Changes to Entering Timesheets
Introducing the ability to make supplementary payments required changes to how regular payments are entered manually. To add a manual payment for an employee, select the employee and click the ‘Add’ button.
To automate entering timesheets you can use our ‘Auto Add Timesheet’ or ‘Import Timesheets’ functions. This can be used whether or not your payments change from payrun to payrun. View the Helpfile in Payroll or contact our Support Team to find out more.
NB: Employment IDs are set up as a once-off for every employee and should not changed once submitted to Revenue.
11th March 2020 – v19.33
Issue with submitted ‘Gross Pay for USC’ for USC Exempt employees
We have added an Integrity Check for Submissions where a ‘Gross Pay for USC’ of zero (or a minus amount) was submitted for USC Exempt Employees.
If this issue is found a utility will display showing the affected submissions and giving the facility to Reset the these Payments for Resubmission.
When the option to Reset the Payments is taken ‘Submit Payments’ will open and the Payments can be submitted to ROS replacing the previous Payment Submission with the corrected one.
The check will be run automatically on opening a company and is also available in the Utilities menu as ‘USC Submission Integrity’
Submission Enquiry
Fixed a bug that would not allow a range be set on the Payrun Ref field.
Check for Updates
Changes have been made to how we read the current version number in Help > Check for Updates.
29th January 2020 – v19.32
Pay for USC
Changes were made to how Pay for USC is reported when an employee is USC Exempt.
YTD Summary
We have added a Year to Date Summary Report, similar to the Period Summary but showing the full YTD amounts for all employees and breakdown categories. It will also include any amounts entered if using the Mid Year Startup feature.
24th January 2020 – v19.31
Payment Enquiry
Changes were made to the Print/Export Feature in Payment Enquiry.
9th January 2020 – v19.30
RPN Lookup
We have improved the messaging displayed when an RPN is requested after the tax year has passed.
3rd January 2020 – v19.29
Net to Gross Payments
Changes have been made to allow more than one rate of pay where the rate is Taxable, PRSIable and USCable or non-Taxable, or non-PRSIable and non-USCable.
Payslip Layout
Adjustments have been made to Payslip layout one to improve the alignment when two payslips are printed on the same page.
18th December – v19.28
Employee Statement
Made changes to the Employee Statement to keep in line with Revneue’s Employment Detail Summary.
Employer Registered Number
Improved the handling of Employer Number when communicating with ROS to reduce the chance of errors occurring.
6th December – v19.27
Timesheets Screen for Low-Resolution Users
Adjustments were made to the Timesheets screen to improve usability for users on low-resolution displays.
Link to What’s New Webpage
A link was added in the Help menu that will open our What’s New webpage with the details of everything we have added to our software.
Add and Edit payments in Timesheets
Highlighting an employee who had not had a timesheet processed for the current period, and pressing enter on your keyboard will now either add a payment for the employee or edit an already entered payment.
Employee Statement
Made minor changes to the Employee Statement.
ROS Status Page
We have included a link in the Help menu and Company Information screen to our ROS Status page.
27th November – v19.26
Print Payslips
Fixed a bug where a single Payslip would not print
26th November – v19.25
Changes made to Timesheet Imports and Processing
Changes have been made to the handling of a timesheet import from CSV file, as well as changing the process feature to ensure only one timesheet can be processed per employee.
Printing Timesheet Report
Fixed a bug that would not allow the user to print the Timesheet Report.
25th November – v19.24
Timesheet Integrity Checks
Implemented changes to integrity checks applied to timesheets.
21st November – v19.23
Email and Print Payslip Screens
Supplementary Payments will mean there may be multiple payslips for the same period. We have added Payslip No. and Payslip type to these screens in order to help distinguish such payslips.
21st November – v19.22
Supplementary Payments – new feature
The facility has been added within the timesheets screen for a supplementary payment to be added outside of regular payments. This will enable the correct recording of any payments made to employees in line with Revenue’s rule that all payments must be submitted to Revenue on or before the date that employee receives the payment.
13th November – v19.21
Improvements to Error Responses from ROS
The messages displayed following an error response from ROS have been improved to give a better explanation of what went wrong.
Connection Log File
Changes have been made to cleanup the connection log as well as the addition of the option of when to save it.
Reset Payments for Resubmission
Improved reset for re-submit function.
Warning when Restore will overwrite a submission
Improved the checks that display warnings if a user attempts to restore a backup of their company that will result in the loss of submission data.
Update from RPN
A Utility was added to ensure the latest RPN details are assigned to the Employee.
26th September – v19.20
Temporary Change of Tax Basis to ‘Week One’
In the case where submitting a ‘Cumulative’ RPN payslip will cause an employee hardship, and Revenue cannot be contacted to request a ‘Week One’ RPN, the facility to change the Tax status from ‘Cumulative’ to ‘Week One’ is offered in Employee Details > RPN. It will also enable switching back from ‘Week One’ to ‘Cumulative’.
24th September – v19.19
Improvements to CE Scheme Payments
Employees on a CE Scheme will no longer need a separate rate of pay. USC exemption will be applied and ‘Gross for USC’ reported as zero for anyone on the CE Scheme PRSI Rate (A8 / A9).
If an CE Scheme employee has another employment with the same employer, this should be set up as a separate employment with a different Employment ID.
Payment Submissions – non-taxable pay
Non-taxable pay is now included submission ‘Gross Pay’
Payment Submissions – USC Exempt Employees and Gross for USC
Where an employee is exempt from USC (notified via RPN) ‘Gross for USC’ will be submitted as zero.
4th September – v19.18
Process Pay and Lookup RPN
On opening Process Pay it will now give the option to run an RPN Lookup (if the last lookup date is prior to last business day). The ‘Lookup RPN’ result will be displayed without displaying the ‘Lookup RPN’ details screen.
Renewing ROS Certificates
Links to a video explaining how to renew a ROS Cert have been added to the Settings/Revenue Registration and the Help Menu.
Error Messages with issues with ROS Server
If an error response is returned when connecting to ROS we have changed the message to indicate that there is an issue with ROS and you should try again later.
19th June – v19.17
RPN Lookup
On opening RPN Lookup it will now go straight to submitting a Lookup of all RPNs issued since the Last Lookup Date.
If the Last Lookup Date was also the most recent business day it will not default to submitting a Lookup of all RPNs.
Updating ROS Certificates
Improvements have been made to the File Type filter when locating ROS Certificate files so that all Certificate files are displayed.
19th June – v19.17
RPN Lookup
On opening RPN Lookup it will now go straight to submitting a Lookup of all RPNs issued since the Last Lookup Date.
If the Last Lookup Date was also the most recent business day it will not default to submitting a Lookup of all RPNs.
Updating ROS Certificates
Improvements have been made to the File Type filter when locating ROS Certificate files so that all Certificate files are displayed.
7th June – v19.16
Payrun Submission Status
Bug in Check Submission after Payroll Submission when lower case Submission ID.
After successful Payroll Submission status of ‘Acknowledged’ displayed. Subsequent ‘Check Submission’ should display totals for submission and status of ‘Completed’ or ‘Pending’, lower case Submission ID not matched correctly so summary not displayed and Status remaining at ‘Acknowledged’ on-screen.
Lookup RPN for single PPSN + Employment ID
There is a facility Employee details to check for the current RPN for that employment (PPSN + Employment ID).
This will only return a single RPN for that particular employment (provided Revenue already have the Employment ID) – moved to the RPN tab to avoid confusion with ‘RPN Lookup’ on the main menu bar which will return an RPN for all employees issued since a specific date.
Validation of Dates
New validation rules on Start Date and Leave Date come into effect in ROS on June 14th.
Start Date cannot be more than 90 days in the future; Start Date cannot be after Leave Date
9th May – v19.15
Validation of PPSN + Employment ID
Bug: validation allowing duplicate Employment ID for a PPSN, also causing ‘Restart’ facility to default to the same Employment ID
Fixed
Invalid Payments after Rollback with Replace
When a submitted payment is Rolled Back, the ‘Replace’ option should only be used when the week being rolled back is going to be re-entered and reprocessed immediately. If a Line Item is changed or deleted manually in ROS a subsequent attempt to submit a payment as a replacement for the changed/deleted line will result in the Payment being rejected as Invalid as the ‘Previous Line Item’ was not on ROS.
We have changed the operation when this occurs to update the missing submission as Deleted in Payroll to match ROS.
Note: The Payment flagged ‘Invalid’ must be reset for re-submission to ROS in Utilities / ROS Re-submit.
Check Payroll Run – errors displayed
Bug: Errors from previous submissions were being display instead of any returned in the current check.
Fixed.
17th April – v19.14
Connectivity Check – date format error.
Bug: On successful connectivity check, error displayed re expiry date format.
Fixed.
Notify New Employees – Request ID
Request ID now defaults to current date and time.
The ‘Request ID’ has no meaning in itself but must be unique, using date and time will ensure that it is.
Submission Enquiry – Start and Leave date.
Start and Leave dates included on a submission are now displayed in Submission Enquiry.
12th April – v19.13
Integrity Check for Orphan Submissions
Additional check added to detect a data issue from v19.10.00 that resulted in Payment Line Item ID being over-written and losing the link to the correct Submission Record. The ‘Orphan Submissions’ utility now corrects this data.
This data error did not affect data submitted to ROS but must be corrected to ensure data integrity in Payroll.
10th April – v19.12
Warning when ROS Digital Certificate expired or about to expire
The first time the ROS Digital Certificate is used to connect with ROS, in a session, the expiry date is checked and a warning given if the Certificate is within 30 days of expiring. Expiry date is also displayed in Settings.
Check for Orphan Submissions
We are concerned that there may still be Orphan Submission records and are automatically running an integrity check with this update.
If orphan submission records are found a message is displayed requesting that you contact Big Red Book Support to resolve.
Duplicate Submissions in earlier versions would give rise to the first submission being an ‘orphan’ i.e. no matching payment record.
Rollback of submitted payments
In some circumstances the ‘Replace or Delete’ of the submission was not requested leading to the original submission remaining on ROS and Payroll showing an ‘Orphan’ submission.
A warning is now given and rollback will not proceed if the submission record is not found when rolling back.
Timesheet total for PRSI Exempt
In some circumstances editing the timesheet pay rates caused an incorrect negative amount to be calculated for ‘PRSI Exempt’ gross pay leading to a miscalculation of PRSI amounts when timesheet processed.
Fixed.
Re-submit Payments
Wording changed to ‘Reset for re-submission’ to make it clearer that the submission are being reset to submit again with the next Payments Submission.
8th March – v19.11
Re-submit payments missing in ROS – new
Check Payroll Run now checks for Payments in Payroll but missing in ROS.
If they are found, option is given to ‘re-submit’ – payments are flagged and will be re-submitted in next Payments Submission.
Can be used where payments were accidentally deleted in ROS.
Re-submit Payments without Rollback – new
New item in Utilities Menu – ‘ROS Re-submit’
Can be used when a payment was submitted to ROS but was rejected as Invalid due to Leave date, PRSI Exempt Reason or similar non-payment issues.
Will also allow USC Refunds to be re-submitted correctly to where they were omitted due to earlier issue in software.
Check for Orphans
On opening company check for Orphans wrongly seeing Invalid submissions as Orphans
Fixed.
New Employee Notification – digital signature issue
When there were accents in Employee name the digital signature failed validation.
Fixed by removing the accents as an interim fix. Name can later be corrected in ROS.
RPN Lookup – hanging
Where an employee has an RPN but previously got a ‘No RPN’ response from ROS the system was hanging when trying to update the RPN.
Fixed.
26th February – v19.10
Payment Submissions – recovery from non-response from ROS
Issues have arisen when a Payment Submission is successful but an acknowledgement is not received from ROS.
This has resulted in Payroll being out of sync with ROS and duplicate submissions being made.
To avoid this situation and facilitate recovery we are now saving submissions to intermediate, holding files, prior to submission.
If a response to a submission is not received (e.g. Revenue slow, power-cut etc.) then it will be possible – where the submission was successful – to update Payroll from these holding files as if response had been received.
Rollback and ‘Submit Payrun’ will check for records in these holding files and will not allow either until these records are cleared.
USC Refund not included when USC Exempt
No USC amount (usually a refund) submitted with employee flagged as USC Exempt.
Fixed.
Employee – Lookup RPN
A single Employee RPN check is only possible when ROS has recorded the Employment ID.
Where the Employment ID was not on ROS an incorrect message was display that the RPN was retrieved but there was no RPN updated.
Fixed.
Net to Gross Calculation when employee Exempt from PRSI
PRSI exemption not included when calculating gross from net, resulting in wrong net. Fixed.
Husband and wife PPSNs
Where a husband and wife are employed and the wife has a ‘W’ PPSN an error was displayed for the husband’s PPSN if they had the same Employment ID.
Fixed.
ROS Corrections showing ‘Invalid’ payslips
Should only show orphans and pending Replacements and Deletions.
Fixed
23rd January – v19.09
Correction Submissions
1) Bug ‘datafile not in edit/insert’ in some circumstances. Fixed.
2) Error response from ROS – no payslips or deletions included in submission. Fixed.
Check for pending submission on closing company
A check if made when closing a company for payments or corrections pending submission.
If there are any payments or corrections awaiting submission a message is displayed.
22nd January – v19.08
Employment ID width increased
If the Employment ID on ROS was greater than 8 chars the RPN was not matching as we had limited it.
Employment ID field size has now been increased to 20.
Lookup RPN for one employee
Bug fix – on Employee detail page, Lookup RPN – not working
Submission IDs for Corrections
Time-stamp added to the Submission ID generated to ensure unique Submission ID for Corrections.
Backup before changing data structures
The silent backup made when a data structure is required will now have a suffix of ‘_upd’ and will be placed in a sub folder of the Backups folder ‘UpdateBackups’ to make it easier to locate them.
18th January – v19.07
Submission of Corrections
Corrections [Replace or Delete Payments previously submitted] must be submitted with the same Pay Run Reference as the Payment being Replaced or Deleted.
These submissions will now be submitted separately from initial Payment Submissions and are shown in separate tabs.
There is no change to submitting payments but as there will be more than one Submission made when there are Corrections there will be at least two sets of ‘Submission Successful’ / ‘Check Successful’ messages in normal processing.
Backup after Submission
When a Payment or Correction is submitted to Revenue it is important that the data associated with that submission is not lost.
We have added a prompt to make a backup of data after Payment or Correction Submissions. We advise that this backup be made each time.
Restoring after Submissions
Restoring a backup made before a submission will cause the loss of the Payment Submission and Payroll will be out of sync with the data in ROS. We have added a warning when doing a restore if it appears that the backup will over-write Submission data.
Employment ID added to Audit Trail
Employment ID is now being recorded in the Audit Trail
Matching Employments with RPN Retrieved
Where an RPN returns an Employment ID but the employee has no Employment ID, the option is given to match the RPN with the employee and update their Employment ID.
Locking Employment IDs
Bug – Employment IDs change allowed after submission of payment.
It appears that in some cases Employment IDs were not locked (i.e. change prevented). We are now ensuring that Employment IDs are locked when a payment is submitted or an RPN is retrieved and matched to an employee.
New Employee Notification – accents in name
There was an error when Notifying a new employee where the name had an accent.
this has now been fixed.
Submit Payments – sorting by columns
Data displayed can now be sorted by clicking on the column headings.
10th January – v19.06
Lookup RPNs
Sort by column added.
RPNs prior to current RPN saved to employee if not already there.
Employees / Holiday
Bug when updating 8% rule calculation – ‘field not found’
Fixed
Check Payroll Run
Bug if no valid payslips included in the Payroll Run Reference – access violation message.
Fixed
Format of Agent TAIN
Bug allowing lower case letters in Agent TAIN.
Fixed
8th January – v19.05
Net to Gross
Net to Gross calculation has be reinstated.
RPN Lookups
RPN Numbers greater than 9 – not applied in some circumstances.
Fixed.
Lookup Date
Initial date to lookup ‘RPNs Issued since’ cannot be edited.
To get all RPNs issued for 2019 the date must be 01/12/2018 as initial RPNs were issued in early Dec 2018.
Subsequently the date can be put back from the date Last Checked but cannot be put forward.
This is to avoid missing RPNs Issued.
4th January – v19.04
Dual Employment – Updating PPSNs
Bug in 19.03 – Utility to update Dual Employment PPSNs; suffix of ‘X’ was being removed, instead of replaced with ‘W’.
Fixed.
4th January – v19.03
Dual Employment PPSNs
Previously Revenue issued a PPSN with an additional suffix of X, T or Z when an employee had two employments with an employer.
These suffixes are no longer used by Revenue as ‘Employment ID’ is now used to distinguish employments.
A check is run on opening a company and a warning is given with the the option to remove the additional suffixes of X and T
Where the suffix is ‘Z’ the PPSN will have to be manually updated as Revenue replaced the last character of the PPSN with ‘Z’ and it has to be replaced with the correct character.
Employment ID mismatches with Revenue
When the List of Employees was uploaded to Revenue in 2018 the Employment ID was retained in the Revenue system when the PPSN was for Dual Employment. Unfortunately it appears that there have been cases of Revenue recording an Employment ID of ’01’ as ‘1’ and therefore the RPN was not matched to the employees when RPNs were updated.
We have now added an additional check and if the Employment ID on the RPN matches the file Employment ID when leading zeroes are removed we give the option to change the Employment ID on file to match Revenue. Taking this option updates the Employee record and the RPN for that employee
24th December 2018 – v19.02
Bug in processing where RPN had zero Tax Credits
Bug causing tax credits to be assigned to employees with an RPN giving zero Tax Credits, in some circumstances.
Fixed.
13th December 2018 – v19.01
AutoUpdate updating timesheet incorrectly when Net to Gross in 2018
Bug causing gross and net pay to be wrongly calculated when employee was on Net to Gross in 2018 and AutoUpdate used.
Fixed.
12th December 2018 – v19.00
Initial Release
