earnie release notes - amazon web services
TRANSCRIPT
Installation via the Internet .............................................................. 4
Earnie April Release Patch 1 April 2018 - Version 1.30.69 .................. 5
Pensions .......................................................................................... 5
New Standard Life Pension Files ................................................................................................................ 5
Configure Pension Fund ............................................................................................................................. 5
LGPS Bands England/Wales and Scotland .................................................................................................. 5
Reports ............................................................................................ 6
Timing ......................................................................................................................................................... 6
Quick Report Writer ................................................................................................................................... 6
Year to Date Summary ............................................................................................................................... 6
P45s ............................................................................................................................................................ 6
NatWest Autopay Bank Credit Report ....................................................................................................... 6
Company Costs Summary ........................................................................................................................... 6
P60 .............................................................................................................................................................. 6
Payroll Calculation ........................................................................... 6
Earnie Enhancements – Version 1.30.61 ........................................... 7
PAYE Legislation Changes ................................................................. 7
Tax Code Validation .................................................................................................................................... 7
Apprenticeship Levy ................................................................................................................................... 7
National Insurance ..................................................................................................................................... 7
Pensions .......................................................................................... 7
Phasing – Year-end Restart ........................................................................................................................ 7
Scottish Relief at Source ............................................................................................................................. 7
Staging Date / Duty Start Date ................................................................................................................... 8
IRIS OpenEnrol ............................................................................................................................................ 8
Teachers’ pension - employer deduction ................................................................................................... 8
Monthly Data Collection............................................................................................................................. 8
RTI Changes ..................................................................................... 9
Earlier Year Update (EYU) ........................................................................................................................... 9
Sundry Screen ............................................................................................................................................. 9
Full Payment Submission (FPS) ................................................................................................................... 9
Serious ill health lump sum indicator ......................................................................................................... 9
Reason for Late Reporting .......................................................................................................................... 9
Employer Payment Submission (EPS) ......................................................................................................... 9
Employer Alignment Submission ................................................................................................................ 9
Company Cars and Fuel Benefit ................................................................................................................. 9
Appendix 1 – Legislative Rates and Bands for 2018/19.................... 10
Appendix 2 – Legislative Changes ................................................... 13
Automatic Enrolment - Increase of minimum contributions to pension schemes .................................. 13
Automatic Enrolment - Change Staging Date to Duty Start Date ............................................................ 13
Car and Car Fuel Benefit - Real Driving Emission Step 2 (RDE2) .............................................................. 13
National Insurance - Serious Ill Health Lump Sum ................................................................................... 14
General Data Protection Regulation GDPR .............................................................................................. 14
Installation via the Internet Before you start, ensure that you have up-to-date backups of your EARNIE
data.
Make sure the EARNIE program is closed. It is important that you do not have any other applications open while installing the update (other than any anti-virus software that is normally running in the background).
Click on the link supplied to ‘Install EARNIE’.
Follow the on-screen instructions. The exact installation procedure will depend on the configuration of your computer but you will be extracting EARNIE files supplied by the Iris Group Ltd to a temporary destination folder, which will then be automatically installed. Just click on the Download button and follow the options on the screen.
If Windows SmartScreen (a warning message) appears to block the installation, click on More Information and then Run Anyway.
RESTART: When the installation is complete restart the computer immediately before opening the program to allow all updates to be completed.
When you open the program, your data will be automatically updated to run with the new version (1.30) of the program.
Remember to update every machine that uses EARNIE.
NETWORKS - In addition you must perform an installation for each extra workstation on which you intend to use the program. Having installed the program to the main server as above, repeat the procedure on each workstation choosing the location of the server where the main program was installed. Choose the option to do a Typical installation.
Earnie April Release Patch 1 April 2018 - Version 1.30.69 Pensions
New Standard Life Pension Files Standard Life have introduced the ‘Workplace Pension Hub’. This requires different pension output files from the current ‘G2G’ files.
Standard Life have informed us that their customers will be migrated gradually from the old Group Pension Zone to The Workplace Pension Zone.
We have added the necessary file formats to the system; when Standard Life have informed you that you have been moved to the Workplace Pension Hub you will need to use these new formats:
Create Pension File
Standard Life WPH Enrolments and Standard Life WPH Contributions have been added to
Pension | Create Pension File | Select File to Create screen.
Configure Pension Fund We have added a Standard Life WPH option to the Pension | Configure Pension Fund | output Files | File Output drop down list.
Configure Pension Fund We have resolved an error 3163, which sometimes occurred when attempting to save the Configure Pension Fund screen.
LGPS Bands England/Wales and Scotland The Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) bands have been updated for the new tax year
2018/2019.
Reports
Timing We have improved the time it takes to create reports.
Quick Report Writer A rounding issue with certain formulae in the Quick Report Writer has been resolved.
An issue with SQL selection on Quick Report Writer, which was sometimes causing incorrect totals on quick reports, has been resolved.
Year to Date Summary We have resolved an issue where SSP was showing as SPP on the Year to Date Summary, before the first payroll had been run on the software for that company.
P45s We have corrected an issue where P45s were printing for all employees for some companies with Text employee codes.
NatWest Autopay Bank Credit Report We have resolved an issue with this report where under certain circumstances employees were appearing twice.
Company Costs Summary We have corrected an issue with the Company Costs Summary where leavers were not being
included in the year to date values.
P60 We have improved the alignment on the P60 IRIS Laser Single Sheet and the P60 HMRC Laser Single Sheet reports.
Payroll Calculation
We have resolved an issue with the payroll calculation that arose in 2018/19 tax year. If an employee was paid on a Weekly, 2 Weekly or 4 Weekly basis, then changed to Monthly for next period, on a Rerun of that period their NI Earnings were incorrect.
Earnie Enhancements – Version 1.30.61 This update of the software includes several new features and enhancements. We recommend that you install this version of the EARNIE Payroll program immediately. There is no need to wait until the year-end.
If you would like help or more information about any of the changes in the program, please contact Software Support on 01594 545022 or refer to the Help within the program.
PAYE Legislation Changes
The rates for Tax, NI, Statutory Payments, Student Loans etc., have been updated for 2018/2019. For full details see Appendix 1. We have also made the following changes:
Tax Code Validation
We have updated Tax Code validation to allow D0 to D8 and SD0 to SD8 tax codes in the payroll software, if there is an appropriate matching tax band introduced.
Apprenticeship Levy
We have added an App. Levy column to Company | Select Company | Company Details | Payment Summary that displays the amount of Apprenticeship Levy paid to date in each month.
National Insurance
The Tax / NI / Pension Rates report now includes the two and four weekly National Insurance bands.
Pensions
Phasing – Year-end Restart As per the Auto Enrolment legislation, minimum Employer Contributions will increase in April 2018 and April 2019 as per the table shown in Appendix 2.
When you perform the Year-end Restart, the system will display a message advising you to check your employees’ and employer’s pension contribution rates and containing a link to The Pension Regulator’s webpage regarding pension contribution phasing.
Scottish Relief at Source
From April 2018/2019, the Relief At Source (RAS) for pension contributions must be calculated using the appropriate basic rate for Scotland and the appropriate basic rate for the rest of the UK.
Where the Payment/Deduction is a pension deduction with Less Basic Rate Tax set, the payroll software will reduce the deduction by the basic rate tax value for the appropriate tax regime i.e. Scottish or rest of the UK, based on the tax code during the pay period.
Tax codes with ‘S’ as prefix will use the Scottish basic rate value whereas any other tax code will use the rest of the UK basic rate tax value.
Staging Date / Duty Start Date
Following changes by The Pensions Regulator, Staging Date has changed to Duty Start Date / Staging Date throughout the software. Re-enrolment now uses Duty Start Date in the way it previously used Staging Date. This change will be visible in the following locations and on any pension-related warning messages:
Pension | Configure Automatic Enrolment Pension | Automatic Enrolment Configuration Tool Pension | Period Pension Dashboard Pension | Company Pension Dashboard Employee | Select Employee | Employee Details Company | Select Different Company |Select Company
IRIS OpenEnrol
We have removed Letter L0 from the software, as there will be no further Staging after February 2018.
Teachers’ pension - employer deduction
We have added a new payment/deduction Category to cater for Teachers’ Pension Employer contributions. This new Category always uses the same pensionable pay elements as those you have included in the Teachers’ Pension Employee contribution. This reduces the risk of differences between the two.
Teachers’ Pension ER (Display) has been added to the Category section in Company | Alter Payments / Deductions. It is a Display item only.
If you have already configured a Teachers’ Pension Employer contribution you should check it and amend the Category to Teachers’ Pension ER (Display) if required.
Monthly Data Collection
When creating the Monthly Data Collection file for Teachers Pension, employees with Opt Out or Contributions Ceased date in the period are included in the file, but not included on any future files.
RTI Changes
Earlier Year Update (EYU)
We have updated the EYU scheme for submissions relating to tax year 2017/2018.
Sundry Screen
In the Flexible Drawdown frame, below Pension Death Benefit, there is a new Serious Ill Health Lump Sum tick box.
Full Payment Submission (FPS)
We have updated the FPS scheme for submissions relating to tax year 2018/2019.
Serious ill health lump sum indicator
We have added two new types of payment to Company | Alter Payments / Deductions in the Category section:
Serious Ill Health Lump Sum (Taxable) Serious Ill Health Lump Sum (Non-Taxable)
The new categories are payments after NI i.e. they do not affect NIable pay.
Reason for Late Reporting
Late Reason will be set to ‘H’ in the FPS XML file automatically, when a leaver was not paid in the current tax year or the employee has been paid in the tax year but their leaving date has been entered too late to include in the FPS.
Employer Payment Submission (EPS)
We have updated the EPS scheme for submissions relating to tax year 2018/2019.
Employer Alignment Submission
The menu item for Employer Alignment Submission has been removed as it is no longer in use.
Company Cars and Fuel Benefit
With effect from the 2018/2019 tax year we have made the following changes to the software to cater for diesel cars that meet the Real Driving Emission Step 2 (RDE2) regulation. See Appendix 2
Fuel Type The Configure Company Cars | Add/Edit | Fuel Type dropdown now includes the option Diesel Meets RDE2 Regulation. This Fuel Type will only be available from the 2018/2019 Tax Year.
Recalculate A new Recalculate button has been added to the Allocation screen. You can click this button to recalculate the cash equivalent if there has been a change, for instance in Fuel Type from Diesel to Diesel Meets RDE2 Regulation.
Appendix 1 – Legislative Rates and Bands for 2018/19
Appendix 2 – Legislative Changes
Automatic Enrolment - Increase of minimum contributions to pension schemes The minimum contributions to be paid into automatic enrolment pension schemes are increasing. This is also known as phasing. Minimum contributions are increasing in two phases; the first takes place from 6 April 2018 and the second from 6 April 2019.
All employers operating an automatic enrolment pension scheme must make sure the correct minimum contributions are being paid from these dates, whether you set up a new pension scheme for automatic enrolment or you used an existing scheme.
You do not need to take any action if you don’t have any employees in an automatic enrolment pension scheme or if contributions are already above the increased minimum amounts. The increases also do not apply if you are using a defined benefits pension scheme.
This table shows the minimum contributions and the date when they must increase:
Date Employer minimum contribution Total minimum contribution
06/04/18 – 05/04/19
2% 5% (including 3% staff contribution)
06/04/19 onwards 3% 8% (including 5% staff contribution)
If you are unsure of any aspect of phasing, please speak to your pension scheme provider.
Automatic Enrolment - Change Staging Date to Duty Start Date The final Staging Dates are for February 2018. After that date, for new employers it will be referred to as Duty Start Date.
Car and Car Fuel Benefit - Real Driving Emission Step 2 (RDE2) A new Real Driving Emission Step 2 (RDE2) regulation will apply to diesel cars from the 2018/2019 tax year. Cars registered after 1 Jan 1998 meeting this regulation will have a 0% supplement i.e. the same rates as petrol cars. Cars registered after 1 Jan 1998 not meeting the regulation will have a 4% supplement up to a maximum of 37%.
If your payroll software has the Car and Car Fuel Benefit function, and you have cars that will meet the Real Driving Emission Step 2 (RDE2) regulation in 2018/2019, we advise that you change the Fuel Type and Recalculate the cash equivalent after year-end processing and before you run the first payroll of the new tax year. You can find details of how to do this in the April Release Notes for your payroll product.
National Insurance - Serious Ill Health Lump Sum If you retire early due to ill health, your pension may be able to offer you some financial support.
This depends on the scheme and its definition of ill health. The usual definition is where:
“your physical or mental health is bad enough to stop you from carrying on working, or which seriously reduces the amount you can earn.”
Provided you meet the criteria of your scheme, you may be able to take benefits early or even receive an ill-health pension.
If your circumstances are immediate, you may be entitled to more access to your pension benefits. For example, if you’re diagnosed with a very serious or terminal condition, where your life expectancy is determined to be less than 12 months, you may be able to take the whole of your pension pot as a lump sum, although special tax rules will apply
General Data Protection Regulation GDPR General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is an EU regulation in which the European Parliament, European Council and European Commission intend to strengthen and unify data protection for living individuals. GDPR will come into effect from 25th May 2018.
If you are still using the ‘default’ password(s) for your payroll software, that is, those provided on first installation, we strongly recommend you change them to help you comply with GDPR.
To change user password:
Log into Admin mode
Go to Operators/Groups – Alter Operators/Groups
To alter the users password, expand the list of the group the user is in (unless you have previously setup other groups this will be the default one), highlight their name and click Edit.
Enter the new password and confirm. Click OK.
To log in to Earnie select File – Use Earnie
Please Note:
Should you forget your password we can assist you but, to ensure data security, we must adhere to a strict protocol and this WILL result in a delay.
Farmplan Computer Systems Alton House Alton Road Ross-on-Wye Herefordshire HR9 5BP Phone: 01594 545022 Fax: 01594 545012 www.farmplan.co.uk [email protected]
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