A parallel run is a safety step typically used when your company has 25 employees or more. It lets you compare PayFit payroll results with your current provider’s payroll before going live and before PayFit starts sending your HMRC declarations.
You’ll usually enter the parallel run stage once you’ve completed Academy training and you’re ready to start managing payroll changes in PayFit.
What a Parallel Run means for you
During the parallel run:
You’ll mirror in PayFit the same payroll changes you’re applying in your “live” payroll with your current provider (e.g. bonuses, commissions, pension changes, starters and leavers).
Your current payroll provider continues to run payroll and remains the source of live submissions during this period.
PayFit will not submit to HMRC during the parallel run (it’s a closed environment), so we can safely identify and resolve discrepancies first.
What we need from you for a smooth parallel run
To start the discrepancy analysis, please upload the required reports by the date agreed during your kick-off call (this depends on when your current provider can produce the reports).
Required reports:
Gross-to-net file (ideally Excel) including YTD figures for:
Tax
National Insurance (NI) with Employee and Employer NI
Net pay
Pension contributions, with Employee and Employer pension contributions
Payslips (drafts if available and final payslips)
FPS and EPS (or P32), once produced by your former provider
Any report that shows YTDs values for the Statutory amounts recovered and the Apprenticeship Levy (e.g. an EPS or P32 with YTDs)
Tip: you can find the agreed upload date in the first email you received from our Onboarding team. 📩
What happens after you upload the reports
Once:
the reports are delivered, and
the payroll changes for the period have been mirrored into PayFit,
then:
Our team will start the parallel discrepancies analysis. 🔍
If anything doesn’t match, we’ll contact you to resolve discrepancies and confirm the parallel results align with your live month. 🤝
Running the parallel payroll in PayFit
Once discrepancies are resolved:
Go to Run my payroll → Run payroll to run the parallel payroll.
If a blocking notification appears (for example, a missing address for a new starter), you’ll need to complete the missing information before you can continue.
Payslips will be generated as part of the parallel run. PayFit will remove these payslips after a couple of days (because they’re not your “live” payslips).
If you’d prefer us to leave parallel payslips available, please tell your Onboarding contact or raise a support ticket.
After the Parallel Month Closes
Once the parallel month is closed, your account will be switched to a live environment (unless you agreed to run more than one parallel run). Any payslips stored from the parallel run will be deleted by the team before employees are given access.
From that point onward:
You’ll start receiving tax code updates.
PayFit will submit FPS and EPS for you each month.
After your first live payroll, we’ll ask you to send a screenshot to confirm that the EPS in your Government Gateway matches the figures in PayFit.
Payslips are generated as soon as payroll is run and are immediately visible to employees in their portal.
On payday, you can set up employees to receive a proactive email notification letting them know their payslip is ready to view.
If you want your employees to receive an email notification when their payslip is ready, go to:
Company Settings → Payroll Setup → Payment and Payslips and set it to “Stored & email notification sent to EE.”
If this setting isn’t configured, employees will still receive a notification as soon as payroll is run, informing them that their payslip is available in the portal.
Please note: PayFit never sends emails directly to employees - payslips are only retrievable via the portal.
Common questions (FAQ)
Will PayFit submit anything to HMRC during the parallel run?
No. During parallel run, PayFit is a closed environment and will not submit FPS/EPS to HMRC. Your current payroll provider remains responsible for HMRC submissions during this period.
Will employees receive or see payslips during the parallel run?
Parallel payslips can be generated when you run payroll in PayFit. Whether employees see them depends on whether you’ve invited them to Employee Space and what you decide for the parallel run setup. 🧾
If you don’t want parallel payslips to remain visible after the parallel run, PayFit can remove them, just let us know.
Do we need to invite employees to Employee Space during parallel run?
Not always. In many cases, you can wait until the first live month to issue Employee Space invitations.
However, if you want to set up approvals/permissions or org structure early, you may choose to invite employees during parallel run, just make sure they understand any payslips they receive are parallel (test) payslips.
What changes do I need to “mirror” in PayFit?
You should replicate anything that affects payroll results in the month you’re paralleling, such as:
Starters and leavers
Bonuses and commissions
Pension changes
Other pay items or deductions
What if the parallel results don’t match my current provider?
That’s exactly what the parallel run is for. We’ll review discrepancies with you, identify the cause (setup differences, missing inputs, rounding rules, historical values, etc.), and adjust the configuration so your PayFit results align before going live.
Can We Do More Than One Parallel Run?
Yes, additional parallel runs can be arranged if agreed as part of your onboarding plan.
This is a chargeable service, and the cost of each parallel run is the same as your standard payroll.