayFlow checks the IBAN's format and check digits before saving.

Anyone paid by cash or cheque is left out of the payment file, with the reason shown.

Changing someone's details

Open them and click Edit details. Job title, department, PRSI class, pay calendar and pay rates can be changed at any time. Pay frequency can only be changed while the person is on no pay run, and the start date and employment type only until they have been paid.

Wrong start date after someone has been paid? On Edit details, click Wrong date? Correct start date, enter the right date and a reason. PayFlow changes the date and opens a correction of their first pay period, with PRSI weeks and any salary proration worked out again. Calculate, approve and lock the correction, then send it to Revenue. Any difference in pay goes through the next payroll. If both the old and new dates are before their first pay period, only the date changes. The new date cannot be after the end of the first period they were paid for.

When someone leaves

On the employee's page, enter the Leaving date and click Record leaver. If they are getting a lump sum, add it in their final pay run; see Lump sums on leaving. If you enter the wrong date, Remove leaving date undoes it. A leaving date cannot be earlier than a locked payroll that has already paid them; raise a correction for that period instead.

Switching to PayFlow mid-year

Irish tax is cumulative: what someone owes this period depends on everything earned since 1 January. If you paid people elsewhere earlier this year, bring those totals in before your first PayFlow payroll. Otherwise tax is worked out as if they had earned nothing so far.

Leave, working patterns and public holidays

Leave settings

Setup › Leave types › Set up leave. Choose when your leave year starts (1 April is the statutory leave year; 1 January is common), how public holidays are given (a paid day off, a paid day off within a month, an extra day of annual leave, or an extra day's pay), and whether unpaid leave reduces a salary by a day's pay per day or an hour's pay per hour. Click Save leave settings.

Statutory leave types (annual leave, statutory sick leave and others) are already there, marked Set by law. Add your own under Add company leave: a name, paid or unpaid, the smallest unit (hours, half days or whole days), whether a balance is tracked, and what carries over.

Working patterns

A working pattern records the hours someone normally works each day. Annual leave and public holiday entitlement are worked out from it. On the employee's page, under Working pattern, set Starts on, Type (Fixed hours or Variable hours), Full time or Part time, and the hours Monday to Sunday (for example 8, 8, 8, 8, 8, 0, 0). Click Save working pattern. For many people at once use Leave & time › Working patterns.

Public holidays

Leave & time › Public holidays shows each holiday and who qualifies. For each person, record What they got and click Record. If nothing is recorded for a holiday in a pay period, the checks before locking remind you.

How pay items work

Every line on a payslip is a pay item. Each one carries its own tax treatment, so you never decide how something is taxed: you pick the right item and type the amount. See the full list at Setup › Pay items.

Whenever you choose a pay item, the list is grouped like this:

Any items you make yourself appear in the same groups. My Future Fund contributions (MyFutureFundEE and MyFutureFundER) are added by PayFlow from Revenue's instructions and are never typed in.

Three ways an amount is entered

Pay, overtime and bonuses

Basic pay

For salaried staff, PayFlow adds Basic Pay to every pay run from the annual salary on their record, and pro-rates it automatically when someone starts or leaves mid-period. You do not add it yourself, and it cannot be a recurring item.

For hourly and daily staff, add their hours to each run: on the run itself, with Enter hours, or by Import timesheet. See Adding pay to a run.

Overtime

Overtime is entered as hours and a rate. For hourly-paid staff the rate fills in from their hourly rate; for salaried staff, type the rate. The system Overtime item pays the rate exactly as it is, so for time and a half either type the higher rate, or make your own overtime item with a Multiplier of 1.5 (or 2 for double time) and PayFlow applies it for you. See Making your own pay item.

Bonus and commission

Add Bonus or Commission as an amount to the run. Both are taxed like pay. By default they do not count towards pension; see Pensions.

Holiday pay and public holidays

Holiday Pay and Public Holiday Pay are entered as a quantity × rate, for example 8 hours × €16.00. Public Holiday Benefit (extra day) is the extra day's pay given instead of a day off.

Pensions

A pension through payroll usually has two parts: the employee's contribution, taken from their pay, and the employer's, paid on top. They are two separate pay items, and you add both.

Setting up a 5% + 5% pension

The most common arrangement: the employee pays 5% and the employer adds 5%. Set it up once on the employee and it appears on every payslip.

What counts as pensionable pay

Most schemes take their percentage from basic pay, not overtime or bonuses. In PayFlow, Basic Pay, Holiday Pay, Public Holiday Pay and Public Holiday Benefit count as pensionable; Overtime, Bonus and Commission do not. Your own pay items say whether they count when you make them. If your scheme takes the percentage of all pay, choose A percentage of gross pay instead.

Pension relief limits

Tax relief on an employee's own contributions is limited by age, as a share of pay up to €115,000 a year. If contributions go over, the checks before locking warn you. They are still deducted; the employee's relief is limited.

Pension tracing number

Revenue asks for a scheme's pension tracing number (PB followed by up to six digits, such as PB123456) when an employee joins or changes scheme. Make your own pension item as a copy of the system one and enter the tracing number on it (see Making your own pay item). PayFlow sends it on the employee's first payslip with that scheme, as Revenue asks.

Salary sacrifice

With a salary sacrifice, the employee gives up some salary and the employer provides something tax free in its place. In PayFlow the sacrifice is a deduction that comes off before PAYE, USC and PRSI.

PayFlow warns you if a single Cycle to Work sacrifice in a period is over €1,500. Checking the type of bike and the four-year rule is up to you.

Remote working allowance

You can pay up to €3.20 a day tax free to someone working from home. Anything above that is taxed as pay. Revenue must be told the number of days, so this item is always entered as whole days × a daily rate, on each pay run (not as a recurring item).

Add it on the run (pick the item, type the days and the daily rate), or for everyone at once with Enter hours, which shows a Days column for this item. Half days are refused: Revenue accepts whole days only.

Travel and subsistence

Use Travel and Subsistence to pay back business travel and meals at or within the civil service rates. It is paid tax free and reported to Revenue under Enhanced Reporting. Revenue needs a travel type for every payment:

• Travel vouched · Travel unvouched
• Subsistence vouched · Subsistence unvouched
• Site based employees · Emergency travel · Eating on site · Advance payment

Choose the type each time you add the payment. If you always pay the same kind, make your own item as a copy of Travel and Subsistence with its travel type set. A payment with no travel type stops the payroll from locking until you add one.

Small benefits

A non-cash gift, such as a voucher, is tax free under the small benefit exemption: up to five benefits per employee per year, worth up to €1,500 in total. Add it with Small Benefit Exemption on the run. It is reported to Revenue under Enhanced Reporting.

When a benefit goes past either limit, PayFlow taxes it through payroll automatically, in full, as a taxable benefit. You do not need to do anything; the warning in the checks before locking tells you it happened.

Company cars and vans

If an employee can use a company car or van privately, Revenue treats it as a benefit and taxes it through payroll. PayFlow works out the amount with Revenue's own rules and adds it to every payslip while they have the vehicle.

The rules PayFlow applies (2026)

Cars: (price when new − reduction) × a percentage set by CO2 and business kilometres. Vans: (price when new − reduction) × 8%.

Reduction in 2026: €10,000 for every car in categories A1 to D and every van, plus another €20,000 for a fully electric car or van. No reduction for a category E car.

Part of the year, and low business mileage

For a car had for part of the year, PayFlow scales the business kilometres up to a full year to choose the percentage. The amount runs on payslips only while they have it.

Tick the Low business km reduction for 20% off if the employee drives 8,000 to 24,000 business km a year, works at least 20 hours a week, spends at least 70% of their working time away from your premises, and keeps a logbook.

Medical insurance and other benefits

A benefit is something given that is not cash. It is taxed by adding its value to gross pay, so tax, USC and PRSI are charged on it, then taking the value away again before net pay, because the employee never received the money. The payslip shows this as a Non-cash adjustment.

Lump sums on leaving

A termination payment is often part tax free and part taxable. Work out the split first (the basic, increased or SCSB exemption), then add both parts to the leaver's final pay run.

Other deductions

Savings and Employer Loan Repayment are taken from pay after tax. They do not change PAYE, USC or PRSI. A repayment is best set up as A fixed amount until a total is repaid, so it stops when the loan is cleared.

If deductions would come to more than someone's pay, the payroll will not lock: reduce or remove a deduction for that period and recalculate.

Recurring items

Anything that happens every pay period is set once on the employee, under Recurring pay and deductions, and added to every pay run from its start date until it ends.

To stop an item, set the date in the row and click End. Remove deletes it entirely, which is only allowed while no approved payroll has used it.

For everyone at once

Employees › Open the grid (Set a recurring item for everyone). Choose the item, the way it is worked out and the start date, type each person's amount or percentage, and click Save all. Anyone who already had that item has it ended the day before the new one starts.

Making your own pay item

Make your own item when you want your own name on payslips (for example "Night shift premium"), a different overtime multiplier, a pension with its tracing number, or a travel payment with its type fixed. Setup › Pay items › Add custom item.

The multiplier is applied to the employee's own hourly rate, so it fills in by itself for hourly-paid staff. For salaried staff, type the rate when you add the hours.

Each item gets a code from its name, for example sunday-overtime, shown under its name on the Pay items page. Use that code in spreadsheet imports. The code never changes, even if you later Rename the item. Once created, the name, the pensionable setting and the tracing number can be changed; the tax treatment cannot. An item you no longer use can be retired with Retire and brought back later.

Choose Build from a standard type instead of copying only when no system item fits.

Running a payroll, start to finish

Every payroll moves through the same stages. The status shows on the run and on the Pay runs list.

Who is on the run

Everyone assigned to the calendar, or with no calendar but the same pay frequency, who is employed at some point in the period. Only one regular run can exist for a period. A draft run that you no longer need can be deleted with Discard draft before it is approved.

Adding pay to a run

You can add pay until the run is approved. Use whichever of these is quickest.

1. On the run, one person at a time

Each employee on the run has a pay item box. Pick the item and the boxes change to suit it: Hours for overtime, Days and a daily rate for the remote working allowance, a Travel type for travel and subsistence, or just an Amount. Click Add. A line can be changed or removed with Remove; Basic Pay and recurring lines are fixed amounts here but can be removed for this period.

2. Enter hours, for everyone at once

Enter hours shows one row per employee for a single pay item. Choose the Pay item and click Show. The Last period column shows what each person had last time; Copy last period fills the empty boxes from it. Type the hours (or days, or amounts) and click Save all. Blank rows are left alone.

3. Import a spreadsheet of pay

Import Payroll Inputs › Download CSV Template. The template has a row for everyone on the run with the employee number filled in. Add an input_code and amount to each row you need, delete the rows you do not, and copy a row for anyone with more than one item. Then upload it and click Validate and Import.

The import is all or nothing. If any row is wrong, nothing is added and each problem is named, for example "Employee number is not included in this payroll run". Fix the file and upload it again. Uploading the same file twice does not add it twice. A spreadsheet can only be imported before the run is calculated or after a calculation fails; once calculated, add changes on the run.

4. Import a timesheet

Import timesheet reads a file exported from a rota or clock-in system (CSV or Excel, first row headings). Or use Download blank timesheet: Employee Number, Name, Hours, Rate.

Checks before locking

Once a run is calculated, its page shows Checks before locking. PayFlow runs twenty checks on the finished figures and lists anything that needs you. They run again when you click Lock.

• Must be fixed stops the payroll from locking until it is dealt with.
• Needs attention does not stop it. Read it, decide, and carry on.

If everything is fine you see All checks pass.

Must be fixed

Needs attention

Approve and lock

Approve Payroll confirms the figures and freezes the pay: nothing can be added or changed. Approving also lets you send expenses and benefits and My Future Fund contributions.

If you spot a mistake after approving, use Found a mistake? on the run: type why, and click Withdraw approval. The run goes back to calculated so you can change it.

Lock Payroll makes the payroll final. The checks run one last time; anything marked Must be fixed stops the lock and is named. Once locked, nothing can change. Locking also takes repayments off loan balances and adds leave earned from hours worked.

A second person to lock (optional)

By default the same person can approve and lock. To require two people, an owner ticks A second person must lock each payroll in Account › Administration. Then whoever approved a payroll cannot lock it, and sees "A second person must lock this payroll".

Submitting to Revenue

A payroll submission is due on or before the pay date. You need a locked payroll and a connected ROS certificate.

The Revenue page

Revenue shows every submission, with counts for Attention, In flight, Stale, Prepared and Accepted, and the reason for any failure. For a submission whose outcome is unclear, Check Revenue asks Revenue again. If you have checked in ROS yourself, Resolve by hand lets you record either Revenue does not have it (so it can be sent again) or It is already filed (so it is never sent twice).

The figures of a locked payroll never change while this happens.

Expenses and benefits to Revenue (Enhanced Reporting)

Three kinds of tax-free payment must be reported to Revenue on or before the pay date, separately from the payroll submission: travel and subsistence, the remote working daily allowance, and small benefits.

When a run has any, its page shows Expenses and benefits (ERR). After you approve the payroll, click Send expenses and benefits to Revenue. When it is done you see "Sent to Revenue" with the date, the number of items and the total.

My Future Fund (auto-enrolment)

NAERSA decides who is enrolled and at what rate, and tells you through an AEPN for each employee. PayFlow applies exactly what the AEPN says. A rate of 0% is a real instruction (someone opted out, is suspended or past the earnings limit), and nothing is deducted.

Contributions are not taken on gross pay above €80,000 in a calendar year. In practice the period in which someone crosses the limit is contributory in full, and NAERSA then sends a 0% AEPN for the rest of the year.

Payslips

On a locked or submitted run, click Generate Payslips. Then View Payslips lists them, each with Download PDF. Before locking, Preview payslip shows anyone's payslip as it would be, marked as a preview.

A payslip is a fixed record of the locked figures. Employees see theirs in the employee portal, and PayFlow can also email it to them.

Emailing payslips

Off until you choose. In Account › Administration, set Email payslips to employees and click Save organisation:

Emails go out by themselves when you click Generate Payslips, from "your company via PayFlow", and replies go to your company's owner. Each payslip is emailed once. The run shows how many were emailed, and the Payslips page shows each one: Emailed with the time, or Not emailed with the reason (for example no email address on file). Use Resend there if someone lost theirs or their email address was corrected.

Reading a payslip

Paying people

On a locked run, click Payment File. PayFlow makes a file of everyone's net pay to upload to your bank.

If the pay date is not a bank working day, PayFlow tells you the earlier date the money must go out.

Closing the period

When Revenue has accepted the payroll and every payslip is generated, tick Revenue accepted and payslips checked and click Close Payroll Period. The run shows Payroll period closed with the date and who closed it. Until both are true, the run says what is still missing.

Fixing a mistake

Before approving: change the pay and recalculate. After approving, before locking: Withdraw approval, change, recalculate and approve again. After it has been filed with Revenue: raise a correction.

The original run stays as it was filed. Reports and year-to-date figures count the corrected figures once.

Reports and the journal

Reports shows a tax year's totals (gross pay, net pay, PAYE + USC + employee PRSI, and total employer cost) and every completed payroll. Filter by Tax year and Status and click Apply.

Click Register on a payroll for a line per employee. From there, Download register CSV gives the register and Download journal CSV gives the accounting journal for your bookkeeper.

Setting up the journal

Under Accounting journal configuration, enter your own account code for each line and click Save account mapping. Accounts marked (optional) can be left empty: tax-free payments then go to the gross pay account, and employee pension and salary sacrifice to other deductions. Employer pension accounts are only needed if you pay one. The journal always balances: debits equal credits to the cent.

Xero

Connect Xero and each locked payroll's journal goes straight into Xero as a draft manual journal, for you or your accountant to check and post. PayFlow can only post journals and read your chart of accounts.

Splitting by department

To see what each department's payroll cost, create a tracking category in Xero (for example Department, with options such as Shop Floor and Office). In PayFlow, under Split by department, choose that category and save. Each department then gets its own set of lines, tagged with the Xero option that has the same name as the employees' department. A department with no matching option in Xero is sent untagged rather than refused.

If Xero refuses a journal

PayFlow shows Xero's own message, for example an account code that does not exist in Xero. Fix the account and click Send to Xero again. If PayFlow got no reply at all from Xero, the button shows No reply from Xero: not in Xero?: check Xero's manual journals first, and only click it if the journal is not there, so it is never posted twice.

To disconnect, click Disconnect. Journals already sent stay in Xero.

The employee portal

Each employee can have their own sign-in, included in your subscription, to see their payslips and leave and keep their details up to date.

Answering their requests

Leave: Leave & time › Leave requests shows each request with what it leaves of their balance. Approve records the leave; Decline needs a note.

Bank account: Employees › Bank changes to review. Check the request against something you already hold for the person (a phone call is worth it), add a note such as "Confirmed by phone" and click Approve, or Refuse. Only an owner can decide, and never the person who asked. Until approved, pay keeps going to the account on file.

Leave day to day

Record an absence: on the employee's page, under Leave and absence, choose the leave type, the first and last day (and hours a day for a part day), and click Record absence. PayFlow counts only the days they normally work, so weekends and public holidays inside an absence use nothing.

Allowances and balances: under Leave balances, Give this period's allowance, or set a yearly allowance, bring in an opening balance, or adjust a balance with a reason.

Many people at once: Leave & time › Leave › Import leave from a spreadsheet. Paste rows of absences (Employee, Leave type, First day, Last day, Hours a day) or balances (Employee, Leave type, Allowance hours, Opening balance hours), click Check the rows, then Import. All or nothing, as with every import.

• Annual leave someone could not take because of certified illness carries forward for fifteen months.
• Certified illness during booked annual leave gives the annual leave back.
• Carried-over leave expires on its own date and is not merged into the new year's allowance.

Working time: Leave & time › Working time keeps the hours-worked record you may need for the WRC. Fill from working patterns fills normal days, so you only record the exceptions. It is a record only and does not create pay.

Morning payroll reminders

At about 8:45 each morning, PayFlow emails everyone who runs payroll, but only on days when something is due:

• a pay date today or in the next two days whose payroll is not locked, or not started
• a locked payroll, paid in the last week or by tomorrow, not yet filed with Revenue
• a Revenue submission that failed, was rejected, or is stuck
• expenses and benefits, or My Future Fund contributions, not yet sent, due by the pay date
• a ROS certificate that expires within 30 days

Each line links straight to the payroll. An accountant gets one email covering all their clients. To stop it for yourself, open Account › Administration and click Turn off beside Morning payroll reminders for me.

Administration

Account › Administration: your company's legal and trading name, timezone and locale; the setting A second person must lock each payroll (off by default); emailing payslips; your own morning reminders; inviting people and managing their access; and an audit trail of administration and billing changes. Country and currency are fixed to protect your statutory records. Click Save organisation after a change.

Account › Audit trail records everything that has happened in your payroll, and who did it.

Changing accountant

Your payroll belongs to your company, not to your accountant. Changing accountant moves nothing: employees, pay runs, payslips, Revenue filings, opening balances and your Xero connection all stay exactly where they are. Only who can open them changes. Only an owner of the company can do this.

Move to a new accountant

Stop using an accountant

Under Your accountant, click Remove accountant without a replacement. Their access ends at once and you run the payroll yourselves. This is refused if nobody at your company would be left as an owner. Invite someone from your company as an owner first.

Your accountant set up your company

If your accountant created your company in PayFlow, you may not have a login of your own. Ask them to invite you as an owner (Account › Administration › Invite someone). Either of you can then start a change. If nobody from your company has a login, whoever accepts the new invitation becomes an owner, so the company is never left without one.

Security

From then on, signing in asks for the code from the app, or a recovery code. The same page lists Recent authentication activity, so you can spot sign-ins that were not you. Forgotten your password? Use Forgot password? on the sign-in page.

PPS numbers and bank details are stored encrypted. Every time a payslip is opened it is recorded, and bank changes are kept with who approved them.

API access

To connect another system, such as a time and attendance system, an owner opens Account › API access, gives the token a name (What is it for?), an optional expiry date, and ticks only what it needs: reading employees, payroll, payslips or leave, and recording new employees, hours, variable pay or deductions. Click Create token.

The token is shown once. Copy it straight away; if it is lost, Revoke it and make another. Anyone holding it can act for your organisation within what you ticked. A system can only add pay to a run that has not been approved. The reference is linked as Read the documentation on the same page.

Billing

Account › Billing (owners only) shows your price, how it adds up and your invoices. You pay per employee per month: a base charge plus a rate for each employee, with the rate falling as headcount rises. Choose Monthly or Annual and click Continue to payment. Paying yearly costs fewer months than twelve; the exact number is shown on the page. Billing counts people, not jobs: someone with two jobs with you is charged once.

If an accountant pays for your payroll, the page says Your accountant pays for this.

If we run the payroll for you

The payroll service is charged separately, at €5 per employee per pay run, rather than per month. A fortnightly payroll is therefore billed twice as often as a monthly one. It is quoted and invoiced by us rather than taken through your subscription, so ask us first if you are thinking of changing pay frequency.

Troubleshooting

Questions

Glossary

RPN

Revenue Payroll Notification. Revenue telling you how to tax each employee: tax credits, cut-off point and USC rates.

Payroll submission

The return filed with Revenue on or before each pay date, reporting what you paid and deducted.

Enhanced Reporting (ERR)

Reporting travel and subsistence, the remote working allowance and small benefits to Revenue as they are paid.

AEPN

Automatic Enrolment Payroll Notification. NAERSA telling you whether an employee is enrolled in My Future Fund and at what rate.

NAERSA

The National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority, which runs My Future Fund.

PPSN

Personal Public Service Number. Seven digits and one or two letters.

Employer registration number

Your PAYE employer number with Revenue: seven digits and one or two letters.

Emergency basis

How someone must be taxed when there is no RPN. It usually deducts too much.

Cumulative basis

Tax worked out on everything earned since 1 January rather than this period alone.

Gross pay

Pay before deductions, including taxed benefits but not tax-free payments.

Pensionable pay

The pay a pension percentage is taken from: usually basic pay, not overtime or bonuses.

Net Pay Arrangement

A pension contribution taken before PAYE, so tax relief is given straight away. USC and PRSI still apply.

Benefit in kind (BIK)

A non-cash benefit, such as a company car or health insurance, taxed through payroll.

OMV

Original market value: a vehicle’s list price when new, including VAT and VRT, before any discount.

Salary sacrifice

Giving up salary in exchange for a tax-free benefit, such as a bike or a commuter ticket.

Small benefit exemption

Up to five non-cash benefits per employee per year, €1,500 in total, free of tax.

Opening balances (take-on)

Year-to-date figures from a previous payroll, so cumulative tax continues correctly.

Correction

A payroll raised against an already-filed one, changing specific employees’ figures without editing the original.

Tracking category

A Xero label, such as Department, used to split costs in Xero’s reports.

SEPA file

The standard euro payment file you upload to your bank to pay everyone at once.