OASIS PAYROLL YEAR-END

Transcription

1 OASIS PAYROLL YEAR-END March 2017 The Year End process for is simpler than the last few years as there are less major changes from HMRC and Teachers Pensions. These notes cover the process from running your last payroll of to running your first payrolls of and doing the final RTI submission. These notes are extensive so it will help you to remember that the process is broken down into just NINE SIMPLE STEPS. These are: 1. Running the last payroll of and doing the final RTI submission 2. Running the Year end copy program to create a set of data 3. Checking your copied data 4. Downloading all the new programs for Running the Year end to clear down all the old figures 6. Checking your set up, tax, NI rates and bands, TPA bands, Student Loan rates, Auto enrolment thresholds etc 7. Updating Teaches Pensions Variable Rate bands 8. Preparing and running your first payroll of including Apprentice Levy 9. Producing P60s from your data Your final RTI submission should be done before your year end cleardown as RTI should be submitted before the employees are paid. However If you haven t had time to do the final EPS submission before your year end clear down this may be done from your data BEFORE 19 th April. The major changes this year are the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy and Scottish Tax bands which differ from English ones. Oasis School Accounting Ltd, 32 Glencairn Drive, London, W5 1RT info@oasis-software.co.uk

2 Summary of changes to OASIS payroll in April 17 The main changes to OASIS payroll are as follows: The introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy for employers with gross annual pay exceeding 3 million, which is automatically deducted if you have indicated you fall in this range. Scottish Tax rates and bands must now be set up as these differ from English rates. Even employers outside of Scotland may receive a Scottish tax code. National Minimum Wage increases. Payrolling Benefits in Kind was introduced in To take advantage of this employers MUST register with HMRC BEFORE 5 th April. Only certain benefits may be included in the payroll and these do not include accommodation. It is the employers responsibility to ensure they have checked the benefits are permitted to be payrolled and to work out the cash equivalent of the benefits. If you are interested in this you must speak to Oasis as soon as possible. When setting up pay descriptions please be aware the there is a new option on the screen called Taxable benefit in kind. This may only be used if you have registered with HMRC before April 5 th of any year and replaces the P11D for those benefits which are eligible to be payrolled. Do NOT use this field, unless you have registered. MDC becomes obligatory during the tax year All schools must be live from April 2018 so must start their three month trial period no later than January 2017 and ideally earlier. 2

3 1. Running the last payroll of and running the final RTI submission HMRC advises you to check that all submissions during the year have been received. When RTI files are submitted you receive a message from HMRC saying that the files have been successfully received and this is displayed on your screen. In addition you should have received an from HMRC for each month when the RTI submission was successfully received. You should therefore know that all your submissions have been received successfully, but if not you should check before processing the final submission. You should check your online account with HMRC. However you need to be aware that 1. The amount due in the period does not get updated until it becomes due, ie around 6 th of the following month so your March submission will not be showing yet. 2. Payments are allocated and shown to match the amounts due in each month NOT the payments you actually made. 3. Recoveries (SMP,SAP,SPP) are updated when you upload the EPS so these will not necessarily match the FPS submissions you have made. You may find that SMP for one month is shown against the previous month (eg June SMP may be shown in the May Amount due in Period figure). Taking this into account you should be able to reconcile the account back to your control report up to February. The March figures will only be updated at the end of the tax month so won t be available to check until April, so it is advisable to make sure that April 16 to Feb 17 is correct now. Now run the final payroll of the year making sure to check it carefully before processing the final RTI submission. REMEMBER TO RUN THE LATEST VERSION OF THE FILE HEALTH FIRST. We would also advise running RTI first with the test option each month to check there are no inconsistencies in your data such as apostrophe s, dots etc in names or addresses. Remember then that you MUST re-run it without the test option. Once you are entirely happy with this payroll run, having run the usual checks, RTI should be submitted as usual. The final RTI submission may be made at this point once you are sure no amendments may be made. HMRC expects the RTI Submission to be made before the employees are paid and in the last month would expect this to contain the Final Submission flag. If you are submitting an EPS you may use this to return your P35 data after the employees are paid, but before the 19 th April. In this case you would not set the Final Submission flag on your FPS submission. If you have Weekly paid employees, as well as Monthly, you should mark the Final FPS or EPS on the last submission you will make, either weekly or monthly. Even if no EPS is due, you can still do the final submission on the EPS if you haven t already done it, up to 19 th April. Once the final RTI submission has been done changes cannot be made to the data. 2. Running the Year end Copy program In order to allow you to refer back to your payroll data you will need to run the Payroll Copy Program to save a copy of the data and allow you clear down and start in your normal payroll. If you still need to send the final EPS this can be done from the data. 2.1 Take Backups 3

4 In addition to setting up a copy of the data you should first do a backup. Use the Backup option in the Systems Options from the Payroll menu. Use the Payroll/Systems Options/Backup to take a backup of your data onto the hard disk. When this screen is displayed change the name of the Output file from paybackxxxxxx.zip to payback zip. The screen will now look like this: Click on the Backup button to take your backup. 2.2 Run the Year end copy program, from the Year End sub-menu Select the Year end copy option from the Payroll One-view /Year End menu. The following screen is displayed. The copy program will take the School/Company name that is being used in the OASIS menu, with Pay ( ) appended. You can amend this if you wish. The folder to copy to will be shown as your current data folder, with /P appended ^ i.e. a new folder within your existing data folder. If you wish to store the data elsewhere use the Browse to find the correct path. In order for you to always be immediately aware of which set of data you are working in the data will have a different colour to the current data. If you do not select a colour, bright orange will be used by default. However if you prefer to select a different colour, or you already use bright orange for your Oasis menu, click on New Colour to use. 4

5 You can click with your cursor anywhere in the colour box to select the colour you want, or just click on any of the basic colours. Do not use the same colour you use for OASIS. Finally, click on the Copy files button. You will then be told which files are being copied and will need to click on OK each time to continue. After Creating alternate paths to data the process finishes and you may quit. At the end of the process, an alternate path will be set within OASIS to allow you to access the data. You should access the previous year s data using the alternate paths. 3. Checking your data After you have done the copy, you must check that the data has been copied and that you are happy with accessing both the and the data. You will need to use the Alternate Companies option in the File Menu to Switch Company The following screen is displayed: 5

6 Use the down arrow to the right of the alternate companies to find the path you set up (Oasis School Pay ( ) in the example above.) Click on this and the folder path you set up will be displayed. Use the Switch button to open the login screen for the prior year payroll. Log in as normal, using your normal username and password. These will already be filled in for you so you should just need to use the logon button to Login. When you log in, you will see the background colour is the colour you selected when doing the copy (or bright orange if you did not change the colour). The only menu option you should have is Payroll/Personnel. If you have menu shortcuts in the shortcut bar which are not relevant, eg View Account, these may be used by right mouse clicking on the Oasis logo and removing the ones you don t need. You now need to check that you can access the data, and that the figures are as you would expect them to be for Do a variety of reports and some spot checks on employees to confirm this. If you can see that all the figures you would expect for , you are ready to do your year end. CHECK THE NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES ARE THE SAME IN BOTH SETS OF DATA. If you experience any problems accessing your data DO NOT CONTINUE contact Oasis Software for advice. From this menu you will be able to do reports, including P60s and the final RTI submission if you haven t already done it. The year end copy process ensures you will not be able to do your year end clear down in this folder. Once you have checked your last year/s data you will not need to use it again until you want to do your P60s, your final RTI submission if necessary, or if you need to check any details from the previous year. 4. Download all the latest programs from OASIS The programs you need to use from April 2017 will not be available to download until the start of April to ensure that employers who run weekly payrolls use the correct programs until the end of the tax year. 6

7 You will then need to download all the latest Payroll programs in the usual way, copying them to your progs32 directory. 5. Running the Year end to clear down all the old figures NOW RETURN TO YOUR CURRENT PAYROLL AND UPDATE THE RATES AND RUN THE YEAR END ON THE CURRENT PAYROLL, NOT THE PREVIOUS YEARS PAYROLL. MAKE SURE YOU CHECK THE BACKGROUND COLOUR. 5.1 Updating the new NI, Tax and SMP Rates Before running the year end you must update the Tax, NI, SMP and Student Loan rates. This is because the year end process will use the new SMP rates to update any records which span 6 th April 2017, replacing the old weekly rate with the new one. In the Payroll One-View Year End menu use the option ^ Save/Read rates. When you select this option the following dialog is displayed: Check that the version is showing H27 or later. Then, to upload the rates from the file provided by Oasis take the button to Read Rates. A screen like this will be displayed. Select the file PAR. If the file does not appear, check that the path shown at the top of the screen is the path to your programs directory (normally oasis\progs32 on the network drive you usually use). This file will have been downloaded from the internet along with the rest of the programs. If you cannot find this file contact Oasis Software. Once you have selected PAR and clicked the OK button you will be asked: When you click on the Yes button the new rates will be uploaded. Your old rates will be replaced by the new ones. As a quick check before proceeding it would be a good idea to check the 20% tax band goes to 33,500 and the tax year 7

8 is set as 2017 in the Tax rates/bands option. Also Check that the weekly SMP rate is set to in the SMP rates. 5.2 Running the Year End You are now ready to run the year end to clear down all the figures for and prepare for your first payroll of the new year. Make sure once again that you are in your normal OASIS folder not the folder. Check the colour of the menu and the name at the top. Take another backup. Take Year end from the Payroll One-View screen and then select Year end. The following screen will be displayed. Check the program name at the top of the screen. It should be PYEND G30 or later. If it is not stop and contact Oasis Software. It is advisable to leave employees who have left on the system so they can be used by the HR programs in future. The program will mark them as leavers and not include them in any payroll programs, however they will be available within the HR system. DO NOT put a check in the check box Remove salary change details unless you specifically want to remove historical data relating to salary changes. The employee pay summary data is used for calculating average earnings for the purposes of SMP and SAP. If you clear out all the data the system is unable to calculate the average earnings for the first couple of months of the new tax year. Since average earnings are calculated over an 8 week period you should retain summary data from month 10. Click on the Do year end button. The process of removing all cumulative figures will begin. The process will also reset all the NI letters for formerly contracted out employees. Once the year end has finished, you can start to set up information for the New Year. As soon as the year end is completed you will need to check that everything has been cleared down, by running two reports: Run the control report. Any figures in there should be zeros. If not, run the year end again until it is. 8

9 Run the new cumulatives and Cumulative NI reports for all staff for the year starting All figures in these reports should be zero. Again, if any non-zero cumulative figures appear, run the year end again. Do not proceed until all your cumulative figures are zero. Now run a File Health. 6. Checking your set up, rates and bands You now need to check the rates, bands and thresholds before running the first payroll of the year. Although Oasis provide this information every year it is your responsibility to check these figures have been updated and that you are using the correct rates and bands in every case. You will now need to check the new rates against those shown on the HMRC website. This contains all the new rates and bands you should be using. The website link is for Tax, NI, Student Loans and Statutory payments or you may view the tax changes on the P9X at pdf. Sections from these documents are shown where relevant below. The threshold for Auto Enrolment can be found in Tax Rates and Bands This extract from the P9X shows the rates and bands for both English and Scottish Tax Rates. 9

10 First select the Tax rates/bands and check they are set as shown here: As well as setting the tax bands and rates the default tax code is included in this screen. In the default tax code is 1150L. This will be used for all new employees unless you set a different code from a P45 or P46. The Tax year is also held in this screen. This is important as it is used throughout the payroll programs. New fields this year relate to Apprentice Levy. The Minimum NIC bill is set to 3,000,000 for 2017, the annual allowance to 15,000 and the levy rate is 0.5%. More information on the Apprentice Levy can be found at You are advised to check the guidance carefully particularly if you are part of a group as connected companies or charities will only have one 15,000 allowance to share between them. In this case you would need to reduce the Levy annual allowance to the amount due to this employer. 6.2 Scottish Tax Rates and Bands Once you have checked the Tax rates and bands you will also need to check the Scottish Tax Rates and bands. All the information should be the same as on the previous screen except for tax bands 1 and 2. Your screen should look like this unless you are entitled to a smaller amount of Levy annual allowance. 10

11 6.3 Tax code uplift To comply with this extract from the P9X you will need to add 50 to any tax code ending in L, for example 1100L becomes 1150L. If you have any M or N codes these need to be uplifted too. Note the information regarding codes which arrived too late to use in that year ^ these should be updated before the general uplift but all coding notices must be applied AFTER the general uplift. To do the uplifts use the Update Tax code option in the Options. In Options/Update tax codes, complete this screen as follows: Once you have done this and pressed Update Codes all L, M and N tax codes will be updated. A list of changed codes will be printed. Any other tax code changes for which you have received notification on form P9(T) will need to be changed individually AFTER DOING THE UPLIFT ON THE L, M AND N CODES using the tax code changes option. The year end program will already have removed any Week1/Month 1 indicators. In the case where you have an employee listed on more than one P9T or more than one notification use the one with the latest date. 11

12 Oasis Payroll End of Year Notes March National Insurance Changes In the rates for NI remain unchanged but the bands increase. To reflect this, check that your NI details screen in the Options now look like this: 12

13 Although this screen shows letters A and B the A rate also encompasses all the other NI letters including M and Z for under 21s and the new H code for Apprentices under SSP/SMP/SAP/SPP/ShPP New rates apply with effect from 6 th April The weekly rates will be: 13

14 The SMP Rates screen in the menu under should now look like this: Note that for small employers (those with annual NIC liability of less than 45,000 in the recovery rate would be 100% and the Compensation rate 3%). SSP is not recoverable. 14

15 6.6 Student Loan Rates In the Student Loan repayment annual threshold increases to 17,775 for loans taken out prior to 2012 and the rate remains at 9%. For loans taken out after 2012 the threshold remains unchanged at 21,000 with a repayment rate of 9%. The SLR Rates screen which is now in the Attachments section of the Payroll one-view now looks like this: When setting up Student Loans remember to check whether the loan is a Plan 2 loan ^ taken out from If this is not set the loan repayments will default to the Plan 1 threshold. 15

16 6.7 Auto Enrolment thresholds Auto enrolment thresholds have increased as specified in this extract from the Pension Regulator. Note that these have not yet been confirmed and are subject to change, although as they are in line with increases in NI bands it seems likely that they will be approved by the parliamentary process. These figures should have been updated by the Read Rates program. The Auto enrolment threshold screen should now look like this: 16

17 Oasis Payroll End of Year Notes March National Minimum Wage increase Although Oasis does not record, store or update National Minimum and Living Wages we are making you aware that these will increase in April and you will therefore need to check the pay rates of lower paid employees to be in line with the following extract from HMRC Rates & Limits. 6.9 Apprentice Levy The thresholds for the Apprentice Levy have already been set in the Tax Rates and Bands but you must also indicate whether you fall in the scope of the levy, ie if you expect your pay bill to reach 3 million in 2017/18, taking into account whether you are part of a group of connected companies or charities. This is done in the User Details Option. 17

18 Whilst not included in the extract above HMRC guidance to Software Developers states that if your pay bill in last year was in excess of 2.8 million you should be reporting the levy each month. It is the employer s responsibility to check whether their pay bill is likely to reach or exceed 3 million in 2017/18. The pay bill is calculated as below: If you are part of a group of companies or charities and are entitled to less than 15,000 you should check the legislation carefully to see whether you should be reporting the levy if your pay bill is below 3 million but the pay bill of the group exceeds 3 million. If you select the Apprentice Levy and report on it in any month you must leave it selected for the remainder of the tax year even if your pay bill does not exceed 3 million. 7. Updating Teachers Pensions Variable Rates Teachers Pensions variable rates will remain the same in but DfE has announced that the salary bands applicable to member contributions will change in line with an increase in the Consumer Price Index. As CPI increased by 1% in the year to September 2016 the salary bands for Teachers Pensions will rise by that amount from April The tiered contribution rates will be as follows: 18

19 Files have been included in the download which holds these new rates. To update your rates you will need to use the rates option within the Variable Rates screen for the appropriate pension. As the bands have been changed this year you will need to update BOTH EMPLOYEE AND EMPLOYER contributions. From the Payroll one-view, take the Pension Descriptions option from the Pensions tab. Find the Teachers Pensions Employee code and go to the Variable Rates screen. You will see buttons to Save and Read Rates. Use the Read Rates button to find the file called TPEE2017.PAR from those offered to you. When you select the file your variable rates for Employees will now look like this: 19

20 Now repeat the exercise for the Employers code, selecting TPER2017.PAR. Your bands will now look like this: PLEASE NOTE because of the specific band choices of the TPS you may need to check employees who fall just on certain bands carefully. This is because 26, pa is at 7.4% but 26,260 is at 8.6% but when you divide both figures by 12 you get the same monthly pay, ie If your employee earns 26,260 you might need to round this up to to ensure the correct percentage is taken. This is only an issue with several of the new bands so if any of your employees earnings are exactly on a band you should check their contributions very carefully. 8. Preparing for the first payroll for MDC Checks If you are already registered for MDC this should all be in place, but if you are not currently registered or are starting to use MDC in April 2017 you will need to check that you have everything set up correctly. Please see the separate MDC notes which have a section at the beginning with all the checks you need to run. In particular you should ensure that you have set the Employer number and Pension type in the User Details, and that all teachers are marked as teachers and have valid DfE numbers. 8.2 File Health Before running your payroll you should always run the File Health. This will check your Teachers DfE Pension Reference numbers, report any FTE discrepancies and highlight any employees approaching a change of NI letter, eg those approaching retirement age or age 21. Information required for RTI which is missing will also be reported. 8.3 Backup Prior to running the payroll do a backup. OASIS would strongly recommend that you do a backup and a file health prior to every weekly or monthly payroll. 8.4 Run the Payroll and check the results The first payroll run of can now be run in the usual way. 20

21 Use the Exception Report to check any employees who have not been run this month. The HMRC website includes a number of calculators which are very useful. These include tax, NI and P45 calculators. We strongly recommend you use them to make random checks on your first week or month s payroll run, to check that everything is set up correctly. In addition you should check a selection of teachers pension deductions to ensure these are correct. Subsequently it is advisable to use the P45 calculator for checking the P45 figures on any new employee and we would recommend random PAYE, NI and pension checking during the year. From May use the Comparison Reports to check differences in Gross or Net pay from previous months and investigate any differences. 8.5 Employment Allowance and Apprentice Levy Remember to submit an EPS as well as an FPS to claim the Employment Allowance which has now increased to Make sure you have ticked the Employers Allowance tickbox in the User Details. Additionally if you are now reporting Apprentice Levy you will need to do an EPS every month. Remember to do this BEFORE you print the Control Report as the Apprentice Levy and Employment Allowance figures are updated by the EPS. Now check the figures in the Control Report. You should see your monthly pay bill amount, the monthly allowance and the levy due for the month. Note that these figures are cumulative so in month 2 they will show the year to date pay bill, allowance and levy due as well as the levy for the individual month. 8.6 MDC Once you have run your first payroll use the TPS Details tab to view the first MDC record for some of your teachers, particularly if this is the first month you are reporting MDC. MDC records will be stored regardless of whether you have started using MDC, joined the trial or not. Please see the separate MDC notes for more information on running MDC. 9. Producing P60s In printed P60s must still be provided to the employees no later than 31 st May. These will be printed from the saved data. Before you produce your year-end returns, you should run the File Health on your data. This will check for inconsistencies and invalid data. To run the File Health program, go to the saved data then select the File Health option from your Payroll menu. The year should already be set to 2016 and click on OK. Then, click on Start. Details of any problems will be displayed for you. You can then check them and if necessary, make adjustments. Printing P60s P60s should be produced from the Year end Section of the Payroll One-view in your saved data remember to check the orange background. 21

22 To PRINT P60 s select the format file and then you can view or print them. The following format does not require pre-printed forms. The Print P60 screen from the Year End section of the Payroll one-view looks like this. Make sure the Year Beginning is set as By default leavers are excluded as they do not normally receive P60 s. You can P60 s to staff if you wish in the same way as for payslips. See below for information on this. If you select to print the P60s all employees will be printed. To print just those who don t have addresses take the tick off able Employees. Just those without addresses will be left in the list. P60Portrait2017.p60 This uses an image of an HMRC P60 superimposed over a p60 format. This would look as if you are printing on to HMRC P60 pre-printed forms. This format and the associated image will be downloaded along with the new programs for and will be saved in your \oasis\progs32 folder. It is advisable to check a test P60 before ing or printing them ^ make sure this says 2017 on the background. If printing you would need to print to a pdf and then print the pdf so that the figures line up correctly with the boxes. Tick the PDF box before using the print button. When the pdf has been produced you can open it, check everything aligns correctly and print the file. If you want to use pre-printed P60s from HMRC you should use the format P60Portrai2017pp.p60 which should fit the HMRC stationery this will also be copied to your \oasis\progs32 directory. Minor changes may need to be made to this format as printers vary in their alignment. If you have problems contact OASIS Support. ing P60s P60s can be ed to employees in the same way as you may payslips. You can optionally password protect them so that only the employee can see their P60 or payslip. The password is the employee s NI number. To only those for whom you have an address take the tick off Employees without addresses. Now the only ones displayed are those with addresses. If you tick Password Protect PDF with NI number the attachment to the will be password protected. 22