Understanding Your Payslip
Your payslip is divided into several clearly defined sections to help you understand how your pay has been calculated. Each section provides specific information about your personal details, payments, deductions, and taxes for the current period and year-to-date.
Your payslip includes the following sections:
Header
Your Information Summary
Payments
Deductions
In Period
Year to Date (YTD)
Payslip Summary
Header
The Header section displays your employer’s details, including:
Client Name
Client Logo
Your information summary
This section contains your personal and employment information as recorded by your employer. You will typically see:
Employee Name – Your full name
Employee Number – Your unique employee ID
NI Number – Your National Insurance number
NI Category – The category used to calculate National Insurance
Tax Code – Your current tax code (if your tax code ends with “X”, it means you are on a Week 1 / Month 1 basis)
Pay Date – The date your pay is issued
PAYE Reference – Your employer’s PAYE reference number
Address – Your registered home address
Notes – Any additional payslip notes added by payroll
Payments
This section outlines the details of your pay for the period. It includes:
Payment Name – e.g., Basic Pay, Overtime, Bonuses
Units – Hours or quantities worked (where applicable)
Rate – The pay rate applied
Total – The total amount for each payment item
Any notes associated with specific payment items will appear directly under the item name.
If you have received any pension refunds, these will also appear in this section.
At the bottom of the Payments section, you will see the total gross payment amount for the period.
Deductions
This section lists all deductions taken from your pay, such as:
PAYE (Income Tax)
National Insurance (NI)
Student Loan repayments
Pension contributions
Court Orders
Any other deduction items
Any notes associated with specific deduction items will appear directly under the item name.
The bottom of this section shows the total deductions amount.
In Period
The In Period section shows the payroll values specific to the current tax period, including:
Taxable Pay
NIable Pay
Pensionable Pay
Employer’s Pension Contribution
This information helps you understand what earnings and contributions apply to this pay period alone.
Year to Date (YTD)
The Year to Date section displays accumulated totals for the current tax year, including:
Total Taxable Pay
Total PAYE (Income Tax)
Total NIable Pay
Total Employee NI Contributions
Total Pensionable Pay
Total Employee Pension Contributions
These totals include the values from the current pay period as well as all previous periods in the same tax year.
Payslip Summary
This final section provides a clear summary of:
Net Pay – The amount you will receive
Pay Frequency – e.g., weekly, monthly
Tax Period – The tax period your payslip relates to
Need Further Assistance?
If you need help understanding any specific part of your payslip, please contact your payroll team or support representative.