Sage Blog

Who would have thought after my first Payroll Year End some 14 years ago when I joined Sage with a 32 inch waist, perfect 20/20 vision and a full head of thick wavy hair I would be coming up to my 15^th Payroll Year End. Some might say my waist has increased an inch for each year I have been at Sage.

When I was asked to write a blog about Payroll Year End, I pondered and asked myself what has kept me interested in working all these years with our payroll software and after a little deliberation, the answer was simple….a real passion in doing what is right for our customers and keeping it simple.

However, less about me and more about giving you my top 3 tips for preparing for Payroll Year End.

Payroll Year End veteran Neilson Watts

Tip 1 – Check that you are using the right version of your software

It’s important that you’re using the correct version of the software for the 2010/2011 tax year to ensure that you have been processing using the right legislation and will be able to submit your returns electronically to HMRC.

For users of Sage Instant Payroll or Sage 50 Payroll software:

Sage Instant Payroll: Open Tools and My Instant Payroll

• Sage Instant Payroll v12.00
• Sage Instant Payroll v11.12

Sage 50 Payroll: Open Help menu and choose About

• Sage 50 Payroll 2011, v17.00, v17.01
• Sage 50 Payroll 2010 v16.01, v16.03, v16.04
• Sage 50 Payroll 2009 v15.04, v15.06, v15.07
• Sage 50 Payroll 2008 v14.07, v14.09, v14.10
• Sage 50 Payroll 2007 v13.10, v13.12, v13.13
• Sage Payroll v12.13, v12.15, v12.16
• Sage Payroll v11.16, v11.18

If you’re not using any of these versions, please email us at support@sage.com or call us on 0845 111 5555, telling us which version you’re using. If you can include your Sage serial or account number in the subject line of your email, or have it to hand if you call that really helps.

Tip 2 – Know what support is available from your Payroll solution provider

From March through to May all employers in the UK registered through a PAYE scheme will be working through their payroll year end returns to get them to the HMRC prior to 19^th May deadline as well as getting ready to start their new tax year.

Not only is it a busy time for you, it’s also a busy time for your payroll solution providers, so we would recommend that you check what support is available to you during this busy period.

At Sage we’ve prepared the following useful information and guides for you:

• Payroll Year End guide: A step-by-step guide that walks you through each process you need to undertake your Payroll Year End procedures.

• Payroll year end website: Our dedicated website contains information about how to prepare, process, reconcile and submit year end returns. There are also useful downloads, information about the status of the HMRC Gateway, the length of our telephone queue, and more.
• Ask Sage: Our Ask Sage online database contains over 1800 Sage 50 Payroll and 250 Sage Instant Payroll related questions and answers, including any known issues. You can access Ask Sage from www.sage.co.uk/pye or by visiting www.sage.co.uk/ask and enter your query into the Search text box then click Search.
• Email support: If you can’t find the answer to your query via Ask Sage, you can email us at support@sage.com. We aim to respond to all email queries within two working days. Please remember to include your Sage serial number or account number in the Subject line of your email.
• Telephone support – From Monday 28 March to Friday 27 May, we are extending our payroll technical support and customer service opening hours. During this period, you can call us on 0845 111 5555 from 8am to 6pm. And don’t forget to have your Sage 50 Payroll or Sage Instant Payroll serial number ready, as you may need to quote this when you call.

Tip 3 – Give yourself plenty of time and peace and quiet to run your Payroll Year End

Being a typical male, ordinarily I would leave everything to the last minute, but failing to prepare, you are almost certain to fail. This is probably the most important bit of advice I can offer (déjà vu with some Baz Luhrmann lyrics).

I have the concentration of a three year old, and use any interruption as an excuse not to do something I am not looking forward to, but seriously Payroll Year End is quite straightforward you just need to give yourself plenty of time and ensure where possible you remain uninterrupted.    My advice would be to block out your calendar, close down your email, take the phone of the hook and focus on getting those returns submitted with plenty of time spare.

Also remember this year is the first year HMRC have removed the statutory concession that used to allow employers to file up to 7 days after 19^th May without incurring a penalty.

Nielson Watts, Payroll Year End Veteran

Win a team building day worth £2500

To celebrate the release of our payroll software, Sage 50 Payroll 2011, we’re offering you the chance to win a team building day for your business.

And what do you have to do to be in with a chance of winning a team building day worth £2500? Just tell us your top tip for motivating your team.

Team building activities can improve productivity and motivation by taking everyone out of the office for a while. Getting rid of distractions and getting to know each other better whilst having some good old fashioned fun is one way of motivating people. But how do you motivate your team?

Just complete the form and tell us your top tip for motivating people.

And, of course, don’t forget to check out the t&cs

Jo Lennon, Small Business Division

The end of the tax year is a busy period for all employers and we constantly work to improve our payroll software and the support service, SageCover, we provide to make this time of year as simple and as painless as possible for our customers. One of the key things an employer needed to do was to send their payroll information to HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), by the 18^th May.

Gary Ging, Sage Payroll Team (enjoying a Newcastle summer)

Online filing

This used to be a laborious task of having to produce two copies of the P14 form for every employee who worked for you during the year and the P35, which summarises all of the information on the P14s. This was all mailed in the post to HMRC (at the employer’s cost) or you went to your local tax office to deliver it personally. And don’t forget that you also have to give a P60, on paper, to all of your employees still employed by you at the end of the year.

The introduction of online filing has changed the way in which employers can send this information to HMRC and this year was the first year in which all employers, with a few exceptions, were required to submit their year end information online. Not only is this much easier than printing lots of paper work (it’s now just a couple of mouse clicks) but it gives you an immediate response from HMRC to tell you that they have received the information and if everything was ok or not.

How did we do?

We recently received our annual Vendor Report from HMRC detailing how our payroll products performed over the 2009/10 on-line filing period and we were once again very happy with the figures – 436,104 successful employer submissions for a total of 7,218,432 P14s.

Since the introduction of on-line filing we have always exceeded the previous year figures but the most pleasing aspect of the latest report is that it’s not just about the quantity of submissions but also the quality.

The Vendor Report doesn’t just tell us how many successful submissions were made using Sage Payroll software but also how many were unsuccessful, and this year there were 661. No, that isn’t a typo – out of 436,765 submission attempts there were only 661 failures.

This gives us a 99.85% success rate, which I think is pretty phenomenal considering the number of submissions made. And whilst 661 submission attempts were unsuccessful, this does not mean that 661 employers who use our products were not able to submit at all – our submission data shows that these employers did make a successful submission after correcting the original problem.

And I don’t refer to the number of failed submissions as ‘only 661’. We believe that this number is too high and so we have already set ourselves a target of improving these numbers for next year – not only on the number of submissions but we’re going for a 100% first time success rate.

On a final note, HMRC have changed their regulations and so from the 2010/11 year end it will be possible to give your employees their P60 electronically. Within Sage Payroll this will mean that you can either continue to print them on paper or email them directly to your employees, complete with password protection.

Gary Ging, Sage Payroll Team