December '10 update

At the beginning of December, v4.17 was released to a handful of customers, principally dealing with the new payroll bureau functionality that has been introduced. Many of the enhancements made may be of benefit to all payroll users, but this limited release allows us to ensure everything is working as expected before the main payroll release comes out next February/March.

Some things you can look forward to that were introduced in v4.17 are:

• Scheduling of the HMRC Data Provisioning Service (DPS)
• Fast-switching of Payroll Groups
• Submit In-Year Movements to HMRC added to the Scheduler
• Reports added to the Scheduler

This was also the first release in which all of the standard reports were issued having been rewritten in ReportBuilder, the same tool provided to you as standard with the software. This has enabled us to schedule reports as mentioned above, plus provide other enhancements, such as exporting to PDF.

Development is now almost complete on v4.18, the annual payroll release that will be sent to all Uniwage customers next year. This will, of course, handle the new National Insurance threshold being introduced in the 2011-12 tax year, as well as:

• New Additional Statutory Paternity Pay (ASPP) calculation
• New Standardised Child Maintenance Deduction of Earnings Order (DEO) Schedule extract

We have also had approval today from HMRC to produce our own Substitute P60 form which means that we can offer our own layout for printing the P60 form to be given to employees at the end of the tax year. From April 2011, if you wish, you are allowed to give this form to the employee electronically (PDF in an email, like electronic payslips), avoiding a long print run and expensive paper and printer costs. This form can still be printed by the employee, if needed, which is why it must be an HMRC approved substitute form.

Finally, Merry Christmas to all of our customers, enjoy the break if you're getting one, and have a Happy New Year.