Payroll

Payroll New Year

1. Check you are using the correct version.

Before you start processing the new tax year, you must have installed the update for the 2024/25 tax year, V31.00.231, if you process a NHS Pension scheme, ensure you have installed background update to V31.00.236 and enter the new NHS pension legislation.

2. Update your employees’ tax codes.

For the 2025/26 tax year, the personal allowance and emergency tax code remains the same at £12,570 and 1257L. This means you do not need to change your employees’ tax codes unless informed by HMRC. You do however need to remove the week 1 / month 1 flag on any employees’ tax codes before processing in the new tax year.

3. Small employers’ relief

If you are eligible for Small Employers’ Relief (SER) you need to set your Sage Payroll to calculate and claim it.

1. Click Company then
2. Select the Eligible for Small Employers’ Relief check box.
3. Click OK
4. Apply for Employment Allowance

TIP: make sure your process date is set to 6/04/2025 before completing this.

In the 2025/26 tax year the employment allowance has increased to £10,500. This allows eligible employers to reduce their annual Employers National Insurance liability by up to £10,500.

Submit the Employer Payment Summary (EPS) for Employment Allowance

1. Click Company, then click Settings.
2. Click the Apply for EA
3. From the State Aid drop-down menu, select one of the following options:

• Applicable
• Not Applicable

If State Aid is applicable, select the relevant State Aid Sector. For more information on State aid, visit Gov.uk.

4. Click Submit then click Continue, then click Submit then Submit

At this stage, HMRC receives an EPS with Employment Allowance application.

• If your application is unsuccessful, you receive a notification in your IR Secure Mailbox within five working days.
• If you do not hear back from HMRC, then your application has been successful, and you can then select the Eligible for Employment Allowance check box within Company then Settings. Once you select this check box, your software is set up to calculate Employer Allowance.

Memo

If you select the Eligible for Employment Allowance check box after you have already processed one or more tax months, you must re-run your P32 for each month of the tax year starting from month 1. Sage 50 Payroll then calculated the Employment Allowance due in each period and records these values in Company Settings > HMRC Payments of your software.

5. Pensions module

If you use the pension module, when you process the first period of the new tax year, you are prompted to check your pension contribution rates are correct.

Pensions Data Exchange

If you use the Pensions Data Exchange (PDX) to send data to your provider, there are some additional steps to complete at the start of the tax year.

6. New legislation for 2025/2025 tax year

There are a few changes to payroll legislation in the new tax year, including a change to the National Minimum Wage from 1 April etc.

If you need help running your payroll year end routine or setting up for the new Payroll year or need any other help or advice with your payroll, please contact us

We can also provide a remote access service where we can link into your computer to help you resolve your Sage Accounts or Payroll problems.

Sage 50 Accounts

Updating Customer Invoices/Credit Notes

We will go through how to update sales invoices so that they show on your customer ledgers, enabling you to know what is due from your customers at any given time.

Posting to your ledger, posts a Sales Invoice (SI) or Sales Credit for each item line on your invoice or credit note.  If you have created a product invoice it will also adjusts the stock levels for the required products.

How to update an invoice or credit to the ledger

1. Click Invoices and credits and then click the required invoice(s) and/or credit(s).
2. Click Update Ledger then click
3. Check the update ledgers report shows the transactions updated to the nominal ledger.

Memo: Once you have updated a customer invoice or credit note to the customer ledger you cannot amend the customer invoice or credit note, you must either create a new customer invoice or credit note to amend/cancel the original invoice or credit note.  If you do not need to send a credit invoice or a credit note to the customer, you can go to Transactions and find the sales invoice or credit note and amend whatever needs correcting.

If you need to credit a customer invoice you can highlight the relevant invoice and then click Credit Invoice, you can either click Save, to credit the customer’s invoice exactly as it was, or you can change whatever you need and then click Save.

If you would help creating customer invoices or credit notes, printing/emailing or updating customer invoice or credit notes or need any other help with your Sage 50 Accounts, please contact us

Sage 50 Accounts

Creating customer Invoices

You might want to use Sage 50 accounts to create a customer invoice that you can send out to your customer. There are two types of customer invoices that you can create, a service invoice or a product invoice.  The benefits of using Sage 50 to create the customer invoice is that you do not have to re-key in any information once you have created the invoice.

Service Invoice

Use this type of invoice to add free text service details.

1. Click Invoices and credits and then New Invoice.
2. From the Format drop-down click Service.
3. In Date, enter the invoice date.
4. From the A/C drop-down click the required customer or type in the customers’ code or F4, then click OK.
5. Under Details enter the details of the service provided, then under Amount enter the net amount.
6. To edit the item details, such as tax code, discount or change the nominal code, click the Finder button, or click

Product Invoice

Use this type of invoice if you sell products to your customers and to save having to type in the same details every time.

1. Click Invoices and credits and then New Invoice.
2. From the Format drop-down click Product.
3. In Date, enter the invoice date.
4. From the A/C drop-down click the required customer or type in the customers’ code or F4, then click OK.
5. Under Product Code click the drop-down and select the required product or type in the code required or F4 and under Quantity enter the quantity required.
6. To edit the item details, such as tax code, discount or change the nominal code, click the Finder button, or click

Print/Email a customer(s) invoice(s)

Once you have created your customer invoices you will either want to print or email the invoices to your customers.

1. Click the Invoices and credits
2. Select the required invoice(s), the click
3. Click Layouts, then click the layout you want to use.
4. Click Print or Email, if required select your printer then click OK.

TIP: to email invoices, you must set up your email settings depending on the email service you use.

If you would help creating customer invoices, printing, or emailing invoices or need any other help with your Sage 50 Accounts, please contact us

Payroll

Email verification code – Employee logins

How an employee logs in to Sage Employee Online Services is changing

To enhance the security of the employees Sage Account, Sage have changed how they login, after they have entered their email address and password and clicked Log in, they may receive a code via email to verify that it is them logging in.  They will need to check the email address they use to log on to get the code and then enter the code to complete the login process, please note the code will be sent to the email address that was used to set up the online payslips to begin with.

Does the Employee need to verify their email address each time

The above process will not occur every time they login. It will only appear when the employee log’s on using a different device for the first time, or at intervals since they last logged in.

Memo

If an employee changes their email address from the one used to create their online account and ceases to have access to this email address, you (the employer) will need to remove the employee from the portal, then reset them up on the portal with the new email address, this will result in all their old historical payslips being removed, these can be uploaded together by selecting a date range and any documents eg P60’s will also need to be uploaded again.

If you need help setting up or removing 2FA or need any other help or advice with your payroll, please contact us

We can also provide a remote access service where we can link into your computer to help you resolve your Sage Accounts or Payroll problems.

Accounts

Change Default Program Date

The date which appears when you enter a transaction is the program date.  If you have a large number of transactions to post for a previous month you might want to change the program date, to save time and help to prevent errors, especially useful at the start of a new month and you are posting items for the previous month and/or year.

1. On the menu bar click Settings, then click Change Program Date.
2. Enter the new date, then click OK.

TIP: The program date refreshes when you open the program.  If you leave you program open overnight, the program date does not refresh automatically.

If you would help changing the default program date or need any other help with your Sage 50 Accounts, please contact us

Payroll

Adding a new employee using the Employee Wizard

When you take on a new employee, you need to create a new employee record for them in your software.

1. Go to Employee, then select Employee Wizard.
2. Select Record the details of a new starter using their starter form, then Next.
3. Enter the employee’s title, name, and address details.

Note: Before you send the first FPS for the new employee, enter the correct address and postcode.

4. Select Next, enter the compulsory fields marked with an asterisk and optional details as you require.
5. As you complete each screen, select Next.
6. Once you have entered all your new employee’s details, click Finish.

If you need to change any of the employee’s information, select the employee from the employee list and either double click the employee or click Employee Record, and you can alter what ever information you need to.

If you need help setting up a new employee or amening an existing employee’s information or need any other help or advice with your payroll, please contact us

We can also provide a remote access service where we can link into your computer to help you resolve your Sage Accounts or Payroll problems.