Pay AuditEverything it checks
Thirty-six things, on every payslip you give it
This is the whole list. Some are problems, some are confirmations, and some are simply things worth knowing about your own pay. Each says what it means, why it happens and what to do about it.
Your pay · 7 checks
Your pay
What you were paid, against what the circular and your contract say you should have been.
The payslip has no basic pay line at all.
Normal for bank or locum work paid by the hour — the rate and the hours are the pay. There is no pay point on it to compare against the scale.
What to do Nothing. The scale check is skipped for that slip; your substantive payslip is where it applies.
Your basic pay is not a published point on the scale for your grade.
Either the wrong pay point has been applied, or your grade on ESR is not the grade you are working.
What to do Ask payroll which pay point they hold for you, and compare it with your contract.
Your gross pay is below what your contract and hours should produce.
Usually a missing element — an enhancement, a supplement or hours that were not paid.
What to do Check the pay lines against your rota. The letter to payroll quotes the figure.
Your gross pay is higher than the contract alone would produce.
Normally arrears, an extra duty, or bank work paid through the same slip. Not a problem, but worth knowing which.
What to do Look for an arrears line. If there is none, ask what the extra relates to.
The night enhancement does not match the expected percentage.
The 2016 terms set night hours at a fixed premium over the basic hourly rate.
What to do Check the night hours on your rota against the hours paid.
The pension deducted is not what your pensionable pay and tier produce.
Often the tier is right and the pensionable pay is not, or an allowance has been treated as non-pensionable.
What to do Check which elements are inside the pensionable figure.
Your pay point is one that was newly created or newly split.
The June 2026 agreement reformed nodal points; some split partway through a year.
What to do Worth confirming ESR has you on the right side of the split.
Your tax code · 5 checks
Your tax code
The code itself, and what it does to the year.
Your code is marked W1, M1, X or non-cumulative.
It taxes each month on its own and ignores everything paid before it, so the year cannot square itself. Common after a job change.
What to do If it has been on for months, ask HMRC to move you to a cumulative code.
A K code adds to your taxable pay instead of giving you an allowance.
Usually an untaxed benefit or an underpayment being collected.
What to do If you do not know why it was issued, that is worth a call — especially with a second post.
Your code starts with S, and bands for that year are not loaded.
Scotland sets its own bands. Applying rest-of-UK rates would give a wrong figure, so it does not.
What to do Earlier years are checked properly. The current year is flagged rather than estimated.
The code does not match any valid format.
Usually a misread from a photograph, occasionally a genuinely odd code.
What to do Check it against the payslip and correct it by hand.
Your code changed more than once during a tax year.
Each change resets what PAYE thinks you owe for the year, and the correction lands in your pay.
What to do Worth understanding why, particularly if the changes were not explained.
Your deductions · 5 checks
Your deductions
National Insurance, pension and loans.
Your NI letter is not the standard category A.
C is over pension age, B and J are reduced-rate or deferred. Each changes what you pay.
What to do If you did not expect it, query it — the wrong letter costs real money.
Pension tiers for that year are not loaded.
The tier structure changed mid-year in 2022/23, so a single monthly rate cannot be checked.
What to do The rest of the payslip is still checked.
You have not told it which plan you are on.
Plans 1, 2, 4, 5 and postgraduate all have different thresholds and rates.
What to do Set it in the tax section and the deduction is checked.
Thresholds for that plan and year are not held.
Rather than apply the wrong year's threshold, it says so.
What to do Other deductions in that year are still checked.
There are deductions it does not verify.
Car parking, union subscriptions, salary sacrifice, court orders and similar are yours to check.
What to do It verifies tax, National Insurance, pension and student loan; anything else is listed but not judged.
Your contract · 7 checks
Your contract
What you were promised, against what you are paid.
The salary in your contract is not a published pay point.
A contract quoting a figure that does not exist on the scale is worth querying before anything else.
What to do Check the figure against the circular for the year the contract was issued.
The contract salary is below the minimum or above the maximum for the grade.
Either the grade or the figure is wrong.
What to do Raise it with payroll — every later figure follows from this one.
Your payslip is calculated from a lower salary than your contract states.
Every figure on that payslip can be arithmetically perfect and still wrong, because they all follow from this.
What to do This is the single most valuable thing to find. The letter to payroll quotes both figures.
Your payslip uses a higher salary than the contract.
Usually a pay award since the contract was signed — the contract is simply older.
What to do Nothing to do, unless you have no record of the award.
You are paid fewer programmed activities than your job plan states.
If you are working the sessions in your contract, this is a shortfall.
What to do Priced per PA in the finding, and quoted in the letter.
Your payslip pays more PAs than the contract states.
Extra sessions being paid, or a job plan that moved on without the contract being reissued.
What to do Not money missing — but the paperwork should match what you do.
The contract predates the year being checked.
Its salary cannot be compared directly with a later payslip.
What to do It is used for the terms, not the figure.
Your year · 5 checks
Your year
The part no single payslip can show.
Less tax came off than was due across the year.
This is money owed to HMRC, not owed to you. It is normally collected through a later tax code. The commonest cause is two posts: each payroll gives a full personal allowance because neither can see the other, and above a certain total income that allowance should have tapered away.
What to do Worth checking it has been, rather than waiting to be asked.
More tax came off than was due.
Reclaimable for four years after the end of the tax year.
What to do The letter to HMRC sets out the year and the figure.
A month 1 code was in force, so the year could not square itself.
Whatever position it finished in is still outstanding.
What to do It has to be settled separately — it will not correct itself.
The certificate reports different pay or tax from the payslips on file.
Usually a payslip missing from the pile. The P60 is what your employer told HMRC.
What to do Find the missing months, or go by the P60.
The payslips on file stop short of the end of the year.
A partial year cannot be judged as a finished one.
What to do Add the remaining payslips, or use the P60.
Your posts together exceed the point where the personal allowance tapers.
Neither payroll can see the other, so both keep giving a full allowance.
What to do This is where the largest findings come from. Add every post you have.
Your progression · 3 checks
Your progression
Where you should be on the scale.
Your service has taken you past a progression gateway.
Some steps need a meeting and an agreement, not just time served.
What to do If no meeting happened, that is itself worth raising.
On this contract each step requires a pay progression meeting.
It works out where you should be if that process kept up — it cannot tell you whether it did.
What to do Check your appraisal record against the dates.
The pay scale code can be worked out, but not what it pays.
Only the ends of some scales are published in the data held.
What to do The code is still correct; the money is not shown rather than guessed.
The reading itself · 4 checks
The reading itself
Whether it trusted what it read.
The figures read do not reconcile against the payslip's own totals.
Pay lines must sum to total payments, deductions to total deductions, and the difference to net pay.
What to do It is flagged rather than reported. Check the highlighted figure against the paper.
A photograph or screenshot was read and reconciled cleanly.
The self-check passed, so the figures can be relied on.
What to do Nothing to do.
The payslip belongs to a year whose rates differ from the current one.
It uses that year's rates, not today's.
What to do Shown so you know which rules were applied.
Your payslip indicates an older or local contract.
Banding works differently, and Trust grades are not national terms.
What to do Some checks do not apply; it says which.