HOT TOPIC
● two new secondary thresholds (freeport upper secondary threshold, veterans’ upper secondary threshold)
undertaken any of the CIPP’s training courses or qualifications will have this instilled in their brains. Compliance ensures this objective can be consistently achieved. We will all be used to the checks and reports produced every pay period. They may sit as a tick box on your check list, or come as the next step in your workflow, but they’re all an essential part of adhering to compliance. Once any testing has taken place, ensure that checklists, workflows and anything else that’s fed from a change is also accounted for. Whether that be a letter the human resources team or the pension department generates, stakeholders need to be made aware of any changes that could, in turn, impact on their processes and procedures. Training documents or procedures may need to be updated to reflect any changes. This is a key element of ensuring compliance is maintained. Best practice top tips ● spot check several payslips each pay period to ensure the gross to net calculations are correct – this also helps to maintain your manual calculation knowledge, which is crucial ● allow sufficient time to test your software as soon as you’re aware of new changes and updates ● re-use those trusty test scripts – don’t work hard once a year to forget about them when you need them next. Scripts can be amended to accommodate all the latest changes
● the responsibility for changes being implemented correctly within the payroll software ultimately lies with the payroll professionals who are using that software. So, it’s crucial that relevant testing and reviews are applied to any changes ahead of implementation. Testing will also need to be applied to reports that are generated and extracted from the software, to ensure the results are as expected If you want assurance that your payroll team is dedicated to compliance, to know their processes are robust and that lifelong learning and development is planned and encouraged, then the CIPP’s Payroll Assurance Scheme (PAS) can offer you that confidence. The PAS is the prestigious gold standard for both people and payroll processes, and is the much-coveted award in the payroll industry. For more information on the PAS accreditation and the benefits to your organisation, please email us at compliance@cipp.org.uk. n
● an increase to the employment allowance (£4,000 to £5,000) ● last, but by no means least, the
introduction of the health and social care levy, implemented as a 1.25% increase to NI for the 2022/23 tax year only. This indicates that the number of test scripts generated for this tax year’s testing would have increased substantially. But please don’t file those test scripts away just yet, as you’ll need to adapt them and apply them to the first pay period that falls on or after 6 July 2022, to ensure the new PT is working correctly within software. Don’t forget that it’s not just the calculation capability of software that needs testing. Testing will also need to be applied to reports that are generated and extracted from the software, to ensure the results are as expected. If these reports are produced for any internal / external stakeholders, they’ll also need to ensure they’re happy with the results. Compliance ‘Compliance’ may sound daunting but based on the standard dictionary meaning, compliance is what we, in payroll, do, day in, day out: “…obeying a particular law or rule, or of acting according to an agreement” – it comes with the territory and it’s what we do best. A payroll department’s main objective is to pay employees, workers and pensioners accurately and on time. Anyone who has
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| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
Issue 82 | July - August 2022
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