The Monthly Return Wizard

The CIS300 Monthly Return Wizard is a three-step process to make your return online.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Once you have made your monthly return, you will no longer be able to choose this period ending date again. If you feel that you have made a monthly return in error, you will need to contact HM Revenue & Customs CIS online helpdesk to explain.

Step 1

After choosing your tax return period, the payments will be shown to you (see below). These payments are those which were made (Payment Date) within the selected tax period. Once you are ready, click "Next" to move forward to the next screen.

If no payments were made, you can make a Nil Return to HM Revenue & Customs.

Note that the Monthly Return only reports the £ pounds values and not the pence values, so the totals for the Monthly Return will always be effectively slightly lower than the totals of all of the payments added together. The pounds value is floored (i.e. £2.55 will become £2.00), and not rounded. You can see the values reported to HM Revenue & Customs in your Monthly Return from the normal Monthly Returns screen.

Step 2

Mandatorily make the three declarations, Employment Status, Subcontractor Verification, and Information Correct.

Optionally, choose if you do not plan on paying any subcontractors in the next six months.

Step 3

Once you have chosen your tax month and made your declarations, you may go ahead and select "Send Online Return". You must then wait for the software to complete the cycle of transmitting to the Government Gateway, and waiting for a receipt from HM Revenue & Customs. Once this receipt has been received, you can be assured that your return has been logged.

The Monthly Return Wizard will wrap up all of the information about your payments, invoices and subcontractors and your company and send this to the Goverment Gateway, which in turn sends it to HM Revenue & Customs.

If there is a problem with your credentials (i.e. your Gateway Username and Password), you will get an error telling you that you have an authentication failure. If you receive this, check your details on the Company Window. If you believe your details are correct, confirm them with the CIS Online Helpdesk.

Step 4

You will either be informed of an error with the return or transmission, or successful receipt. If you get an error, please read it carefully. By far, the most common error is an "Authenticaton Failure", which means that the software could not connect to the Government Gateway using the credentials that you have supplied in the Company Window. Phone the New CIS Online Helpdesk to confirm that your credentials are correct and entered into the correct fields on the Company Window.

If you want to print a receipt, you can right click the receipt on the Monthly Return screen and select "Print Receipt".

Success!

What if there is no response after polling period has completed?

Insite123 will show you the following message, and ask if you wish to continue waiting. It is highly recommended that you continue to wait. During peak filing periods (16th to 19th of each month), the Government Gateway and HM Revenue & Customs are likely to be under severe strain to service online filing requests from customers across the country. You can bypass the peak periods by filing early or setting your polling settings to retry up to 1,000 times, and leave Insite123 running overnight.

The message

The progress display (shown after accepting to continue waiting - polling is retried)