Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme: step by step guide for employers

• This scheme is meant to cover wages of employees who “are not working but are furloughed and are being kept on payroll, rather than being laid off”. It is not meant to cover wages in any other circumstances (i.e. employees working reduced hours or employees still actively working).
  
• Discuss with affected employees about changing their status to “furloughed worker”. This would mean that the employees are kept on your payroll but, to qualify for the scheme, they cannot do any work for you while they are furloughed.
  
• Issue contract variation terms/letters to affected employees.
• Submit information to HMRC about the employees that have been furloughed and their earnings through a new online portal that HMRC will confirm in due course.
• HMRC will reimburse 80% of furloughed workers wages to cover all employment costs, up to a cap of £2,500 per employee per month. The employer is not obliged to cover the remaining 20% but can do so, if they choose to. The timeframes of when these funds will start to become available has yet to be confirmed.

How Questfp can support you
We can help employers by:

• Guiding you in discussions with affected employees.
• Drafting the required contract variation terms/letters to issue to affected employees.
• Collating required employee details. Depending on whether the HMRC portal will support the ability for Agents to submit information on behalf of clients, we would submit the required claim on your behalf.
• Processing your payroll.

Any queries or for more information, please get in touch.