EM6407 - Contract settlements: acceptance: SAFE - handling general payments on account
Source: gov.uk (2025-02-26)


The guidance about contract settlements at EM6000 (https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/enquiry-manual/em6000)+ only relates to direct tax. You must never include VAT or VAT penalties in a contract settlement.

This page explains how to handle payments on account. You must make sure that all general payments on account are locked straight away. Details of how to do this are further down the page.

General procedure for payments on account (#IDAH2A3E)Locking payments (#IDAN1A3E)Compliance Identifier (#IDAXXA3E)Unlocking payments (#IDAUUA3E)

General procedure for payments on account

General payments on account are normally received in advance of a settlement charge being raised. Before the payments can be entered on SAFE, a customer account with a unique 15 character SAFE customer reference must be created by the National SAFE team or your local SAFE nominee or.

You must ask the SAFE team or SAFE nominee to set up a SAFE customer account and provide you with the SAFE customer reference, as soon has you believe that there may be additional tax to pay. Do not wait until after you have requested a payment on account.

As soon as you have established that there is additional tax to pay, you should normally request a payment or payments on account. EM1940 (https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/enquiry-manual/em1940) explains the circumstances when you must not request a payment on account. When requesting payments on account you must ask the person to quote the 15-character SAFE customer reference as a payment reference number. You should explain that this should not be used as the reference to make any other payments to HMRC.

If you are asking the National SAFE Team to set up a customer account, you must complete an Ad-hoc task in Caseflow to obtain a customer account reference. You should make your request using the form ‘IT19 SAFE reference request form’ available on SEES and send to workbasket HMRC, E&C, ISBC, T&DC, CST, 1. You should include:
- the customer's name
- address
- head of duty reference.
A SAFE nominee will require the same details. Alternatively, if the case is not on Caseflow, then use the Task Request System.

Misidentification of SAFE Task Types can lead to processing delays and inaccurate reporting. Please double-check your selection before proceeding.

General payments on account are held on the customer account and remain there unallocated until a charge is raised. The SAFE team or SAFE nominee can view them by selecting ‘View Customer Account’. SAFE is designed to expect payment of a charge in 30 days so payments on account are only allocated to a charge 30 days before the due date.

Where payments on account are made in advance of the charge and are unallocated, SAFE will automatically allocate them to the next charge becoming due. This means that in some circumstances SAFE may incorrectly allocate them against other charges unless the payments are locked. As soon as you are made aware that a payment on account has been made you must take the action below to lock the payment.

Locking payments

To prevent payments being incorrectly allocated, you must make sure that all payments on account held in SAFE are locked.

As soon as you are aware that a payment has been made, either directly to you or DMB, you must
- complete the stencil SAFE 3 (POA) Locking Stencil, which is available in SEES and
- send the form to your local SAFE officer to lock the charge.
Compliance Identifier

When completing SAFE stencils, you must include your Compliance Identifier in the caseworker’s details section of the stencil. Where to find this or what to include will depend on your business unit. If you work in
- Directorate/customer group/PID of manager/PID of caseworker.
- LB/Tax Stream/PID of CCM/PID of TS.
- FIS/Region/Location/PID.
- WMBC/CLPI/EC/Caseflow ref/PID for example WMBC/CLPI/EC/CFS-123456/7654310.
- WMBC/Wealthy/Site name/UTR/PID of Site SO Manager, for example, WMBC/ Wealthy/Birmingham/123456789/1234567
On receipt of a completed stencil HMRC Payments, who are part of Government, Banking and Payments will lock the payment. If the stencil is incomplete, the stencil will be returned to you.

HMRC payments was previously known as Corporate Treasury MCU.

HMRC Payments will not deal with any telephone requests to set the clearing lock.

Unlocking payments

When you are ready to settle a case you should ask the SAFE team or SAFE, to check what payments are held on SAFE. You should then follow the guidance at EM6403 (https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/enquiry-manual/em6403) to complete the appropriate SAFE Contract Stencil, which can be found in SEES.

When you send the SAFE Contract Stencil to the SAFE nominee or SAFE Team, you must tell them to contact HMRC Payments to unlock the payments on account.

The SAFE team or SAFE nominee must ensure that payments are unlocked on the same day the charge is raised.

If excessive payments on account have been made, you should use the Intelligent Payment Process (IPP) Single Form (https://ipp.guidance.ns2p.corp.hmrc.gov.uk/) to request the excessive amount is repaid or to re-allocate the excessive payment(s). On submitting the form, you are provided with a unique case ID that can be retained with the customers enquiry records.