Gross Wages, Staff Salaries & Regular/Casual Wages: Codes 7000, 7003, 7004 & 7005

Payroll for non-director staff is one of the biggest overhead costs most businesses carry, and Sage offers several ways to split it depending on how a business's workforce is structured.

The codes, and what each one holds

Code 7000 — Gross Wages is a general code for total gross pay before deductions, often used as the main wages code by simpler businesses.

Code 7003 — Staff Salaries records the salaries of permanent, salaried staff.

Code 7004 — Wages — Regular covers pay for regular, ongoing hourly or weekly-paid staff.

Code 7005 — Wages — Casual covers pay for casual, temporary, or ad-hoc staff brought in as needed. All four are Overheads codes and normally carry a debit balance.

Real-world examples across industries

Small hospitality business, single code

A café with a handful of staff doesn't bother splitting its payroll at all — the whole monthly wage bill of £18,400 runs through 7000 (Gross Wages) alone, a debit of £18,400 and a credit of £18,400 to 1200 (Bank Current Account) once net pay and PAYE/NI are settled, with no VAT involved since wages are outside its scope. With only a few employees on broadly similar terms, there's nothing meaningful to gain from splitting the cost into salaries, regular and casual buckets — 7003, 7004 and 7005 simply stay empty.

Retail chain, mixed pay structures

A retail chain pays store managers a fixed £8,000 monthly salary through 7003 (Staff Salaries), while its much larger pool of shop-floor staff is paid £5,000 hourly through 7004 (Wages — Regular). In December, a further £3,200 goes to seasonal Christmas staff through 7005 (Wages — Casual) — a cost that drops back to nil once the new year rota returns to normal. All three debit their respective codes with a matching credit to 1200; splitting them apart is what lets the business see the Christmas staffing spike clearly rather than reading it as an unexplained jump in one lumped wages figure.

Manufacturing, hourly workforce only

A factory's permanent shift-floor staff are paid regular weekly wages including a standing shift allowance for unsociable hours — a £9,600 weekly run debited to 7004 and credited to 1200. When a rush order needs extra hands, agency staff brought in for the fortnight go through 7005 instead, a separate £4,200 cost that ends when the order ships. Because the whole production workforce is paid hourly, 7003 stays at nil here — there's no salaried cohort to record, unlike the retail example above where salaried managers sit alongside hourly staff.

Why this matters day to day

Splitting salaried, regular and casual pay apart makes it much easier to spot whether staffing costs are creeping up because of overtime and casual cover rather than the core team growing. It's also useful when budgeting for busy periods, since casual wage spend tends to move with seasonal demand in a way that's worth tracking on its own rather than lost inside a single wages figure.