Ace Payroll: Legislative Changes and Upgrade Status 2002




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Legislative Changes and Upgrade Status 2002

Inland Revenue Changes

The Earner Premium becomes the Earner Levy.

The Earner Levy rate increases from 1.1% to 1.2%.

The maximum rate for ACC Earner Levy increases from $85,795 to $87,185.

The Student Loan threshold increases from $15,132 to $15,496.

For IR-File the Microsoft Windows ME and Windows XP operating systems have been validated through testing by both Ace Payroll and the IRD.

Specifications for the printed Employers Monthly Schedule IR348 have changed.

All the above changes are included in the latest Ace Payroll version.

Ace Payroll Changes

Aside from the tax changes effective 1st April, we have made a large number of changes to Ace Payroll in the past year, adding many new features, and improving the help system and general ease of use.

We have completely rewritten the Holiday Pay routine. Whilst the way the holiday pay calculation works is largely unchanged, we have improved the interface greatly and added lots more help. An example of the new interface is shown in the Annual Compulsory Closedown Tutorial.

We have improved some of the reports, including the Management Report, allowing you to generate more detailed reports on your wages.

We have added a comprehensive routine to handle holiday pay taxation, which allows holiday pay to be taxed in the most appropriate way.

We have improved a large number of the help messages, and in many cases, included links to more detailed information about the subject in question.

We have added a routine to automatically handle ACC payments, as well as an end of year ACC report, making it very easy to obtain information about ACC activity and pay the yearly premiums.

We have added a Report Index which can be accessed by pressing the F4 key meaning you can now view every report from wherever you are in Ace Payroll.

ACC Changes

Inland Revenue's collection of the return-based residual claims levy ceases from April this year, with the ACC itself taking over the collection. The levy is charged to employers and the self-employed to cover the "tail" of insurance costs of work related injuries that occurred before July 1999 and non- work injuries before 1992.

Inland Revenue will continue to collect the employee earner levy through the PAYE system, and to supply the ACC with information on taxpayers' earnings. The effect of this is that instead of using the ACC report in Ace Payroll to calculate how much to pay ACC, you will instead use it to verify the figures produced by the ACC when they invoice you.

Upgrade Despatch

Updated for the last time on Friday 5th April 2002.

Casual Support - we have posted newsletters to all clients that use our casual support service, with the last being posted on Thursday 21st February. Processing of orders received in response to these newsletters is up to date, with all upgrades being despatched within 24 hours of our receiving the response form.
Support Contracts - we have despatched upgrades to all clients with a support contract expiring on or after 1st April 2002, with the last being despatched on Monday 11th March.
Leased Programs - upgrades for all leased programs were despatched on Wednesday 6th March.

Summary

We have now despatched upgrades to every client we possibly can. Clients not yet upgraded are in one of the following categories

Casual Support - these clients received a newsletter in February and have not yet responded.

Support Contract - upgrades have not been despatched to clients with support contracts expiring prior to 1st April. A first renewal notice was sent six weeks ago, and a reminder a fortnight ago.

Overdue Account - we do not despatch orders to clients with accounts past due.

We urge these clients to take some sort of action to avoid a last minute rush.

Support Issues

Why Have The Tax Rates Not Changed?

The annual deluge of calls from clients advising they have installed the upgrade but the tax rates have not changed has started.

Ace Payroll contains tax rates for this current financial year, together with the new rates from 1st April.

The tax rates automatically change on 1st April based on the pay period end date. Accordingly it is correct for the tax rates to have not changed for pay periods up to the 31st March.

We include both sets of tax tables so you can install the upgrade well before the end of the financial year.

We suggest the upgrade is installed as soon as possible, as our help desk gets very busy in the weeks either side of 31st March. In the unlikely event there are problems, it is best to get them sorted out now rather than at the last minute.

To check the new tax tables effective from 1st April, use the Tax Ready Reckoner from the Utilities menu.

You may also like to look at our FAQ on this subject.

We have a file server, and three work stations. We installed the upgrade on the server, but when run from the server Ace Payroll detected some sort of error.

After having installed the Ace Payroll upgrade, the installation instructions ask you to run the program in the normal manner - and this is unlikely to be directly from the file server. You would normally run the program from a work station.

When originally installing Ace Payroll, your network administrator would have set the command line of the Windows shortcuts on each work station to specify the location of the program and data files, and accordingly when run from a work station you will have no problems. It is unlikely a similar setting was made on the server, and this is why an error message is reported. The solution is to do as our instructions suggest - run the program in the normal manner from a workstation.

More On Installation and Registration

Timing of upgrade installation	Registering your program
Locating program folder	Tax rates wrong after installation
Installation stops half way	Multiple companies
Transferring to another computer	Function keys
Data entered during evaluation	Password entry
Direct credit problems after changing computers	Networking Ace Payroll
Checking version and serial numbers	Diskette upgrade installation

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Updated: 2nd April 2006
Published: 17th February 2002

Unless otherwise indicated this document is the original work of Ace Payroll Plus Ltd, and is copyrighted accordingly. This copyright is protected under New Zealand and international law. Infringement or attempted dilution of these intellectual property rights will be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible.