INTERCODE PAYROLL V4.
1 RELEASE NOTES
BEFORE INSTALLING THE UPDATE
It is recommended that you make backup copies of all your existing employer files before you install any
updates to Intercode Payroll. This will ensure that your original payroll information can be restored in
the unlikely event that the update process fails to complete successfully. Once you have made backup
copies of your existing employer files you can continue to install the update.
HOW TO INSTALL THE LATEST VERSION OF INTERCODE PAYROLL
There is no need to uninstall your current version of Intercode Payroll before installing a newer version
of the software. Whenever a newer version of Intercode Payroll is installed on your computer, the
newer version will automatically replace the current version as part of the installation process.
You can install the latest version of Intercode Payroll in one of two ways:
Automatic Installation (Recommended)
1. Ensure that you are currently connected to the internet.
2. Open Intercode Payroll.
3. Select Help --> Check for Updates from the main menu.
4. Follow the on-screen instructions to update your version of Intercode Payroll.
Manual Installation
1. Go to the Downloads page on the Intercode web site ([Link]/[Link])
and click on the link marked Download Now.
2. When asked whether you would like to Run or Save the file select Save. This will open a new
window allowing you to specify the location on your computer’s hard drive where you would
like to save the file. Select Desktop and then click Save.
3. You will now see a File Download window showing the progress of the file download. Once the
file download has been completed you can close all open windows and disconnect from the
internet.
4. Ensure that Intercode Payroll has been closed then go to your Desktop, locate the installation
file you just downloaded and double-click the file to start the installation process. Follow the on-
screen instructions to complete the installation process.
Once the latest version of Intercode Payroll has been installed on your computer (using either of the two
processes described above), open Intercode Payroll and open your employer file. You might see a
message stating that your employer file is being updated. Wait for this process to finish.
The update process is now complete, and you can continue using the software as usual.
WHAT’S NEW
New Postal Address Formats (V4.1.1)
Over the last few years SARS has been on a drive to modernise their systems and improve the quality of
the information in their taxpayer database. As part of this modernisation process, SARS has introduced a
new structured postal address format that must be used when specifying postal address information on
employees' tax certificates. The new structured postal address format will become mandatory as of the
August 2014 half-year reconciliation.
In the past the SARS business requirement specification (PAYE BRS) provided a total of four fields for
specifying an employee's postal address on the employee's tax certificate:
Old Free Format Postal Address IRP5 Fields:
CODE DESCRIPTION
3221 Postal Address Line 1
3222 Postal Address Line 2
3223 Postal Address Line 3
3229 Postal Code
The problem with these free-format fields however is that there is absolutely no control as to what can
be entered into these fields. The postal address "P.O. Box 55" might be entered as "P-Box 55" by one
employer, "PBX55" by the next employer, and so on. To complicate matters even further, the same
fields were used for P.O. Box style postal addresses as well as for postal street addresses, complexes,
apartment blocks etc. SARS then had the unenviable task of trying to decipher the address information
when importing it into their taxpayer database.
To try and improve the quality of the information SARS receives, SARS has therefore come up with a
new structured address format that limits the amount of "free text" that employers are required to
enter and relies instead on a series of indicators and check boxes to identify common address types.
As of the August 2014 half-year reconciliation, all postal address information that is supplied to SARS on
employee tax certificates must be supplied in the new structured format shown below.
New Structured Postal Address IRP5 Fields:
CODE DESCRIPTION
3247 Postal Address is a Street Address (Y/N)
If the postal address is not a street address the following fields apply:
3249 Postal Address is a P.O. Box (Y/N)
3250 Postal Address is a Private Bag (Y/N)
3251 Postal Address Agency and Sub-unit (if applicable) (e.g. Postnet Suite)
3262 P.O. Box or Private Bag Number (if applicable)
3280 Other Post Office Special Service (e.g. Military Field Post Office)
3253 Post Office Branch Name
3254 Postal Code
3286 Country Code
If the postal address is a street address the following fields apply:
3255 Complex Unit Number
3256 Complex Name
3257 Street Number
3258 Street Name / Farm Name
3259 Suburb or District
3260 City or Town
3261 Postal Code
3287 Country Code
As you can see, the new structured postal address format is a bit more complex than the old format and
places more restrictions on the type of data that can be entered.
To accommodate the new structured postal address information as required by SARS, we have had to
make some changes to the way in which postal address information is captured in Intercode Payroll as
well.
The following two screenshots both show the Postal Address page of the Employee Setup Wizard - the
first showing a postal address in the old free-format layout and the second showing the same postal
address in the new structured layout:
Postal Address : Old Free Format
Postal Address : New Structured Format
The main difference between the old and the new layout is that the new layout requires you to select a
Postal Address Type, and depending on the address type which is selected, the relevant address fields
will then become visible in the window.
At the moment, the following pre-defined postal address types are supported:
1. Street Address (Same as Residential Address)
2. Street Address (Different from Residential Address)
3. P.O. Box
4. Private Bag
5. Postnet Suite and P.O. Box
6. Postnet Suite and Private Bag
7. Other Post Office Special Service (e.g. Poste Restante, or Military Field Post Office)
If the employee's postal address is a street address, this can be indicated by selecting the first check box
at the bottom left of the window:
If the employee's postal address is the same as the employee's residential address, this can be indicated
by selecting the second check box at the bottom left of the window:
If the employee's postal address is the same as the employee's residential address, the street address
fields in this window will automatically be populated with the same address information specified on the
employee's residential address, and the fields in this window will then become disabled.
The following two screenshots both show the Postal Address page of the Employee Setup Wizard - the
first showing a postal street address in the old free-format layout and the second showing the same
postal street address in the new structured layout:
Postal Street Address : Old Free Format
Postal Street Address : New Structured Format
Finally if the employee does not have a fixed postal address and the employee's mail needs to me
delivered to the employee via an intermediary (via a middle man), this can be indicated by selecting the
relevant checkbox at the bottom right of the window:
This is typically referred to as a care of address, where mail is delivered to one individual by placing the
mail in the "care of" another individual or organisation who must then see to it that the mail reaches the
intended recipient. If an employee's postal address is marked as a care of address, the person or
organisation to whom the mail must be delivered (i.e. the intermediary) must also be specified, as both
the intermediary and the intended recipient's names must then appear on the address label of any mail
send to the employee.
Converting Your Existing Postal Address Information
Once you've downloaded and installed Intercode Payroll V4.1 and you open your employer file for the
first time after the update, Intercode Payroll will try to convert all your employees' existing postal
address information to the new structured format automatically. However, due to the wide variety of
ways in which the existing address information could have been formatted, the auto-conversion will
probably not be able to identify and convert all the existing address information automatically.
Intercode Payroll will be able to convert most postal addresses like "P O Box 55", "PO Box 55", "P.O. Box
55", "Post Office Box 55" and so on, automatically. Intercode Payroll will also be able to convert most
private bag addresses, Postnet suite addresses, and even the majority of street addresses automatically.
However, if Intercode Payroll cannot identify the format of a particular postal address, that address will
not be converted automatically and you will have to convert the address to the new format manually.
To simplify this process, we have added a new Postal Address Converter utility that will enable you to
convert your employees' existing postal address information to the new format easily.
To access the postal address converter, open the relevant employer file and select Utilities --> Postal
Address Converter from the Intercode Payroll main menu.
This will open the Postal Address Converter window (see screenshot below):
Referring to the numbered indicators on the screenshot:
1. At the top of the window (to the right of the caption) you can see how many addresses in the
current employer file still need to be converted from the old format to the new format (in the
example above there are 20 addresses remaining, for instance). This information is purely for
your own reference.
2. The Employee section shows the payroll number, surname and first name of the employee
whose postal address information is currently being viewed.
3. The Old Free-Format Address section shows the employee's existing postal address in the old
format. This is the postal address exactly as it was entered when the employee was originally
loaded onto the payroll (i.e. as it was before the upgrade), and is the only portion of the address
that needs to be converted to the new structured format.
Note: The Suburb or District, City or Town and Postal Code sections of the old free-format
address are not shown, since that information will always be exactly the same in both the old
and new formats. If the information in any of those fields needs to be changed, the change
should be made using the fields supplied in the New Structured Address section.
4. To the right of the free-format address is the Retry Auto-Convert button. If Intercode Payroll
could not automatically convert an employee's postal address during the upgrade process, you
can try to rectify the problem by editing the employee's existing free-format postal address so
that it reflects a valid address that Intercode Payroll can recognise, and then click the Retry
Auto-Convert button to try the automatic conversion again. You could of course also choose to
just type the employee's postal address information directly into the new structured address
fields as well, but using the auto-convert feature might save you some time.
5. The New Structured Address section is where you need to specify the employee's postal address
using SARS's new structured address format. The particular fields that are visible in this section
will depend on the postal address type that is chosen, and also on whether or not the postal
address is s street address (indicated by the check boxes at the bottom of the window). Make
sure that the address information reflected here is the same as the original free-format address
information.
6. Once you have confirmed that the employee's existing free-format address has been accurately
converted to the new structured postal address fields, tick the Accept address as Successfully
Converted check box to confirm that you have double-checked and accepted the conversion,
then move on to the next employee. Once an employee's postal address has been marked as
"successfully converted", the employee's old free-format postal address information will be
permanently discarded. From that point on, only the new structured postal address information
will be available for that employee.
7. Finally, the arrow buttons on the right of the window allow you to move to either the previous
or next employee whose postal address still needs to be converted.
Repeat the process of checking and confirming all your employees' postal address until there are no
employees left to check. Once all of your employees' old free-format postal address information has
been converted to the new structured address format, click Close to save your employees' new postal
address information and close the Postal Address Converter window.
Note: The Postal Address Converter window will only contain employees whose old free-format postal
addresses could not be converted to the new format automatically. Employees whose postal addresses
were not previously specified to start with will not be shown in this window (as a blank address in the
old format is the same as a blank address in the new format), and employees whose postal addresses
were previously marked as being the same as their residential addresses will also not be shown either,
as their postal addresses would then still be the same as their residential addresses in the new format.
IMPORTANT:
You must complete the conversion of the old free-format postal addresses to the new structured format
before the end of August 2014, as SARS will not accept any tax certificates that still use the old postal
address formats as of that date. Note however that this is a once-off process. Once the conversion
process has been completed you will never have to access the conversion utility again. From that point
onwards you will once again access your employee's postal address information via the Postal Address
page of the Employee Setup Wizard, just like you did before.
OTHER CHANGES
New Report : Payroll Summary for Individual Pay Periods (V4.0.3)
The Payroll Summary report can now be printed for and individual pay group and pay period, instead of
just for all pay groups for an entire month as was previously the case.
To print the payroll summary report for an individual pay period:
Go to the Payroll section.
Select Pay Periods at the top of the navigation to the left of the window.
Select the relevant pay group and pay period in the navigation pane to the left of the window.
In the middle of the Pay Periods window (where the employees names are shown), right-click,
then select Print -- > Payroll Summary from the resulting pop-up menu.
This will produce a payroll summary report identical to the one normally printed from the Monthly
Totals, but containing information only for the selected pay group and pay period.
Updated Legislative Profiles (V4.0.3)
The list of pre-defined legislative profiles that can be linked to employees has been updated to include
the following sectoral determinations:
Sectoral Determination 01 : Contract Cleaning Sector
Sectoral Determination 01 : Taxi Sector
Sectoral Determination 12 : Forestry Sector
Sectoral Determination 04 : Hospitality Sector
The sectoral determination number for the farm worker sector has also been changed from 08 to 13, as
Sectoral Determination 13 has replaced Sectoral Determination 08.
Note: Legislative profiles are currently only used as a reference for the maximum number of hours an
employee is allowed to work per day or per week, as determined by the governing legislation applicable
to the relevant sector. Legislative profiles currently have no effect on how an employee's remuneration
is calculated, but this may change in future.
New Report : Month Recon by Transaction Type (V4.0.3)
A New report has been added to the Monthly Totals to print a monthly reconciliation by transaction
type. The report contains totals for all income, deductions and employer contributions for a particular
month, consolidated by transaction type.
To print the report:
Go to the Payroll section.
Select Monthly Totals at the top of the navigation pane to the left of the window.
Select the relevant month on the calendar to the left of the window.
On the toolbar at the top of the window, click Print Reports then select Month Recon (By
Transaction Type) from the resulting drop-down menu.
This report differs from the Month Recon (By Tax Class) in that this report contains totals per transaction
type instead of per transaction tax classification.
At the bottom of the report there is also a handy summary of the total income, total benefits, total
deductions and total net pay for the month, as well as an analysis of the total cost to company for the
month.
Recalculate ETI Values (V4.0.3)
As you know, as of Intercode Payroll V4.0 the Employment Tax Incentive amount in respect of each of
the employees on your payroll is calculated automatically when an employee's payslip for a particular
pay period is approved and closed, before moving on to the next pay period. In some cases however, it
may become necessary to recalculate one (or all) of your employees' ETI amounts for previous pay
periods due to changes in those employees' ETI qualifying criteria, even though those pay periods might
by then already have been approved and closed.
Suppose for example that an employee who would normally have qualified for ETI cannot produce a
valid ID document at the time he/she is appointed by the employer. Since the employee does not have a
valid ID number specified, Intercode will not calculate any ETI for that employee. Now suppose that the
employee produced a valid ID document three months later. Since the employee was actually in
possession of a valid ID document all along but could simply not produce it, the employer was in fact
entitled to claim ETI in respect of that employee for the past three months, even though the employer
did not do so. Once the employer has entered the employee's ID number on the payroll, the ETI values
for the last three months therefore need to be recalculated to take this (now qualifying) employee into
account as well.
To recalculate the ETI values of all your employees from a particular month onwards:
Go to the Payroll section.
Select Monthly Totals at the top of the navigation page to the left of the window.
Select the relevant month on the calendar to the left of the window.
On the toolbar at the top of the window, click Recalculate ETI Values.
On the confirmation window that is displayed, click Yes to recalculate the ETI values of all
employees from the relevant month, up to date.
Note: Due to the fact that a qualifying employee's ETI value for any given month is influenced by the
number of months in respect of which ETI was previously claimed for that employee, ETI values cannot
be recalculated for a single month in isolation. As soon as the ETI values for a particular month have
been recalculated, the ETI values of all subsequent months must be recalculated as well, since the
number of months in respect of which ETI was claimed prior to those months might now have changed.
For this reason, when the ETI values of a particular month are recalculated using the procedure
described above, the ETI values of all subsequent months will automatically be recalculated as well.
Bank names on Payment Amounts Report (V4.0.3)
The Payment Amounts report now has a new column that shows an abbreviated version of the
employee's bank name.
This information was added to the report to assist in the process of creating beneficiaries on your
internet banking software where the name of the bank at which the employee's account is held is
sometimes required in addition to the branch name and branch code.
Signatory ID Number on UI-19 (V4.0.3)
A New field has been added to the bottom of the UI-19 Declaration report to specify the ID number of
the authorised employer representative who signs the declaration.
We have had a few instances where the UIF has refused to accept declarations where the signatory's ID
number has not been completed, so we suggest you complete this field in future.
Address Country Codes (V4.1.1)
In addition to the postal address changes discussed earlier in this document, SARS has also introduced a
new requirement to include country codes in both an employee's residential and postal address details.
Though this requirement will only become mandatory for the February 2015 reconciliation, the change
has already been implemented in Intercode Payroll V4.1.1.
Whenever a new employee's is added to your payroll from now on, the Country portion of both the
employee's residential and postal addresses will be set to South Africa by default. You will only need to
change the country if the employee is not resident in South Africa.
Note that as soon as the Country portion of an address is not South Africa, the Postal Code field length
will increase from 4 digits to 10 digits, and will allow both numbers and letters to be entered in order to
accommodate international street and postal codes.
Example: South African Address
Example: International Address
New Marital Status : Domestic Partner (V4.0.3)
A New Domestic Partner marital status has been added to the list of available marital statuses on the
Personal Details page of the Employee Setup Wizard. This status can be used where two individuals live
together and share a common domestic life, but are neither joined by marriage nor a civil union.
The two existing marital statuses of Estranged and Separated have also been combined into a single
status (Separated), as have the statuses of Widow and Widower (now Widowed, regardless of gender).
BUG FIXES
Fixed an issue where a new employee's date of birth would not be automatically extracted from the
employee's ID number if the employee was born on the 31st of a month.
Fixed an intermittent "EVariantArrayLocked" error when exporting certain reports the MS Excel.
Fixed an issue where the expiration statuses of existing disciplinary actions were not automatically
updated when adding new disciplinary records. This could sometimes result in incorrect expiration
statuses being reflected for existing disciplinary actions. This issue has now been fixed.
End of Release Notes
If you have any questions regarding the features included in this release, or if you have any trouble
installing the upgrade, please contact the Intercode support desk on 0861 113523 for assistance.