Payroll year end stationery, including Sage Laser P60 Forms and Sage Self Seal P60 Mailers, is now available to order online from Action Planning’s Sage Stationery Shop.
Sage Self Seal P60 Mailers are available in small quantities – pack sizes 10, 20, 30 or 50 – for smaller businesses.
Our Sage Stationery Shop also stocks a comprehensive range of Sage Payroll and Accounts stationery items – with secure payments available via SagePay or Paypal.
Following recent media coverage of the Employment Appeal Tribunal’s ruling on holiday pay and overtime, we’ve received a number of enquires as to how this might affect client businesses and their Sage payroll systems.
What this means for your business:
Both the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service (ACAS) and Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) have compiled useful information for employers:
It is widely recommended that employers contact ACAS on 0300 123 1100 if they are uncertain if or how the ruling may apply to them.
What this means for your Sage 50 Payroll or Sage Instant Payroll system:
Sage Payroll systems already have the facility to allow you to manage holiday pay in line with this ruling where required: Ask Sage – Holiday Pay Ruling
Sage Helper from Action Planning:
Where any changes are required to your Sage payroll system, Action Planning provides on-site support and training for businesses in and around the West Midlands. Please call 01384 730020 or sales@actionplanning.net to book an appointment.
After lobbying Sage for some time with feedback from our clients, we’re delighted to report that they have now made this task much simpler in Sage 50 Accounts 2014.
In previous versions of Sage 50 Accounts, you have to remove all stock transactions for all stock codes before you can delete a single record. That clearly causes an undesirable loss of stock history before your close down date, but simply leaving redundant stock records creates an unnecessarily unwieldy product list.
Sage 50 Accounts 2014 now enables you to clear the stock transactions on individual stock records. You can also run a scan on your stock records and then delete any records that don’t have any activity.
Your stock list then only shows the items that are currently on sale giving you a clearer view of your stock list, to improve productivity when making sales to your customers.
You can take a closer look at the new features in Sage 50 Accounts 2014 with a FREE trial – our Sage Test Drive service enables you to try the software from your Internet browser, without any downloads or impact on your existing installation. FREE Trial >>
Furthermore, as an existing Sage 50 Accounts user, you could save up to 20% with our special upgrade offers. Simply visit our upgrades portal, enter the serial number of your current Sage software and we’ll contact you with the latest upgrade offer for your specific product. Upgrade Offers >>
Sage software provides the features and flexibility to help you manage the challenge of operating in today’s business environment, where changes in legislation and the marketplace are constant.
As a Sage Business Partner, Action Planning also provides a range of services to ensure that you’re utilising all the features of your Sage software to the maximum benefit.
Sage Optimisation
We take great pride in customising Sage installations to the specific needs of our clients, but over time those needs tend to change.
Action Planning’s Sage optimisation service will therefore re-examine your business and help you to re-configure Sage, or make use of additional features, to better support your current circumstances.
For example, if you’re still printing out invoices, putting them in envelopes and spending money on postage, a popular invoicing optimisation could save you a great deal of time and money. Sage’s invoice emailing capabilities reduces postage costs – and your invoices reach their recipients faster than even the most expensive Special Delivery service!
Sage Training
As business circumstances or staff change, a situation can arise where people are merely ‘finding a way to get by’ with their Sage software. Although the job still gets done, it could be taking much longer than it really needs to – and the cost of an hour or two lost each week soon adds up!
Developing the skills to use Sage efficiently is therefore an investment that could pay for itself many times over, so Action Planning provides on-site training or refresher courses, tailored to the specific needs of you or your staff.
Sage Upgrades
Sage spend huge sums of money every year to develop new products that keep pace with business, HMRC and technological developments. Your existing software may have served you well, but the latest products could help you to do more and do it faster.
With most VAT registered businesses being required to submit VAT returns online from April 1st 2012 – and changes to PAYE submissions on the horizon for 2013, it’s particularly useful to have the latest Sage upgrades with features to assist with these changes. Click here for our latest UPGRADE OFFERS >>
HMRC UPDATE MARCH 2013 – Relaxation of reporting arrangements for small businesses
By October 2013 it will be mandatory for all businesses to process Pay As You Earn (PAYE) data using HMRC’s new Real Time Information (RTI) system.
However, whilst all employers operating PAYE will be directly affected, it’s quite apparent that this substantial change is news to many of the people we know and meet. This post therefore summarises the best of the information produced by HMRC and Sage.
Although these changes won’t arrive until 2013, there are some preparations you can start now to make life easier next year.
What’s going to happen?
Currently, employers send information about tax, National Insurance contributions (NICs) and other payroll deductions to HMRC after the end of each tax year. The result is that HMRC cannot correct mistakes until the employer sends this information.
Under the new Real Time Information (RTI) system, information about tax and other deductions under the PAYE system will be transmitted electronically to HMRC by the employer every time an employee is paid.
Employers using RTI will no longer be required to provide information to HMRC using Forms P35 and P14 after the end of the tax year, or to send Forms P45 or P46 to HMRC when employees start or leave a job.
HMRC state that the new system will:
When is it going to happen?
HMRC currently envisage that all employers and pension providers will have joined the RTI system by October 2013. To make sure that the service is thoroughly tested and issues are resolved, HMRC will pilot the RTI service with volunteer software developers and employers for a year, starting in April 2012.
HMRC also envisage that most employers and pension providers that haven’t joined the RTI system during 2012-13 will do so in April 2013, and that RTI will be routinely operating by no later than October 2013.
How can I prepare for the introduction of the PAYE Real Time Information system?
1) Your Sage Payroll system
Sage are one of the leading software vendors participating in HMRC’s RTI trial starting this April. They will develop an updated version of their payroll software that includes the ability to submit Real Time Information electronically to HMRC, using their existing and proven Sage Internet Submission technology.
It is however anticipated that the RTI update won’t be available if you’re currently using an older version of Sage payroll software that is no longer supported by Sage. By 30th March 2012, this will include Sage 50 Payroll versions up to and including V2008.
2) Employee data
With the new PAYE Real Time Information system, the information that you submit to HMRC every time you pay your employees is matched against records HMRC store on their National Insurance and PAYE Service (NPS). If the records you submit don’t match, you may create duplicate or inaccurate records which may result in incorrect tax calculations or trigger HMRC compliance checks – so now is the time to make sure the information you hold about your employees is correct.
Sage has prepared this handy checklist for maintaining accurate information in your payroll system:
Employee name
DO – enter the employee’s full forename and surname.
DO – enter a double barrelled forename or surname in full.
DON’T – use known as, for example, if HMRC know the employee as ‘Robert’ don’t use ‘Bob’.
DON’T – enter an initial in either the Forename or Surname boxes.
Date of birth
DO – enter the correct date of birth and ensure it’s in the format DD/MM/YYYY, for example 05/05/1985.
DON’T – enter a default date of birth, such as 01/01/1901, or make one up.
NI number
DO – only enter an employee’s correct National Insurance number.
DON’T – make up an employee’s National Insurance number.
Make sure you get employee information from an official source:
If your employee doesn’t know their National Insurance number, encourage them to check any documentation they may have received from HMRC or the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). If they still can’t locate it, they can download Form CA5403 from HMRC, or they can phone the Registration Helpline on 0845 915 7006.
If the employee has never been issued with a National Insurance number, they should phone Jobcentre Plus on 0845 600 0643.
Further information about maintaining accuracte employee information can be found on the HMRC website here >>