Here at Bright, we’ve just hosted our third webinar on Revenue’s Enhanced Reporting Requirements (ERR). Our mission? To arm employers and payroll processors all over Ireland with the knowledge they need to sail through the new requirements once January 2024 rolls around. 

Each of our sessions wrap up with a Q&A where we welcome questions from our attendees. We strive to answer as many questions as we can, ensuring you walk away with the clarity you need. We’ve noticed a handful of questions popping up quite frequently during these Q&A segments. So, to keep everyone informed, we've decided to compile a list of your top ERR queries, along with our answers.  

The answers listed below are relevant for phase one of ERR only. Revenue have not yet indicated what will be included in future phases. 

Question 1:  

If an employee uses a company credit card or petty cash to pay for travel and subsistence expenses, does this need to be reported under ERR? 

Answer: No. ERR is only relevant where an employee has paid for the expenses out of their own pocket, has made a claim, and the employer is making a payment directly to the employee.

Question 2:  

Will employees have visibility over the expenses which have been reported? 

Answer: When employees log into “MyAccount” on ROS, under the heading, ‘PAYE Services’ there will be a new option called 'Expenses and benefits’. Through here, the employee will be able to see all the expenses and benefits that have been submitted by the employer. 

Question 3: 

If an employee pays for supplies for the office with their own money, should this be reported under ERR? 

Answer: Work supplies aren’t included in this phase of ERR. 

Question 4: 

What is the difference between travel-vouched and travel-unvouched? 

Answer: Travel vouched is when supporting documents are supplied when making a claim for travel expenses, for example, a train ticket or a receipt from a taxi. Unvouched is when no supporting documents have been supplied. One example of this would be when civil service mileage rates are used to claim back travel expenses.  

Question 5 

Does ERR apply to vouchers given at Christmas 2023? 

Answer: ERR rules only apply for payments made from 1st January 2024 onwards. However, if you buy the voucher before Christmas but don’t give the voucher to the employee until January, then yes, it would apply. 

Question 6 

Will there be any penalties for late submissions, or what would the penalties be for failing to submit any expenses? 

Answer: Revenue have stated that the regulations are currently being drafted and should be ready by the end of the year. These regulations will include information on penalties. 

Question 7 

What if you don’t have a PPSN for the employee? 

Answer: Through Revenue’s manual system, if you don’t have the PPS number of an employee, you can report expenses for them by supplying an Employer Reference, the employee’s name, their date of birth and their home address. 

Question 8 

Is there any cap on the amount of unvouched travel expenses an employe can claim? 

Answer: There haven’t been any caps mentioned in this phase of ERR when it comes to reimbursing employees for unvouched travel. 

Question 9 

Will it be easier to reimburse employees for expenses directly through the payroll or on an ad-hoc basis? 

Answer: It’s completely up to you, as long as you report the payments either before or on the payment date. Some employers may find it easier to reimburse employees directly through the payroll as it means that all expenses and benefits can be reported at once. It also means that if you use Bright’s payroll solutions, BrightPay, Thesaurus Payroll Manager or Surf Payroll, you can seamlessly send this data to our platform for submitting expenses, BrightExpenses, and from there, in a few clicks, it can be sent directly to Revenue Online Services (ROS).  

The downside to only paying expenses through the payroll would be that it may leave employees out of pocket as they wait for pay day. 

Question 10 

When reporting travel expenses, will you need to report details such as mileage and the rate used for reimbursement? 

Answer: No, when you are reporting travel expenses, you’ll only need to report whether it’s vouched or unvouched, the amount being paid, and the date of payment.  

ERR made easy 

At Bright, we are working hard to develop our own system for ERR, BrightExpenses. Through BrightExpenses we will offer an alternative to Revenue's manual system, to help save you time and provide more accuracy when reporting. 

Bright’s payroll solutions, BrightPay, Thesaurus Payroll Manager, and Surf Payroll, will all be integrated with BrightExpenses. Any non-taxable expenses inputted to the payroll software can be sent directly to BrightExpenses. It will also be integrated with ROS, and so this information can then be sent from BrightExpenses directly to ROS, in just a few clicks.  

For any non-payroll expenses, these can be added manually into BrightExpenses, and then the information can be sent directly to ROS. 

If you are interested in finding out more BrightExpenses, register your interest today.