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Contents

  1. 1. What is a payroll number?
  2. 2. Why should I use payroll numbers when I run payroll?
  3. 3. What do payroll numbers look like?
  4. 4. How can I avoid payroll number issues when running payroll?
  5. 5. How do I generate payroll numbers?

Read Time: 3 Mins

What is a payroll number?

April 4, 2022
This article was updated 22nd March 2023.To avoid this from happening, you might want to consider adding payroll numbers to the payslips you issue to your employees. But what even are payroll numbers, and what do they look like? Read on to find out.

What is a payroll number?

In short, a payroll number is a unique number used to match an employee and their corresponding records to their payroll.

All information related to the employee — such as their name, contact details and role in the company — is associated with this number.If you're pressed for time, you can get the lowdown on payroll numbers, what they look like and where to find them below.

Why should I use payroll numbers when I run payroll?

Since using payroll numbers when running your payroll isn’t a legal requirement, you might be wondering why you don’t simply assign wages against your employees’ names.Relying solely on employee names may work while your company is relatively small, with only 2 or 3 employees to worry about. However, as your business grows and you start to bring more people on board, you might find it’s harder to keep track of individual employees — increasing the likelihood you’ll make a mistake on payday.
Take for instance one of your employees changes their name, or you hire someone with a similar name to another employee. Relying on this information alone could lead to confusion, resulting in the wrong payslip being sent to the wrong person, and confidential information — such as National Insurance number and total earnings — landing in the wrong hands.

With the hypothetical situation above in mind, implementing payroll numbers early on in your small business could save you a lot of hassle further down the line.Since every payroll number is unique, there’s no risk that you’ll get two employees confused by mistake, adding that extra layer of security when issuing payslips.

What do payroll numbers look like?

There are no set rules surrounding how a payroll number should look, with the company running the payroll usually determining the format of each payroll number created.If you’re looking to establish a specific format for the payroll numbers you issue your employees, it’s worth settling on a structure that’s easy to replicate as your company grows. Sticking to a tried-and-tested way of generating and assigning payroll number can minimise the risk of accidentally duplicating a payroll number when introducing new departments or opening offices outside of company headquarters.Whether it’s simply increasing the number chronologically for every employee that joins (e.g. your first hire is #1, second hire #2, etc.) or generating a number that aligns an employee with their role and department (e.g. the first hire of the product team could be #PROD1), the possible combinations are endless.
However, when generating a payroll number, stay away from associating the number with an employees personal information, such as their birthday or National Insurance number. Not only does this risk breaching confidentiality, but can also cause confusion for the employees reading their payslip.

Where are payroll numbers on a payslip?

In the majority of cases, you can find your payroll number usually next to an employee’s name in the top right-hand corner of the payslip. You can download our payslip template to get an idea of what exactly we mean.

Similar to the way companies can determine how payroll numbers look, the placement of the payroll number of a payslip is also determined by how a company chooses to lay out their payslip.

How can I avoid payroll number issues when running payroll?

Whenever you run payroll as part of Pay As You Earn (PAYE), you’re given the option to assign a payroll number to an employee. If you choose not to do so, PAYE will automatically assign a code to that employee.

Since payroll numbers are assigned to a specific employment as opposed to a specific employee, if an employee takes on a second job, or leaves and re-joins the company again, you’ll need to assign them a new payroll number.

How do I generate payroll numbers?

As mentioned above, it’s up to a company to decide how to format their payroll numbers.With this in mind, payroll numbers can be generated internally by the business owner, human resources or the payroll department (or whoever is in charge of payroll), or externally by automated payroll software.With Ember, not only do we automate your payroll filing, but we’ll automatically generate payroll numbers for you, helping you make payday a piece of cake.
Rachel Cameron-Potter
Rachel Cameron-PotterContent Marketer

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