When running payroll, there may be occasions when a submission to HMRC fails. The payroll might fail on the FPS or the EPS, and if the company runs CIS, it could also fail on the CIS300. Each submission type will have its own failure messages, with error codes and reasons for failing.
Identifying the issue
There can be a whole range of reasons that a submission may fail, but typically there are only a few across each submission type that are seen to regularly cause failures.
All submission types
"Failed Poll Timeout" – This error means HMRC are having issues receiving submissions, and will continue to be rejected until they are sorted out. Unfortunately there is no real fix to this error, as it just requires you to wait for HMRC to fix the problems they are experiencing, before you can successfully submit the period.
FPS submission failures
FPS submission failures will be the most frequent failures you will experience when running payroll. There are several common reasons FPS’ can fail:
“7801 Accounts Office reference or Employer PAYE reference is incorrect” – This error simply means you have entered an invalid AOR and/or PAYE reference for the company. You will need to double check the references in the Payroll settings section of the Company settings, and amend to the correct values.
“7802 You have not been invited to submit this submission type” – This error normally means you are submitting against a PAYE scheme that has closed, or a scheme that has only just been registered and isn’t fully set up with HMRC yet. If the scheme has been closed, you will need to reopen the scheme with HMRC before attempting to resubmit the payroll. If the scheme is new, you will need to wait for HMRC to complete the set up before you can submit payrolls against the scheme.
“7806 This submission cannot be accepted as it does not fall within the eligible filing period” – This message normally means you are submitting against a PAYE scheme that is closed with HMRC.
“7823 There is no entry in [NINO]. Please complete at least two [ADDRESSLINE]s” – This message means there is a team member without a NINO, that also has an invalid address. The issue could be that the address has just been missed completely, or that the postcode doesn’t match the address you have entered. To fix this, just head to the Team page, find the relevant team member, and update their address.
“7829 There is an entry in [STARTDATE]. Please complete at least two [ADDRESSLINE]s” – Like the previous error, this message means a team member has an invalid address, which is required when they are a new starter. To fix this, edit the address in the necessary team member’s profile.
You can also have several different errors that are due to entries in certain fields in the submission being deemed invalid, or incorrectly formatted. Typically, the invalid fields are:
“4065 Invalid content found at element ‘NINO'” – This message means a team member’s NI number has been entered in an incorrect format. Usually, there aren’t enough numbers in the NINO, or the last letter isn’t one of the accepted values (A, B, C or D). It could also occur if a team member has been given a temporary NI number, as these are no longer in use. To fix this, simply head to the team member’s profile, and correct the NINO in their ‘Personal information’ section.
“4065 Invalid content found at element ‘AtLELYTD'” –This code means there is a team member whose earnings at the LEL are incorrect. For example, an LEL of above 520 would be invalid for the April period. To correct this error, head to the Payments to date area in the team member’s profile, and correct their payments at the LEL.
“4065 Invalid content found at element ‘TaxablePay'” –This error usually occurs if there is a negative taxable pay YTD for a team member. Normally the fix for this lies in removing large gross deductions from the current period if they take the taxable YTD for the team member below £0.
EPS submission failures
“7802 You have not been invited to submit this submission type” – Like the FPS equivalent, this error means you are submitting against a closed PAYE scheme, or a new scheme that isn’t fully registered with HMRC yet. You will either need to re-open the scheme, or wait for HMRC to finish registering the scheme, before you submit.
“7806 This submission cannot be accepted as it does not fall within the eligible filing period” – This message normally means you are submitting against a PAYE scheme that is closed with HMRC. Alternatively, you could be submitting with an end date after the end of the tax year.
“7953 If [CISDEDUCTIONSSUFFERED] is greater than zero, [COTAXREF] must be present” – This error refers to a 22/23 tax year update, in which a valid UTR must be present if the submission contains CIS deductions suffered.
"7911 The entry in [NOPAYMENTDATETO] must be no later than the 5th of the current tax month. Please check." - This error occurs when you attempt to submit the EPS too early. We recommend running the EPS on the date it is due, or the next working day. If you enable Auto EPS, Paycircle will send the EPS at the correct time when due.
CIS300 submission failures
“1046: Authentication Failure. The supplied user credentials failed validation for the requested service” – This error means the scheme you are submitting for is not on the HMRC credentials you are using to make the submission. To fix this error, head to the ‘Company settings’, and in the ‘Payroll settings’ area, amend the HMRC credentials in the ‘References and updates’ section.