HMRC recognition is table stakes. Every serious UK payroll product can send an FPS. The reason firms still hate payday is everything around that click: a second login, per-head fees, no preview, and a tiny data mistake that creates a duplicate employment on HMRC.
What we designed HydraTax around
1. FPS goes out before anyone has checked the numbers
HydraTax splits preview and submit. You see gross, PAYE, NI, statutory pay, pension and year-to-date, with traffic-light checks, then a second confirm to submit the FPS. That is how you stop a wrong starter declaration leaving the building.
2. Duplicate HMRC employments
HMRC’s employer bulletins keep blaming reused payroll IDs, missing “payroll ID changed” indicators, and start dates on continuing staff. We refuse to issue a duplicate payroll ID (including leavers), we only send starter declarations on the first FPS, and we keep year-to-date tax and pay on the submission so a nil-looking period does not merge records.
3. Timesheets that never become payslips
Upload one Excel sheet. Hours, sick days, holiday and maternity weeks become payslips automatically — using 2026/27 HMRC rates for statutory sick pay (from day 1), maternity pay, 5.6 weeks’ holiday and auto-enrolment qualifying earnings. No re-keying into a second product.
4. Payslips stuck in the practice inbox
Accountants set the pack password themselves. HydraTax emails the client a password-protected zip of every payslip plus a period summary. Print remains one click if you still want paper.
5. Weekly and monthly are first-class
Retail and hospitality pay weekly; offices pay monthly. HydraTax is a frequency switch: M1 or W1 on the FPS, period dates filled in, payday called out because RTI is due on or before that date.
6. Payroll is an island elsewhere
Your limited company still needs a CT600, often MTD VAT, a confirmation statement and year-end accounts. Paying extra per employee inside a ledger that cannot file those returns is how practices end up with five subscriptions. HydraTax is one client record, one desk.
7. Nobody paid — now what?
A quiet month still needs an EPS with the no-payment indicator. Inventing a zero FPS is how HMRC records go strange. The payroll screen offers “Submit EPS — nobody paid” as a first-class action.
Where we are still careful
The PAYE/NI engine is integer-pence and aimed at salaried and hourly weekly/monthly staff. Unusual tax codes, salary sacrifice and multi-job PAYE schemes should be checked against HMRC calculators. We would rather say that than pretend a full CIPP-grade engine on day one.
Who it is for
- Accountants who already want CT600, VAT and Companies House in one place and are tired of a bolt-on payroll login.
- Directors with a handful of staff who need FPS, timesheets, statutory pay, payslips and a quiet-month EPS.
- Anyone who has already created a duplicate employment and never wants to do it again through a reused payroll ID.
Open a client, add employees, upload hours if you have them, preview the run, submit FPS or EPS, send a locked pack. Same HydraTax desk as the rest of UK compliance — that is the difference, not another logo on an HMRC recognition list.