How to Report Across Two Tax Years in BrightPay Cloud

Cross Tax Year Reporting is a new BrightPay Cloud UK feature that lets you run one report across two tax years, instead of running a separate report in each tax year and merging the results yourself. It’s live now, and figures match exactly what you’d get from running single-year reports side by side.

Why doesn’t your BrightPay report match your financial year?

The UK tax year runs from 6 April to 5 April. Plenty of businesses don’t work to that calendar. If your financial year runs January to December, or any other twelve-month stretch, getting a proper year-end view of payroll costs has meant extra work: run a report in one tax year, run another in the next, then merge the two by hand.

That usually means exporting to CSV or Excel, deleting the months you don’t need, and stitching the rest together to get one clean picture. It works, but it’s slow, and every extra step is a chance to get something wrong.

What is Cross Tax Year Reporting?

Cross Tax Year Reporting is a new menu option on the report definition screen in BrightPay Cloud UK. Switch on “Report over multiple tax years” and you can pick a date range that spans the 5 April boundary, rather than being limited to a single tax year.

Once it’s on, the From and To period dropdowns show periods grouped by tax year, oldest first, so you can select exactly where your custom report should start and end.

How does Cross Tax Year Reporting save you time?

The report does the joining for you. Each period is grouped and dated correctly for its tax year, and the summary section totals everything up across the boundary automatically. There’s no exporting, no manual merging, and no risk of miscounting a month.

This is particularly useful for:

Financial year cost analysis. See what it cost to employ your team over your actual financial year, not just the UK tax year.
Reconciliation. Match payroll costs against your own accounting periods, useful when reconciling against journals posted separately each pay period.
Audit and compliance reporting. Produce a single report for any check that crosses the 5 April tax year boundary, rather than assembling one from two separate exports.
Repeatable reporting. Save your cross-tax year report as a template, so you can run the same comparison again next time without rebuilding it.

How Do You Run a Cross Tax Year Report?

Go to Analysis and choose the report you want to run (Payroll Summary, Deductions, Employer Costs, and others all support it).
In the Periods section of the report definition, switch to Report over multiple tax years instead of “Report in current tax year only.”
Choose your From and To periods from the dropdowns, which now group periods by tax year.
Run the report. Results display grouped and dated correctly by period, with totals accumulated in the summary section.
Save it as a template if you’ll want to run the same comparison again.

What Should You Know Before You Start?

A few practical points worth knowing:

Eligibility. This option is only available in 2026/27 employers, and only where that employer has data linked from a previous tax year in BrightPay Cloud UK. It won’t appear if you’re working in 2025/26 or an earlier tax year file, even if prior-year data exists.
Two-year maximum. You can report back up to two tax years. For example, in 2026/27 you can report into 2025/26 and 2024/25, but not further back.
YTD figures still reset each 5 April. Year-to-date columns represent “tax year to date,” not a cumulative figure across years. Only the summary section totals accumulate across the boundary.
Custom columns. Any custom columns you’ve set up in the current tax year will show blank in prior-year sections, since they didn’t exist yet.

For the full technical detail, see the support article on Cross Tax Year Reporting.

Frequently asked questions on Cross Tax Year Reporting

How do I run a payroll report across two tax years?

Start a new report in BrightPay Cloud UK and switch on the “Report over multiple tax years” toggle. Select your From and To periods from the dropdowns, which will now be grouped by tax year, then run the report as normal.

Can BrightPay report on more than two tax years at once?

No. Cross Tax Year Reporting supports the current tax year plus the two tax years before it. For 2026/27, that means you can go back to 2025/26 and 2024/25, but not 2023/24.

Why doesn’t my financial year match my payroll tax year?

The UK tax year always runs 6 April to 5 April, set by HMRC. Many businesses use a different financial year for their own accounting, most commonly the calendar year, which means payroll reporting periods and financial reporting periods don’t naturally line up.

Why can’t I see the “Report over multiple tax years” option?

This option only appears in 2026/27 employers that also have data linked from a previous tax year in BrightPay Cloud UK. If you’re working in 2025/26 or an earlier tax year file, or your employer record doesn’t have that prior-year history, you won’t see the toggle.

Why are my YTD figures different in a cross-year report?

Year-to-date columns are calculated per tax year and reset at each 5 April boundary by design. They show “tax year to date,” not a running total across years. Only the totals in the summary section accumulate across the tax year boundary.

This content may have been developed with the assistance of AI tools. Content is reviewed by a member of the Bright team before publication. Guidance on legislation can be obtained from your industry body.