PAYE Accounts Office Reference

The employer’s PAYE Accounts Office Reference is a unique, 13 character code. It can be found on letters from HMRC about PAYE and when you registered as an employer.

Accounts office references all have the same strict format, as follows:

The three digit number of your tax office (e.g. 123)
Two alpha characters (e.g. PA)
Eight numeric characters (e.g. 12345678)

e.g. 123PA12345678

The Accounts Office Reference is entered by clicking ‘Employer‘ then ‘Employer Details‘ from the main menu in Payroll Manager, then selected the ‘Tax Office‘ tab:

HMRC issue software providers with a ‘checking algorithm’, which is used by Payroll Manager to determine whether or not the Accounts Office reference that you enter is valid. If the entry box remains ‘pink’ after you enter the reference then this means that it has failed HMRC checks, and you should try again.

HMRC also have a page on their website where you can check the validity of the Accounts Office reference: Simply enter the number into the box (step 1) and click ‘Check reference’ (step 4) – there is no need to complete the other fields in order to check a reference.

PAYE / NIC current year reference checker