‘Yule need to plan in advance’
20 November 2017
UK businesses are being urged by Bacs to plan in advance to avoid missing or delaying crucial payments over the Christmas and New Year holidays.
Bacs Payment Schemes Limited (Bacs), the company behind Direct Debit and Bacs Direct Credit in the UK, is reminding businesses to make plans to ensure staff and suppliers don’t miss out because of the non-processing days over the festive period.
For example, if staff are to be paid before Christmas 2017, then the payment process has to begin on Wednesday 20th December 2017 to ensure that salaries are in employees bank accounts by Friday 22nd December.
Similarly, if business owners are intending to pay staff or suppliers before the New Year, then the payment process must begin on Wednesday 27th December 2017 at the latest.
To help businesses with their planning, Bacs publishes downloadable processing calendars, including all critical payment dates; the new one for 2018 has joined the existing 2017 version at www.bacs.co.uk.
Certain dates in the calendar like Bank Holidays are classed as non-processing dates, and if important payments are not to be missed, then businesses need to take these non-processing dates into account when they are working-out their payment schedules.
Payment files, which trigger the payment of Direct Debits or Bacs Direct Credits, can be submitted up to 30 days in advance and business owners should ensure that anyone involved in processing payments has a copy of the processing calendars (available here).