Employers can apply for HMRC furlough payments on Monday 20 April

Monday 20 April is an important day for all employers who have furloughed their workers as the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) goes live at 8am with full digital support.

The Chancellor introduced the CJRS to enable employees to remain on the payroll through being ‘furloughed’.

Employers simply need to claim the cash grant from HMRC and, to support this, it has put in place an online application service that can handle up to 450,000 applications an hour.

Employers should then receive the money to pay their employees within six days, enabling them to meet the April payroll.

HMRC emailed two million employers on Friday 17 April providing a link to a five-step guide to claiming, as well as warning them to be aware of scams circulating and informing them that they don’t need to call HMRC unless they have a problem.

More information on making a claim is available here: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/880092/Coronavirus_Job_Retention_Scheme_step_by_step_guide_for_employers.pdf