Certificate in Xero Payroll

UK payroll in Xero, from set-up to the tax year end. After a first pay run in Xero's demo company, you'll set up an employer's payroll, add employees, run pay runs, pay holiday, sickness and family leave, run auto-enrolment, deal with HMRC's filings and responses and reconcile payroll in the accounts. It finishes with corrections and leavers, the year end and benefits, and a capstone where you take over a payroll mid-year.

Some. If you can find your way around Xero and reconcile a bank account, you're ready, and you don't need any payroll experience. If Xero itself is new, start with the Certificate in Xero.

Not to start. Xero's free trial is enough to set up your practice payroll, and if it runs out before you finish, a monthly Xero plan that includes payroll keeps the same file going. Never practise in a live payroll: in Xero, posting a pay run is what files it with HMRC.

Xero Payroll if you need to run payroll in Xero, with every awkward case worked through in the software. Bookkeeping & Payroll if you want the whole bookkeeping job, with payroll worked out by hand so you know what the software is doing. Taking Bookkeeping & Payroll first and this course second works well.

No. You run a fictional Glasgow restaurant's payroll and then a garden centre's, in a practice file of your own. Filing with HMRC needs a real employer, so your practice pay runs send nothing, and you learn to read HMRC's responses without risking anyone's pay.

By teaching you where each figure comes from. Rates and thresholds change with each tax year, so you learn the process in Xero, the current numbers always come from GOV.UK, and Xero keeps them up to date.

Yes. It's UK payroll throughout: PAYE and RTI filings, workplace pensions and auto-enrolment, and Scottish tax codes, since the practice restaurant is in Glasgow. The pay run routine itself transfers well if you later work with payroll elsewhere.

Yes. Complete the course and pass its final assessment and you get an OBA certificate of completion that an employer can verify online. It isn't a professional payroll qualification, such as those from the CIPP, and it isn't Xero's own advisor certification. What it shows is practical: you can run a full payroll cycle in Xero.

Download the free info pack first. It walks you through every module, what you'll build and what you need before you start, so you can enrol knowing exactly what you're getting. If you'd like to talk it through, get in touch and we'll help you choose.