May '09 Update

All of our payroll users will now be on v4.9, as this was the annual payroll release version. Since then, the Carval development team has been busy on v4.10. Here is a preview of the more major enhancements you can expect to see in the next release:

General

• Shifts - Shifts are now global to HR Unity. Unistaff HR shifts will be converted to T&A-style shifts which are available from Global Parameters, along with Weekly Shifts and Annual Rotas. These are used in all three modules, where the employee rota is set.
• "What's New" - Help file will be displayed on the first run, for each user, after a new installation, detailing what is new in this release.
• New major version of the report writer included, offering performance increases as well as new features such as hyperlinks, date search calendar, improved PDF export and many other Designer enhancements. Some new functions are also available in the Calc page that allow users to calculate figures (such as absence duration) the same way that the software does.
• Global Parameters - Assign Employees to Department, Cost Centre, Location, Grade. Like the facility currently available to Posts, a batch of employees can be assigned instantly to a Department, Cost Centre, Location or Grade.
  
• Global Parameters - Absence Stage Emails can now appear to have been sent from a different person and email address to the one set up in the HR Administrator | Mail Options.
  

Uniwage Payroll

• Email Payslips - Employees can choose whether they prefer their payslips to be printed or emailed. Email will contain a PDF of the payslip in its usual format. This task can be added to the HR Unity Scheduler.
  
• Foreign Currency Payments - new "Foreign" payment type that allows employees to be paid in any foreign currency. Exchange rates are maintained by the user. IBAN (International Bank Account Number) support is included.

Unistaff HR

• Training Budgets - Departments can now be assigned an annual training budget. If the budget is exceeded during the entry of a training course, the user is warned. Cost/budget reporting available.
• CPD Monitoring - The Continuous Personal Development facility in the Training module has been enhanced. Professional Bodies can now be set up and assigned to employees. Points/Hours/Units earned can be monitored against the annual total required by each professional body.
  
• Training Non-Attendance - New option on Training Input to record an employee's non-attendance.
• Recruitment CRB - Full Criminal Records Bureau details can now be recorded in the Recruitment module. Details for a successful applicant are copied to the existing CRB details in Unistaff.
• Switching between the Employee and Company Details screens in Unistaff is now easier with a tab that opens the other window.

Unitend T&A

• New Employee Wizard - When selecting a rota, the user is asked for the start rota position; this now displays a list of the weekly shifts in sequence to make this easier.
  
• The length of daily pattern codes, weekly shift codes and annual rota codes has been increased from 4 to 10.

Please note 2 important details for Uniwage payroll users from v4.10:

1. Anyone using the Barclays BusinessMaster BACS extract will now need to obtain a plug-in from Carval support, as this has been moved out of the main product into a plug-in.

2. Support for the Giro Credit payment type has been removed.