Payslips are the part of payroll your employees actually see, so they should be clear, private and on time. We produce a professional payslip for everyone each pay run and deliver it securely by email or online portal, with a clean breakdown of gross pay, deductions and net pay. Staff can access their own history, we produce P60s and P45s when they are needed, and you get full reports alongside every run.
Your legal duty to provide payslips
Providing a payslip is not optional. Under the Employment Rights Act 1996, every worker has the right to receive an itemised pay statement at or before the time they are paid. Since April 2019 this right applies not only to employees but to all workers, including those on casual, zero-hours and agency arrangements, so almost everyone you pay is entitled to one. The payslip can be printed or electronic, and it must be given for every pay period, whether you pay weekly, fortnightly, four-weekly or monthly.
A worker who is not given a compliant payslip, or who believes deductions have not been properly shown, can take the matter to an employment tribunal. That makes the payslip one of the few pieces of payroll paperwork with a direct legal duty attached to it. It is also, in practice, the document your staff scrutinise most closely, because it tells them exactly what they have earned and why the figure that lands in their bank differs from their headline salary. Getting it right protects both your compliance and your relationship with your team.
What must appear on a UK payslip
An itemised pay statement has to contain certain information by law. Some items are mandatory on every payslip, while a few are conditional on how you pay people. The table below sets out what has to be shown, and where employers most often slip up.
| Item | Required? | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Gross pay | Always | Total earnings before any deductions are taken off |
| Variable deductions | Always | The amount and reason for each deduction that changes, such as PAYE tax, National Insurance and pension contributions |
| Fixed deductions | Amount, or a standing statement | Deductions that stay the same each period, such as a fixed union subscription; the amount must be shown, or covered by a separate written standing statement |
| Net pay | Always | The take-home figure actually paid to the worker |
| Hours worked | If pay varies by hours | The number of hours, where pay depends on the amount of time worked |
| Part payments | If pay is split | How a payment is divided, for example if part is paid one way and part another |
Beyond the legal minimum, a good payslip also shows information that heads off questions before they are asked: the employee's tax code, National Insurance number and category, year-to-date totals for pay and tax, the pay date and period, and a breakdown of any statutory payments such as sick, maternity or paternity pay. None of these are strictly required, but including them makes the payslip genuinely useful and reduces the queries that land on your desk. Every payslip we produce carries this fuller breakdown as standard.
Hourly-paid workers and the duty to show hours
One requirement catches a lot of employers out. Where a worker's pay varies according to the time they work, the payslip must state the number of hours being paid. This applies to anyone paid by the hour, and to variable-hours and zero-hours staff whose pay changes from period to period. If someone works different hours across two roles or at two different rates, the hours have to be shown either as a single combined figure or broken down by the different types of work.
- Salaried staff on a fixed wage that does not depend on hours do not need hours shown.
- Hourly-paid, part-time and casual staff whose pay moves with the hours they work do.
- Overtime and premium hours paid at a different rate are usually best itemised separately, so the figures are clear.
This matters more than it sounds, because hospitality, retail, care and trades payrolls are full of variable hours, and it is exactly where hand-typed payslips or basic templates tend to fall short. Our software pulls the hours through from your payroll data automatically, so the requirement is met without you having to think about it.
Are electronic payslips legal and secure?
Yes. There is no requirement in UK law for a payslip to be on paper. An electronic payslip is perfectly valid provided the worker can access it privately and can keep or print a copy if they want one. In other words, the test is not the format but whether each person can see their own pay details confidentially. A payslip emailed to a shared inbox or pinned to a staff noticeboard would fail that test; a payslip delivered to the individual, or held behind a personal login, meets it.
The rule is private access, not paper. Electronic payslips are fully compliant as long as each worker can view their own statement confidentially and keep a copy. That is exactly how ours are delivered.
Done properly, electronic payslips are also more secure than paper, not less. Paper payslips get lost, opened by the wrong person, left in pigeonholes or thrown in a bin where anyone can read them. A payslip delivered to a named individual or held in a password-protected portal is seen only by the person it belongs to, and there is a clear record of when it was issued. It removes the printing, folding, enveloping and posting that paper demands, and it reaches remote and multi-site staff just as easily as those in one office.
How electronic payslips are delivered
We deliver payslips in the way that suits your business, and both routes are secure and compliant:
- Secure email. Each employee receives their own payslip as a protected document sent directly to them, so it reaches them privately wherever they are.
- Secure online portal. Staff log in to view and download their current payslip and their full history, along with P60s and other documents, whenever they need them.
Compared with paper, electronic delivery is faster, cheaper and far less hassle. There is nothing to print or post, payslips arrive on payday rather than a day or two later, and there is no risk of a statement going astray in the internal post. It also scales without effort, whether you pay five people from one site or two hundred across several. And because every payslip we produce can carry your branding, what your team receives looks professional and consistent, not like a plain computer printout.
Self-service and fewer payroll queries
One of the quiet benefits of electronic payslips is how much administration they take away. When every employee can log in and see their own current and past payslips, the steady trickle of "can you resend my March payslip" and "how much tax did I pay last year" requests largely disappears. People need copies most often when they are applying for a mortgage, renting a property or claiming a benefit, and with self-service they simply download what they need themselves.
That means less time spent re-issuing documents, no more digging through old files, and fewer interruptions for whoever handles payroll in your business. Employees get instant access to their records, and you get to stop being the middleman. For managers, having pay information in one consistent, always-available place also makes conversations about pay, overtime and deductions far simpler to have.
P60s, P45s and keeping data secure
Payslips are only part of the paperwork every payroll generates, and we handle the rest alongside them. At the end of each tax year we produce a P60 for every employee still on your payroll, summarising their total pay and deductions for the year, and deliver it the same secure way as their payslips. When someone leaves, we produce their P45 promptly, so they have what they need to give to their next employer without chasing you for it.
All of this involves sensitive personal and financial data, so security is not an afterthought. We are ICO-registered and handle payroll data in line with the UK GDPR, which means we hold only what we need, share it only with the right people, and keep it protected. Electronic delivery supports that by putting each person's information behind their own access rather than on loose sheets of paper. Your employees' pay details stay confidential, and you stay on the right side of your data-protection duties.
How we produce and deliver your payslips
Payslips are built into every payroll we run, not bolted on. Each pay period we process your payroll using recognised payroll software, calculate gross-to-net pay with all the right tax codes, National Insurance and deductions, and generate a clear, compliant payslip for every worker, complete with hours where they are needed. We check the run, then release the payslips securely by email or portal so they reach your team on payday.
Because we are a South Wales payroll bureau with 60+ years of combined experience, and have looked after clients since 2006, we have produced hundreds of thousands of payslips across weekly, fortnightly and monthly payrolls of every shape. We are CIPP members, ICAEW-affiliated and ICO-registered, so the documents your staff receive stand up to scrutiny. If you would like electronic payslips as part of a full payroll service, tell us your numbers and we will send a clear, fixed quote. You can also read more about outsourced payroll or our fully managed payroll service.