Off-payroll (IR35) records

Open this screen in Saral/hr/workers?tab=compliance&sub=off_payroll

A record, per engagement, of the off-payroll working (IR35) status determination a client or agency gave for a worker who trades through their own company, a professional or an agency worker: inside, outside, not required, or pending; who determined it and when; the CEST reference or the statement itself in the private vault; the reasons given; the next review; and whether the worker disputed it. No questionnaire and no score — the determination is the client's (or, for a small client, the worker's own company's) responsibility, and Saral records it. Off by default; switched on in HR → Settings → Compliance & Documents.

You enter

On the worker's Compliance tab, Record an engagement: the client (one of your companies or a name), the assignment if there is one, the period, the outcome the client or agency determined, who determined it and on what date, the CEST result reference if they used HMRC's tool, the reasons given in the statement's own words, and the next review date (blank = the interval in settings after the determination date).
The status determination statement (SDS) as a PDF, Word file or photo — kept in a private vault and opened by a short-lived link.
A dispute: the date the worker raised it and, when the client replies, whether the determination was upheld, changed or withdrawn.

Saral fills in

The review position — overdue, due within 30 days, scheduled — from the next review date, on the card, in the Compliance list and as one line in the Monday compliance digest.
A note on whether the client looks small under the Companies Act thresholds the off-payroll rules borrow (two of: turnover, balance sheet, employees), read from the client's last accounts type at Companies House where the company number is known — information only, never a decision.
A draft read of an uploaded statement — the outcome words, the date, the CEST reference, the reasons — for a person to compare with the record; nothing is changed by the read.

It produces

The Off-payroll (IR35) register in Workers → Compliance: one row per engagement with filters on worker type, client, determination, who determined it, review position and dispute, and an Excel of exactly the rows on screen whose review ageing is a formula off the As-at date.
The record in a worker's GDPR export; the statement file and free text removed by the retention rule six years after the worker leaves, the engagement facts kept.

What this is — and is not

Where a worker provides their services through their own limited company (or another intermediary), the off-payroll working rules in Chapter 10 of Part 2 ITEPA 2003 put the status decision on the client, unless the client is small for the tax year, in which case the worker's own company decides under Chapter 8. The client gives a status determination statement with its reasons, and the worker may dispute it within the client-led process. Saral keeps the record of that: what was determined, by whom, when, on what evidence, when it is next reviewed and how a dispute ended. It is not a questionnaire, it does not score, and it never says what the status should be. The screen says so, every time.

The small-client note

From 6 April 2026 the rules take the raised Companies Act thresholds: a company is small when it meets two of — turnover not more than £15m, balance sheet not more than £7.5m, not more than 50 employees. Saral cannot see a company's turnover or balance sheet; what it can see, where the client is one of your companies with a company number, is the type of the last accounts filed at Companies House — micro-entity or small accounts may only be filed by a company that qualified as small, full or medium accounts suggest the opposite. That is shown as a note with its source. The client confirms its own size; a public-sector client is never small for these rules. The figures live in a dated table in the code so the next change is a new row.

Review, dispute and retention

A determination is reviewed on a material change to the engagement and, failing one, after the interval in settings (12 months by default); the card, the register and the Monday digest say when one is due or overdue. A dispute is recorded with its date and, when the client replies with reasons, its outcome. Six years after the worker leaves, the retention rule removes the statement file, the reasons and the dispute note and keeps the engagement facts; a GDPR erasure does the same at once; a subject-access export lists the records without the file's storage path.

Where the settings live

HR → Settings → Compliance & Documents → Off-payroll (IR35) records. The feature is off for every account until somebody switches it on; the review interval and the worker types the card shows for sit beside it, and all three are on the Switchboard with their defaults.

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