This article explains each part of an employee's adoption pay claim: the leave dates, the employer's occupational (top-up) pay, and statutory adoption pay (SAP). For how claims are created, who can edit them and what the icons do, see Parental payments.
Adoption pay is for the main adopter. Their partner may be entitled to paternity pay instead (see Parental payments: Paternity pay).
Adoption claims work in the same way as maternity claims, with three differences:
The dates are based on when the adopter was matched with the child and when the child was placed, rather than a birth.
There are extra dates for when a placement is cancelled, ends or the child dies.
The earnings period is worked out from the week of the match..
1. Adoption claims list
Open the employee's record and click Parental payments > Adoption pay. Each row is one claim, newest first. Figures that payroll calculates show a dash until payroll has run.
Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
Leave start / Leave end | The employee's adoption leave, which can be up to 52 weeks. |
Pay period start / Pay period end | The adoption pay period: the weeks SAP can be paid for, up to 39 weeks. |
Weeks paid / Amount paid | The weeks and amount of SAP paid so far. |
Recovered | The amount of SAP you can reclaim from HMRC. |
NI compensation | The extra amount that employers who qualify for Small Employers' Relief can reclaim, as compensation for employer National Insurance. |
Click anywhere on the row to open the claim page. Click the calendar icon to view the payment schedule report (see 6. Payment schedule report).
2. Adoption leave dates
On the claim page, click Adoption dates > Leave dates. These dates decide whether SAP can be paid, and when.
Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
Match notified | The date the adoption agency told the employee they'd been matched with a child. This sets the week used to work out the earnings period (see 9. Relevant earnings). |
Adoption leave requested | The date the employee told you they wanted to take adoption leave. For UK adoptions, employees must normally tell you within 7 days of being matched. (ZZ) |
SC4/SC5 received | The date you received proof of the adoption, which the employee must give you to qualify for SAP. |
Child expected / Child placed | The date the child is expected to start living with the employee, and the date they did. |
Adoption leave start / Adoption leave end | For UK adoptions, leave can start on the day the child is placed, or up to 14 days before the expected placement date. |
Placement cancelled / Placement ended / Child died | Only complete one of these if the placement doesn't go ahead, ends, or the child dies. You can only enter one: entering a date clears the other two. |
Notified of return to work | The date the employee told you they're returning to work. This does not affect SAP payments. |
KIT days used | The number of keep-in-touch days recorded during the pay period (see 3. Keep-in-touch days). |
To change the dates, click the pencil icon. Match notified, SC4/SC5 received, Adoption leave start and Adoption leave end must be completed, and at least one of Child expected or Child placed. If neither is entered, you'll see "You must enter either a date expected or placed". If you change the leave start or end, the adoption pay period moves with it.
If you see "Should be no more than 14 days before date child expected" (or "placed"), or "Must be on, or day after, date child expected" (or "placed"), the leave start is outside the window allowed. Check it against the expected or placement date.
3. Keep-in-touch days
Click Adoption dates > Keep-in-touch to see any keep-in-touch (KIT) days recorded during the pay period, with the week of the pay period each one falls in. An employee can work up to 10 KIT days without losing SAP for those weeks. (ZZ)
You can only record KIT days in Cintra iQ.
4. Adoption pay schedule
Click Adoption pay schedule to see the employer's occupational adoption pay: any top-up the employer pays on top of SAP.
Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
Payment scheme | The employer's occupational adoption pay scheme, which sets how many weeks are paid at full pay, half pay and so on. Schemes are set up in Cintra iQ, and only schemes set up for adoption are offered. If there aren't any, the form tells you where to set one up. |
Post for pension purposes | The employee's pensionable post. This field only appears if you run pensions in Cintra People Payroll. |
Leave start / End | The leave dates from the Adoption dates tab. |
Annual salary / Weekly salary | The salary the occupational pay is worked out from. |
Pay partial weeks | Switch on to pay part weeks, typically so the employee is paid by calendar month. A part week is worked out by dividing the weekly rate by seven and multiplying by the number of calendar days, whatever the employee's working pattern. This matches how HMRC calculates SAP. If it's switched off, only whole weeks are paid, so a monthly-paid employee receives pay in a 4, 4, 5 week pattern. |
To change these settings, click the pencil icon and click Save. Saving doesn't update the weekly payments or salary figures. To apply the new settings, click Refresh schedule.
5. Weekly payments
Below the pay schedule, Weekly payments shows each week of the pay period, with its payment band (for example, full pay, half pay or SAP only), the statutory and occupational amounts, and the annual salary used. Overridden weeks are flagged in the Overridden column.
You can override a week when it should be paid at a different annual rate, for example after a pay change part-way through a period. Click the pencil icon on the week, enter the Annual rate override and click OK. To apply the same rate to every week after it, switch on Apply to remaining weeks. To remove an override, open the week and click Reset to derived value.
When you apply a rate to the remaining weeks, each week is saved separately. If some can't be saved, you're told which ones, and the rest keep the new rate.
Overrides are cleared if anyone clicks Refresh schedule.
6. Payment schedule report
Click the calendar icon to open the payment schedule report. It shows the whole leave, week by week: the salary basis, a summary of each payment band, and the weekly schedule grouped by pay date, with subtotals and a grand total. Click Save as PDF to download it, for example to give the employee a record of what they'll be paid.
The calendar icon is greyed out if the claim has no occupational pay schedule.
7. SAP payments
Click Statutory adoption pay (SAP) > SAP payments. The SAP summary shows the pay period, average weekly earnings, and the weeks and amounts due, paid and recoverable.
Other fields include:
Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
Pay SAP up to | The date SAP has been paid up to. Whether each pay period pays up to the end of the period or the last whole week before it is set at employer level. (YY) You can change this date for a period in 10. SAP payments per payroll period. |
SAP weeks excluded | Weeks where SAP isn't payable, for example after an exclusion stop date (see 8. Exclusion reasons). |
SAP recoverable / NIC compensation | The amounts you can reclaim from HMRC (see 1. Adoption claims list). |
SAP is paid at 90% of the employee's average weekly earnings for the first 6 weeks. For the remaining 33 weeks, it's paid at HMRC's weekly rate, or 90% of average weekly earnings if that's lower.
Below the summary, Weeks in adoption pay period (APP) lists each week with its SAP amount, any override and its reason, any exclusion reason, and the number of KIT days in the week. To recalculate the weeks straight away, click the calculator icon (Calculate statutory pay). It runs without asking you to confirm, and the summary figures may change.
To override a week's SAP amount, click the pencil icon on the week, enter the Override amount and Override reason (up to 100 characters), and click OK. To remove an override, click Reset to derived.
To download the weeks to a spreadsheet, click the Export icon. 
8. Exclusion reasons
If SAP can't be paid for a claim, or has to stop part-way through, record the reason under SAP settings > SAP exclusion reasons. Click the pencil icon and select a reason from Exclusion reason. The reasons come from HMRC's SAP1 form, which is why they're worded as if you're talking to the employee. There's no reason D for adoption pay.
Reason | Stop date needed? |
|---|---|
A: You were not employed by me for long enough | Set by the calculation. You can't select it. |
B: You did not tell me soon enough that you would be away from work | No |
C: You did not give me acceptable evidence of your entitlement soon enough | No |
E: You were in legal custody | Yes |
F: You worked for me or another employer during the adoption pay period | Yes |
G: Your earnings were too low | Set by the calculation. You can't select it. |
For reasons E and F, enter the date SAP stops in SAP stopped from. It must fall within the adoption pay period. If it doesn't, you'll see "Enter a date that falls within the adoption pay period", followed by the dates of the period.
Once saved, the claim page shows an Excluded badge and a banner saying SAP isn't payable, or when it stops. To remove an exclusion, click Clear exclusion, then Save.
9. Relevant earnings
SAP is based on the employee's average weekly earnings over a set period before the week they were matched with the child. SAP settings > Relevant earnings shows how this was worked out.
Field | Meaning |
|---|---|
Child placed | The placement date from the Adoption dates tab. |
Saturday of the week the placement was notified | The cut-off for the earnings period: the Saturday of the week the employee was told about the match. Earnings paid after this date don't count. |
First day of set period / Last day of set period | The pay period the earnings are taken from: normally the 8 weeks, or 2 monthly pay days, up to the last normal pay day on or before that Saturday. |
Earnings in the set period | The employee's earnings in the set period. |
Derived average weekly earnings | The earnings in the set period converted to a weekly figure. |
Average weekly earnings | The figure SAP is worked out from. This is the derived figure, unless it has been overridden. The employee must earn at least the Lower Earnings Limit to qualify for SAP. |
To override the average weekly earnings, click the pencil icon, enter the figure and click Save. To go back to the derived figure, click Reset to derived.
An overridden figure shows an Override label, and stays fixed when payroll is recalculated.
10. SAP payments per payroll period
SAP settings > SAP payments per payroll period shows one row for each payroll period that has paid SAP: the date SAP was paid up to, the weeks and amount of SAP, the SAP offset (SAP can be offset against other gross pay at employer level), and the payroll. Rows only appear once a payroll has been run for a period that falls within the adoption pay period.
To change the date a period has paid SAP up to, click the pencil icon on the row. For example, you'd do this when an employee leaves during their adoption pay period. Change the pay-up-to date on the latest period to the date SAP should be paid up to, so the remaining SAP is included in their final pay. Do this before you make them a leaver.
