Pay runs and CIS
CIS worked out from hours the crew already filed.
By Friday the hours are already in, because the crew filed them from site during the week. The pay run prices them at each person's rate, works the CIS at the rate on their record, and produces the statements. The Sunday night spreadsheet does not survive this page.
The Friday
The pay run starts with hours nobody had to chase.
The usual Friday problem is not the maths, it is the inputs: hours texted in late, a day remembered differently by two people, a rate applied from memory. By the time the maths starts, the evening is already gone.
Here the hours arrived during the week, filed by the crew from site, day by day, against the jobs they were actually on. A missing day showed up amber the same evening it went missing.The pay run prices what was approved, at the rate on each person’s record, and shows its workings. If a number looks wrong you can follow it back to the day and the site it came from, which is a sentence no spreadsheet has ever said.
What comes out
Four things, produced, not promised.
The gross, priced from approved hours
Hourly or day rate, per person, with adjustments on the run where they belong rather than scribbled beside it.
The deduction, at the rate on record
20 per cent verified, 30 per cent unverified, gross status, per subcontractor. Worked the same way every week, which is the entire point.
A statement for every subcontractor
Payment and deduction, per person, per run, ready to send. The document they need and the one that stops the April phone calls.
The CIS300 workings for the month
The month’s deductions laid out the way the return asks for them, so filing becomes copying, done by whoever files for you today. HMRC wants it by the 19th, every month, and the workings are ready when the last run is.
Who searches CIS
Nearly everything written about CIS is for the other side.
Around twenty thousandConstruction Industry Scheme searches happen in the UK each month, and almost none of them are made by the person doing the deducting. Here is July 2026.
| The search | Searches in July |
|---|---|
| what is cis | 12,100 |
| cis registration | 6,600 |
| cis return | 1,600 |
| cis calculator | 1,300 |
| cis monthly return | 210 |
| cis300 | 110 |
| cis software | 30 |
Google keyword data for the United Kingdom, pulled 29 August 2026.
The big numbers are people entering the scheme or working out what was deducted from them. The contractor running the deductions barely shows up, a few hundred searches in a good month, and yet advertisers bid £94 for one click on “cis software”, the same pattern asthe wider job software market.
The practical consequence: nearly everything written about CIS online is written for the subcontractor. The Sunday night with the spreadsheet, the rate applied from memory, the statements produced late, that side of the scheme mostly gets adverts instead of answers. This page, and the software behind it, exist for that side.
Questions
Worth asking.
Does it submit the CIS300 to HMRC?
No. It produces the CIS300 workings, the month's deductions laid out the way the return wants them, and you or your accountant file as you do now. I am deliberately not in the filing business: software that files badly costs you penalties, and pretending otherwise on a sales page is how that starts.
How does it know to deduct 20 or 30 per cent?
Each subcontractor carries the rate on their record: 20 per cent verified, 30 per cent unverified, or gross payment status. The pay run applies whatever is recorded. Verifying somebody with HMRC stays your job or your accountant's, and if a rate changes you change it on their record and it applies from the next run.
What about my PAYE people?
They sit in the same pay run so the week's labour cost is complete, but their payslips are recorded rather than calculated. Whoever runs your payroll now keeps doing it. Income tax, National Insurance and pension maths are a regulated job done properly by payroll software, and this is not payroll software pretending.
Do subcontractors get their statements?
A payment and deduction statement is produced for every subcontractor on every run, ready to send. Gross, deduction, net, dated, per person. It is the document they need for their own records and the one they chase you for in April.
When does the CIS300 have to be with HMRC?
By the 19th of every month, covering the tax month that ended on the 5th, whether or not you paid anybody. The workings here are ready as soon as the month's last run is approved, so the filing deadline stops being the thing the month is arranged around. Filing itself stays with you or your accountant, as it should.
See it properly
Have a look at it running.
Ring me or send me a message and I will walk you through a pay run on a demo company, on a screen, at a time that suits. If your week is complicated, bring the complicated bit and we will run that.