There's Sure To Be A Lara Lara Laughs!

Atlas are delighted to announce that Lara Bailey has joined the company as Business Development Coordinator. Asked to describe herself she told the blog that she is 'blonde and will no doubt therefore have many troubles'.

Previously to working at Atlas, Lara worked in Recruitment, HR and more recently training. Her work at ESTC Group involved organising training for Spectator Safety stewards at football and cricket grounds such as West Ham Football Club and Warwickshire County Cricket Ground. For a girl not interested in football or cricket, it was impressive that by the end of her employment she knew what a ‘fixture list’ was and not only that but who was playing each week!

Her favourite employment, up to now, was working for Bentley, where she had a contract as Technical Training Coordinator. This involved forming new smarter processes to enable the training at Bentley to become more efficient. Closely working with the CAD department, she was able to organise the training of the back log of new starter trainees and put in place a whole new effective training schedule.

At Atlas, Lara will be looking at our own Technical processes and proposals, as well as putting in place steps to expand Atlas Business’ portfolio of products. This will hopefully be in the shape of training and a training consultancy service.

At home Lara likes to organise her spare time as she does her professional life. She has an active social diary and tends to organise everyone else’s too. Currently she is captain of her own netball team, where she enrolled most of her friends and has canvassed some sponsorship for the kit. We are told the sponsorship for dresses is still up for grabs! On a serious note, the team hope to do well on their first season of the Coppenhall League. Lara has promised updates of their disastrous progress and welcomes any volunteer mascots or players (players however must be female – sorry to any overly keen men out there!).

Lara is mother to Jamie (5) and has lived in Nantwich now for over 5 years. This has become home to her and she loves the sense of community she has been lucky to find in the town.

As for the future Lara is looking forward to building relationships with members at Atlas business and their clients and hopes to offer something in addition to the great services and products already on offer. Everyone at Atlas is certain that this will be the case and we are looking forward to working closely with Lara over the coming months and years.

Access Payroll 4.70a

It’s that time of year again! 6th April brings with it the new Payroll Tax year which means you get a nice new shiny version of Access Payroll (if you’ve ever wondered why the tax year falls on the 6th of April then we suggest you read our blog article). Within the past three or four weeks you should have received a CD in the post containing Access Payroll 4.70a.

 

Please find below a list of the changes and enhancements available in Access payroll 4.70a;


The Payroll software has been updated for the Tax Year 2011/2012 and contains: the NIC, PAYE, and SSP/SMP appropriate parameters for the new tax year.


P11D Car
The following changes were announced in Budget 2009 for cars made available in 2011/12 which will be reported in 2012/13

1. The 80,000 price cap is abolished meaning that the 'appropriate percentage' will be applied to the full list price of the vehicle.
2. The appropriate percentage for electric-only cars will be 9% (rather than a 6% reduction on 15%). The 9% charge will now apply from 2015/16.  
3. Reductions for hybrid, bi-fuel, and bio-ethanol cars will no longer apply.
4. 3% Diesel supplement will apply to all diesel cars including Euro IV standard and those first registered before 01/01/2006.

P11 Earnings Thresholds

From April 2011 the text 'Earnings Threshold' changes to 'Primary Threshold' The headings for columns 1b, and 1c will change to:

• Earnings above the LEL, up to and including the PT
• Earnings above the PT, up to and including the UAP

P14/60 Earnings Thresholds

From April 2011 the text 'Earnings Threshold' changes to 'Primary Threshold' The headings for columns 1b, and 1c will change to:

• Earnings above the LEL, up to and including the PT
• Earnings above the PT, up to and including the UAP

See also the HMRC Guidance


Electronic P60

PAYE regulations have been changed to allow employers to provide P60 information electronically and comes into effect for the year ending 5 April 2011.


Fuel Type Changes

From 6th April 2011, the P46 Car submission will report only 3 fuel types:

• E - Zero-emission (whatever the technology) - includes Electric
• D - Diesel cars of all kinds (includes types D and L)
• A - All other kinds (includes types P, B, C, H, and G)

ASPP

The ability to pay Additional Statutory Paternity Pay has been added to the software.


P46 Car Notification
From 6th April you will now be required to transmit details of replacement cars.


P46 Starter Form
With effect from 6th April 2011 employees that start working without a P45 will notice the following changes in Tax Code depending on the choices made when filling in a P46:-

• Where 'Statement C' is ticked – code BR will still be applicable.
• Where 'No P46 or P46 Incomplete' is ticked - code 0T Week1/Month1 will be used.

Co-op Bulk BACS

Access Payroll SE now supports the Co-op Bulk BACS format. It is identified as 'Co-Op Bulk' in the selection drop-down.



If you have renewed but are still awaiting your delivery please telephone our helpdesk team and they will organise a replacement to be despatched immediately. On this disc along with the software you will find a set of installation instructions. If you require any assistance with the installation or year end procedures please do not hesitate to telephone our helpdesk team on 0333 666 3330.

But Why The 6th?

Have you ever wondered why the Payroll Tax Year starts on the 6th April? We did too......

When asked, most people in our office suspected that it was aligned with the UK Government’s Financial Year, which whilst this sounded plausible it still wouldn’t have answered why they chose the 6th of the month rather than the 1st, but they were wrong anyway.

The reason for this date is because of the calendar and the tax man. Back in the Middle Ages the calendar was made up of quarters, with the first day of each quarter falling on a religious festival (24 June = Midsummer Day, 25 December = Christmas, 25 March = Lady Day and 29 September = Michaelmas). Traditionally each of the four quarter days were when employers hired their servants, pay was processed and all rents were due to be paid. Lady Day was in fact the 1st day of the New Year and it therefore also made sense that it was the start of the Financial Year too. In 1752 the 1st January became recognised as the start of the calendar year but the tax authorities found it unacceptable to lose out on 11 days of revenue (caused by leap year differences between the Gregorian calendar and the Julian calendar) and so they moved the Tax year start date to the 5th April. It remained as the 5th April until 1799 when the powers that be decided to ‘skip’ a leap year and so the tax authorities moved the start of the tax year to the 6th April.

So now you know!

13/04/11 - Of course there may well be more than one plausible explanation as to why the 6th April is the start of the tax year! James Cooper from Ripon Select Foods wrote in to the blog to put the case forward for an alternative reason behind the date. We've included James' response below to add further explanation for the reasons behind the choice of the 6th.

I believe it is much simpler than that and is related to agricultural workers and 'flitting day'. A journeyman agricultural worker would be employed for a year ending 5th April, when his contract was up he would pack up all his possessions including wife and family and move on to another farm. Just why the 5th I am not sure but logically a spring flit makes sense. He would have had to leave his small piece of allotted ground fallow and dug over ready for the next worker to then spring plant seeds, potatoes etc.