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Updated RPNs for DEASP Budget Changes

The increase in DEASP pensions and payments announced in Budget 2019 came into effect last month. Revenue updates over the first weekend of April 2019 means that you can expect new RPNs for employees as of 8 April.

An automated update of RPN information is regularly done by the SimplePay system. However, we recommend that you do an update of RPNs before processing payroll, in case changes were made by Revenue after our automatic system update. Read more about manually updating RPN’s on our help page here.

You can read more about the DEASP pensions and payments in Budget 2019 here. Then click on Social Welfare to navigate to the relevant section.

Should you have any queries regarding the updated RPN information, you can contact Revenue’s National Employer and Employee help lines.

For any other assistance, please do not hesitate to contact our Support team.

Team SimplePay

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Customise System Items

SimplePay is all about you, our users. So when you asked for more power to customise the system to suit your payroll needs, we listened. We’re delighted to announce our latest feature – the ability to create custom items that follow the same tax and payroll rules as system items.

This new feature allows you to:

  • Create multiple items of a certain type:
    • Employer Loans
    • Savings
  • Customise the names of these items. For example, you may want to differentiate between different types of commissions.
  • Map different versions of a specific type of item to different Xero accounts. For example, you may want to give an annual bonus to two different employees but you want one of them to be mapped to an account in Xero called “Director’s Costs” and the other to an account in Xero called “Employee Costs”. You can add the bonus to the payslips as two different items.

How does it work?

When creating a custom item (Settings > Custom Items > Add), there is now an option to select create a copy of an existing system item. Select the system item that you wish to use and give it a custom name. You can then add it to your payslips in the same way you would the system item of that type (Regular Inputs or Payslip Inputs).

Read our help page here for more information on creating custom items.

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New Feature! Custom Employee Info Fields

You were onto something! Thanks to your suggestions on ways of making SimplePay even greater, we are happy to announce our newest feature! While we have built our system on simplicity and compliance, we understand that sometimes you have unique needs. Our new feature therefore gives you the ability to add your own fields to an employee’s Basic Info screen.

Want to capture an employee’s nickname or cellphone number? Add a custom “Text” field.

Want to record the date that employees completed their orientation training? Add a custom “Date” field.

Want to record an employee’s marital status? Add a custom “Dropdown” field with options to select from.

You can now capture the information that you want, with added features coming soon!

To learn more about how this functionality works, head over to our help page here.

We’d love to hear from you if this feature enhances your payroll experience. In addition, if you have any trouble with this new feature or would like some further guidance, please reach out to our friendly support team who would be happy to help.

Team SimplePay

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New Live Chat Support

We’re making it even easier for you to get the support that you need with the introduction of our live chat functionality. When logging into the SimplePay system, a new icon now appears in the bottom corner that allows you to initiate a live chat with our friendly support team.

This means that you can start a chat from any area in the system while capturing payroll and get the answers that you need. To send our support team a message, simply click on the chat icon and then click New conversation.

Then type your message and send. Please note that while we strive to minimise our response times, these may vary during peak times.

If the chat indicates that the team will only be back tomorrow, please do not hesitate to send us a message and we will respond as soon as we return in the morning. Alternatively, our comprehensive help site is also always available for more information.

If you have a longer query, you are of course still welcome to send this to our support team via email at [email protected]

We look forward to helping you!

Team SimplePay

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PAYE Modernisation Release 3: Submissions to Revenue

We have previously released the following functionality required to help you prepare for PAYE Modernisation:

Today we are happy to announce the release of the submissions functionality that will allow you to submit payroll information to Revenue in 2019.

To assist you with this Phase 3 release, we have prepared the following helpful guide:

PAYE Modernisation Guide – Release 3

We thank you for your patience and support in this transition period. If you experience any technical difficulties with any of the new functionality or if you need any assistance in using it, please contact our support team who will be happy to assist.

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PAYE Modernisation Release 2: Bulk RPN Retrieval

Last week, we announced the release of Phase 1 of our major PAYE Modernisation changes – uploading of ROS Authorisation Certificates, which you can read about here.

As promised, we’re pleased to inform you that today we’ve released Phase 2: bulk retrieval of employee RPNs. As with the ROS Certificates, this is an important step in ensuring you’re ready to process payroll in 2019. This short and handy guide will take you through the steps of bulk RPN retrieval.

PAYE Modernisation Guide – Release 2

As part of this release,  SimplePay will automatically retrieve RPNs once for the 2019 tax year for all employees that have a PPSN but no RPN. This functionality will soon be expanded to provide daily automated updates.

As always, if you have any queries or concerns around this new functionality and process, please feel free to contact our friendly support team who will gladly assist.

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PAYE Modernisation Release 1: Authorisation Certificates

Over the past few months, we have been discussing PAYE Modernisation on our blog. The new functionality for PAYE Modernisation will be released in stages over the next 2 weeks. We are happy to announce the first release, which allows you to upload ROS Digital Certificates to SimplePay.

If you are unsure about obtaining these Digital Certificates, please refer to this guide provided by Revenue.

This is a very important process for PAYE Modernisation and all employers or agents (such as payroll bureaus or accounting firms) will need to do this before processing payslips in 2019. Without uploading these certificates, requesting RPNs from ROS and submitting payroll information to ROS is not possible.

To help you through this process, we have compiled a useful guide which can be downloaded here:

PAYE Modernisation Guide – Release 1

Please note that these guides are in PDF format and you will therefore need to have a PDF reader on your computer to view them.

We’ll be in touch again shortly with instructions on how to retrieve RPNs, which contain information on the cut-off points and tax credits of employees.

If you have any difficulties with this new process, please do not hesitate to contact our support team who will be happy to assist.

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Revenue End of Year Notice

Revenue released an end of year notice which you should have received on Friday 23 November 2018. This end of year notice serves as a reminder of the PAYE Modernisation project and its consequences, as well as some additional information and reminders that Revenue wants you to be aware of. Here is a summary of the most important parts of the notice, most of which we have already discussed in previous blog posts:

  • No further P2Cs will be issued from 30 November 2018. These will be replaced by RPNs from 1 January 2019.
  • To ensure that you are ready for PAYE Modernisation, you must ensure that you:
    • have registered all of your employees with Revenue,
    • checked you have the correct Personal Public Service Number (PPSN) for all employees. Employers can use the PPS number checker in ROS to confirm the correct PPS number for employees or pensioners,
    • operate the Revenue deduction instructions for each employee (on the P2C up to end-2018 and on the RPN from January 2019),
    • have complete payroll data, which is accurate and up-to-date,
    • have all required information on employee pay, including notional pay, on a timely basis and in the correct format to payroll; and
    • have an active ROS digital certificate on the computer you use to run your payroll.
  • You should review your ROS digital certificates to ensure that they have not expired.
  • You should review your sub-users’ digital certificate permissions for appropriate permissions.
  • Forms P45, P46, P30, P35 and P60 will be abolished after the 2018 tax year.
  • Payment due dates to Revenue remain unchanged in 2019.
  • USC rates and thresholds will change with effect from 1 January  2019.
  • For the 2019 tax year, if an employee is expected to exceed the USC threshold but their RPN states that they are USC exempt, you should advise the employee to contact Revenue to have their RPN updated.
  • Rates for Emergency Tax and the legal basis for applying Emergency Tax will change effective 1 January 2019.
  • For the 2018 tax year, employers must ensure that the correct PPSNs as per the P2Cs are used for employees.
  • Revenue’s 1890 LoCall phone system has been replaced by standard telephone numbers.