Frequently Asked Questions

Simply stick with us, and provided you’re still a Sapphire customer when your friend hits the qualifying criteria, the reward will be yours.

Once they’re part of the Sapphire team, your referrals will benefit from Sapphires award-winning service, and our employee ownership benefits. They’ll also be able to access rewards for referrals too.

As soon as your friend meets the qualifying period of four payrolls, or for limited companies, when the first Direct Debit is taken.

You get an extra £75 in your wage when referring an umbrella employee, two free weeks of payroll services for a self-employed referral, and a £200 Amazon voucher for a limited company referral.

The number that you receive from HMRC when you register as a contractor or subcontractor is known as your Construction Industry Scheme registration number. This is different from the validation number that contractors receive from HMRC when they validate a subcontractor.

You can claim a repayment of your Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) deductions if you’re a limited company subcontractor, or an agent of a limited company, if you’ve paid too much tax or National Insurance.

You will be classed as a contractor and should register for the CIS if you pay a subcontractor for construction work, or if your business does not carry out construction work but you have paid out more than £3 million in the 12 months since you made your first payment.

Subcontractors are those that carry out the construction work for a contractor.
If you do the following jobs, you do not need to register for CIS:

• architecture and surveying
• scaffolding hire (with no labour)
• carpet fitting
• making materials used in construction including plant and machinery
• delivery of materials
• work on construction sites that would not be classed as construction, such as running a canteen or site facilities

CIS covers both contractors and subcontractors operating in the construction industry within the UK.
This includes sole traders, partnerships and limited companies.

Other organisations such as local authorities, housing associations and property developers are also obligated to CIS if they have an annual spend of more than £1 million over 3 years.

The CIS rules only apply to payments made by contractors to subcontractors, and not employees who work directly for the contractor.

The type of work covered under CIS includes:

• Demolition and construction
• Site preparation for a construction project
• Alterations and dismantling
• Repairs and decorating

CIS does not affect construction work carried out beyond the UK in another country. If a non-UK business carries out construction work in the UK, however, they must register for CIS.

The HMRC Construction Industry Scheme was first introduced as a tax evasion prevention measure in 1972, and an updated CIS came into effect in 2007.

The key elements of the scheme are that if you are a contractor employing a subcontractor, you must deduct the tax for payments and pay them directly to the HMRC. These CIS tax payments contribute to the subcontractor’s overall tax and National Insurance bill for the year.

To put it simply, if you are a bricklayer, for example, and you are employed by a construction company to carry out work on a project, your payment for the job will have the tax deducted before it is paid into your bank account.

• Make sure you do thorough due diligence. Run background checks on the umbrella company.
• Do a Google search on them, read their online reviews.
• Ask for a full and transparent breakdown of all deductions.
• Check with your recruitment agency if they’ve heard of them or know them. Recruiters are mostly aware of all good and
• bad umbrella companies, so they should be able to help.
• Read your employment contract.
• Check the umbrella company’s details on Companies House and look up their financial position, trading history etc.
• Be sure to check the official FCSA website, where you will find a list of all accredited members.

You need to be careful when choosing an umbrella company, as some companies are non-compliant. These companies are on the rise, and many contractors fall victim to their schemes.

Don’t worry though, we are here to make sure that doesn’t happen to you. We’ll show you how to spot a non-compliant umbrella company and avoid them.

The margin is the amount we retain from the invoices raised for your work. We only retain one fixed margin per week or month, depending on your pay frequency.