EasyPay Release History
EasyPay 9.00
Posted 30th May 2009
New Features:
1. A number of new forms for the employment service such as the Contract form, Termination form, P7A, Variation form and the Work Permit Application.
2. Many refinements designed to simplify typical issues users encounter.
3. The ability to undo any month / week easily. Previously it was quite long winded to amend Week 3 if you were at Week 50.
4. Support for SQL Server 2008 & SQL Server 2008. This provides performance improvements. Existing customers can upgrade their existing SQL 2005 installations and we will send details on how to do this on request.
5. Installation mechanism is now improved and simplified.
6. EasyPay has been tested and improved for the upcoming release of Windows 7.
7. This version contains all 90+ updates shipped to customers throughout 2008 and 2009.
EasyPay 8.90
Posted 16th April 2009
Over the last 2 months there has been a lot of work adding new features in preparation for the next version of EasyPay. All customers are invited to upgrade at their earliest opportunity.
New Features:
1. There is now an option to override basic pay on a payslip. This option makes it easier to adjust an individual's pay and is an easier alternative to changing the number of unpaid hours.
2. Added "Known As" Field in personnel record.
3. Added 2nd Work mobile to employee record.
4. Added facility to supply an address for a location in Location settings. If you choose to do this, then in the employee record you can tick a new box "same as location address" which saves typing in a separate address for each employee.
5. Added new tax calculation for a transaction - Annual Bonus with YTD. This will more accurately calculate the tax on a bonus, taking into account the monthly salary and the total of all income received this year.
6. New Backup facility. Automatically backups up database on month end and on every upgrade. Upgrades are now easily reversible.
7. A new Backup Log Viewer allows you to view and restore any previously created backup with the minimum of ease!
8. Standardised country list to the ISO standard.
9. Optimised the EasyPay database which will help improve speed on slower computers.
10. There is a new option to automatically calculate pay and SI for starters / leavers.
11. Added support for sending of payslips via SMTP instead of Outlook. There are also additional options for the sending of payslips such as the ability to edit the Reply To address, a BCC address, Email Subject and Email Body in the Company Settings.
12. Added the ability to pay people using a daily rate, as opposed to Annual Salary, Weekly Wage or Hourly Rate.
13. A few screens have undergone cosmetic changes to simplify their layout!
14. New security options in User Access Rights. These allow you to provide "Payroll View Only" and "Personnel View Only" rights to members of staff.
Report Changes:
1. Ordered BACS, EQ, PI and BankLine exports by employee name.
2. Improved the Emergency Contact List Report.
3. Added new Company Employee Count report to Personnel reports.
Bugs Fixed:
1. After unlocking paylip you could not always amend SI amounts without reloading payslip.
2. It was possible to create a contract without a start date! This caused a null error.
3. Number of hours for casual employee was not locked when a payslip was paid.
4. Fixed null error on startup, which appeared intermittently from version 8.68.
5. Fixed bug with the display of tax options for a transaction.
6. It is now easier to delete a blank line on a payslip.
7. Improved support for Outlook 2003 / 2007. Solved some compatibility issues.
8. Fixed a problem where it was possible to pay someone in a closed period.
For more details on performing an automatic or manual upgrade, please visit the support section of this website. Alternatively please contact your EasyPay reseller for more information.
EasyPay 8.67
Posted 18th February 2009
Over the last month there have been several new versions of EasyPay. The most significant new changes are:
New Features:
1. Added more fields to store additional information about the emergency contacts for an employee.
2. Added "Old Work Reference" field to the employee record. This can prove useful if you have a need for a second reference number for an employee.
3. Added more fields to the contracts screen. This screen has been expanded greatly. New fields are: length of service, length of contract, date of notification of termination, name of person that accepted termination and the facility to add notes against an individual contract.
4. Improved report export option so that the reports appear "cleaner" in Microsoft Excel.
5. Amended the "3 payslips per page" print format to use less ink!
6. The payslip screen has been improved. This screen will now show any payslip that exists, whether the employee status is active or not. In addition it will now not allow you to create payslips for people who are not active. (Previously this screen would allow creation of payslips up to the employees leaving date, but in practice we found that this was a bit problematic so we have simplified this aspect of the system.)
7. Fixed more than 30 minor bugs, with more performance improvements and minor improvements to reports.
EasyPay 8.50
Posted 19th January 2009
This month we added a number of new features, as well as made a number of bug fixes and improvements to the overall user interface.
New Features:
1. Added support for payslips to be sent with Outlook 2003, as well as Outlook 2007.
2. New and improved options to import employees and payslip history from excel spreadsheets.
3. Added the ability to specify salaries in any currency, such as Euros or US Dollars, and specify an exchange rate to use to convert the pay to sterling for the payslip calculation.
4. Added the ability to specify a transaction type as "Persistent". If you go into the Transaction Types menu and tick a particular transaction type as "persistent" then it will always appear on the payslip. This can be a time saving feature if you know that most employees will have certain types of overtime, income or deduction each month.
5. Added the ability to specify a transaction type as "Before Tax". If you tick this option, then the type of transaction will be processed prior to the tax calculation. If this option is not ticked then the transaction is added or deducted after the tax calculation. This new feature provides an additional level of fine tuning for the tax routine which is useful in certain situations such as the addition or deduction of leave allowances to the payslip.
6. Added 3 new types of transaction type calculation. If you go to the Transaction type menu, you can now specify transaction types with the following types of calculation:
a. Percentage of annual salary - useful when defining contributory pensions
b. Division of annual salary - useful when specifying a payment in terms of the annual salary
c. 13 months - % hourly rate - this is required where the salary specified represents a term of 13 months
7. Added option in Company Settings to turn on/ off automatic calculation of pay for starters and leavers. If enabled the system will automatically reduce the pay by the number of days which have not been worked in the payslip period. As there are several approaches to calculating the value of days which have not been worked, we recommending testing this feature matches your requirements before enabling it!
8. Added 2 new fields to the employee screen. The first allows you to specify the religion of the employee and the second allows you to specify whether they are a smoker or not.
EasyPay Version 8.24
Posted 20th October 2008
The Statistics office has requested that all companies submit their annual employment survey report by 7th November 2008. This month we have incorporated the survey into EasyPay for the benefit of our customers. The new report should eliminate a lot of the manual work producing this document every year. The Employment Survey 2008 report may be found in the payroll section under company reports.
Important Note: You may need to load this report into Microsoft Excel and amend the benefits column if you pay your employees any type of allowance that is not subject to tax and not passed through the payroll.
In addition this month we have added two new payslip formats. The first is A4 Laser Security self-seal payslips. These payslips are specially pre-printed A4 payslips, which after printing, may be folded to form a secure sealed envelope. These payslips can save a lot of work, if you regularly fold hundreds of payslips each month and place them into envelopes. If you are interested in seeing this new stationary, please ask your EasyPay reseller for a free sample.
The second payslip format is a pre-printed A4 Laser Payslip with tear off remittance. This payslip looks similar to the standard A4 Laser payslips, except that each payslip has a tear off strip where the employee may sign acceptance of the payslip.
We also added a new option to "Pay All Payslips" on the payroll menu at the top of the screen. This allows a payroll officer to pay all the payslips at once, for any payslips previously created, without having to print them first.
On the more technical front, there is now support for payroll database access via shared memory. This means that it is now possible to completely disable the TCP/IP network protocol on a workstation and instead use shared memory to access it locally. This is useful in situations where the payroll database is very tightly controlled and the payroll officer wants to ensure that there is no network access to the database on their PC.
Bugs: We fixed a bug which prevented database restoration under shared memory mode.
EasyPay Version 8.22
Posted 30th September 2008
This upgrade is an upgrade of the EasyPay print engine, in preparation for future EasyPay releases which will use this functionality. The print engine upgrades to Business Objects Runtime 2008. The upgrade is fairly large so it may take 10 minutes on a normal ADSL Internet connection.
In addition a minor bug fix is incorporated. It was discovered that for employees who were paying a fixed amount of tax, even though the system was correctly calculating the payslip correctly, the field "tax to pay" was not being updated on the screen.
EasyPay Version 8.21
Posted 15th September 2008
RBS have scheduled a major upgrade of their EQ online banking system for later today. As part of this upgrade, we have also had to update EasyPay to the new EQ payment file formats.
All existing customers using the EQ payments system, will need to upgrade immediately otherwise the EQ export facility will not work.
This update also includes a number of minor updates to the EasyPay Internet Update facility.
We also recommend that any other customer on a version of EasyPay earlier than 8.19, should update immediately to receive the latest tax & SI changes.
EasyPay Version 8.19
Posted 9th August
We have been busy enhancing EasyPay over the last month. We recommend that all existing customers automatically upgrade to the latest version ASAP to take advantage of the latest changes. The main changes are:
1. The employee record now splits the Social Insurance Year to date figures by Employee and Employer contributions.
2. Upgraded the user interface to take advantage of the new look and feel of Windows Vista.
3. Extended some of the fields for RBS Eq, Natwest Bankline and Barclays ICE export facilities.
4. New Contracts Report.
5. Following customer feedback, we have changed the Social Insurance Year To Date figure on the default payslip format to reflect only Employee Social Insurance Year to Date.
EasyPay Version 8.16
Posted 23rd July 2008
Changed tax calculation to match yellow book exactly.
Fixed bug where contract was not found if contract start date was after payroll start date resulting in a zero salary on the payslip.
Fixed bug - if you do period end it now only shows people who have not been paid on the current payroll. It used to show everyone not paid in the company.
Added option to enter tax amendment figure for tax code 72 as per month or per week. Previously it was required to enter it as a monthly amendment.
Fixed bug with Vista - did not report product id for activation and could cause application fault.
Fixed bug with blank ER SI column on Location Analysis Report.
EasyPay Version 8.12
Posted 18th July 2008
Added all the new social insurance types.
Added the MC Social insurance type - Maternity Credit (Exempt for 18 weeks)
Added longer fields for Bank Account Name & Number depending on payment type.
Added new contracts report.
EasyPay Version 8.10
Posted 14th July 2008
Added Nett Pay to YTD Report.
EasyPay Version 8.09
Posted 12th July 2008
Fixed upgrade bug - uspCreate_P8 failed in 1.50
Added dbnull handling with coinage report.
EasyPay Version 8.08
Posted 10th July 2008
Changed all numbers on contracts screen to save as Standard format.
Added additional check that the system decimal seperator is the decimal point for operating systems in other languages.
Fixed bug where picture didn't clear if added a new employee.
EasyPay Version 8.07
Posted 5th July 2008
Remove failed Internet Update message on login screen. The Internet check is now silent.
Fixed bug where leave screen was still accessible in limited 5 employee version.
Disabled Electronic P8 submission, copy company and company notes for limited version.
Fixed problem with missing Bankline report. (Bug introduced in 8.05)
Minor change to P7 year size.
Removed "A Backup of the database has never been done" message.
Fixed bug where it was possible to close one year further than expected!
Fixed bug where failed restore database, left database offline.
Fixed a bug where the PRINT button didn't print the same as the PREVIEW button.
Spanish letter now prints for department, location or selected employees.
P7 not prints for department or location.
P7 Production is much faster.
Received new P8 format, adjusted P8 to look the same (colour & text) for 2008 & 2009.
EasyPay Version 8.06
Posted 2nd July 2008
Fixed bug with calendar date drop down on leave screens due to obfuscation.
Amended P8 so that fewer lines appear. (Lines only appear if tax or si paid)
Added progress bar when checking server after login.
Added compression to executable. Optimisation has also saved 1 MB file size and doubled the speed of the executable.
EasyPay Version 8.05
Posted 27th June 2008
1. The payslip entry screen has been made larger and this screen now dynamically resizes.
2. The splitter position on the payslip screen may be adjusted and the preferred setting is remembered.
3. This allows the payslip entry screen to be made larger for companies which have a lot of payslip transactions.
4. The leave entry screen is also now adjustable and the preferred setting is remembered.
5. Slight performance increase with all screens.
6. Fixed minor bug which occasionally appeared regarding Autosizing of columns, while loading an editor.
7. Fixed Selected employees - selection keeps consistent across main screens.
8. Improved FIND function, works on payslip, leave and employee screens.
9. Added Control F7 for secret SQL admin facility.
10. Added shortcut keys to main screens - PAGE UP, PAGE DOWN, F5 REFRESH, F6 SAVE, F7 CANCEL, F8 PAY, F9 DELETE, F10 OPENING BALANCES
11. Added facility to send emails via outlook 2007.
12. Changed tax percentage for highest tax band from 40 to 38 for next tax year.
13. Restricted the SI list on the employee screen to only the newer codes.
14. Fixed a bug with SI - sometimes not 0, even though the gross was 0.
15. Fixed a bug with update 1.46 - caused an error if attempt to upgrade more than 1 database past 1.46.
16. Updated P8 to include additional lines for each type of SI and to handle missing weeks.
17. Enforced P8 check report prior to printing or producing P8 report / export.
18. Fixed a bug which allowed the user to resize a few windows which should have been a fixed size.
EasyPay Version 8.02
Posted 20th June 2008
1. Fixed bugs with P8 summary and BACS export.
EasyPay Version 8.01
Posted 18th June 2008
1. Added Electronic Submission of P8 for any year.
2. Fixed important bug with P8 Page 1 tax YTD and Salary YTD.
3. More detailed error reports for BACS, EQ and Bankline exports.
EasyPay Version 8.00
Posted 12th June 2008
This upgrade includes numerous changes and bug fixes. These go hand in hand with the new website.
1. Crystal Reports limited to 1 form. Smaller memory footprint. Should be faster.
2. Fixed a bug with logon enabled option.
3. Fixed a bug with BACS payment type in employee record. It did not let you enter Bank Details.
4. Added a warning message if the previous payroll period has not been closed.
5. Fixed warning message about non-standard screen dpi settings.
6. Updated Internet Links for new website.
7. Fixed a bug preventing BACS options from appearing.
8. Fixed bug preventing printing of P7s for inactive people.
9. Added knowledgebase / help file support.
10. Added a new SQL user for reports. Reports now run as a different user on SQL server for security.
11. Added comma filter to CSV export to prevent errors in the export routine.
EasyPay Version 7.43
Posted 12th May 2008
This is an optional upgrade. In fact unless you specifically require the additional functionality we recommend waiting until the next upgrade in the next few weeks which will be EasyPay V8.
This version includes a new YTD Report which allows you to print the YTD Report for any particular payroll period (week / month / year). The old report used to print only the current YTD figures. There has also been a bug fix to the YTD report discovered in V7.42.
There is also now a Spanish Tax Letter in the Company Reports of the Payroll screen. This prints a letter for the spanish tax office for non-residents. In addition there are a few minor improvements. The default contract start date defaults to last month and when creating a new employee record their work address will automatically be picked up from the Company's work address.
This version also addresses a problem which appeared in version 1.39 onwards, if you were running your payroll for the year 2009.
EasyPay Version 7.39
Posted 22nd April 2008
This new version adds BACS Payments export. In addition there are improved report formats for the P8 and Annual Deduction Cards. For Sage Line 100 users there is now the option to specify the postings date in the export routine. Bugs fixed include a problem with exempt Social Insurance and improvements to the Software Activation process. There is also a minor fix with the new option to copy a company and a problem where upgrading does not work if too many upgrades have been skipped.
EasyPay Version 7.30
Posted 17th February 2008
This new version adds the following new features.
1. Improved the P8 for this year. Recommended upgrade for all users.
2. Added new facility to import new employee records from a spreadsheet. This can save a lot of work when setting up EasyPay for the first time.
3. Amended the names of a number of reports. A number of reports are now prefixed by the word "Old". This helps to differentiate the old reports from this year's reports.
4. Added a new Nominal Postings Detailed Report. This is a very useful report if you are trying to identify a rogue nominal transaction entered through user error on a payslip.
5. Added feature to override employee opening balances by pressing F7. This is very useful if you realise at a later point that your opening balances have been entered incorrectly.
6. Some performance enhancements. Slightly faster loading and screen initialisation.
7. Fixed some important bugs - inability to amend default nominal codes, implemented feedback on nominal postings routine, added automatic A4 setting to ensure reports are printed correctly even if the default paper size in the users printer driver is incorrect, minor improvements to Sage preprinted payslip format.
EasyPay Version 7.28
Posted 11th February 2008
This new version adds the following new features..
1. Added Blood type to employee record. This can be an important detail to keep on file for emergency situations in industries such as Construction.
2. Added the facility to export payments to Natwest Bankline. There is also a new report detailing payments by Bankline.
3. Added improvements to smooth the export processes to Sage Line 100 and RBSI EQ.
4. Added feature to "Copy Company". This new option may be found in the Company Settings. This option copies the current companies settings (leave types, income types, etc.) to a blank new company. This can save a lot of time setting up multiple companies in a large organisation.
5. There is now a new option in Transaction Types, called "Amendable on Payslip". If this is ticked then the value of a particular transaction type can be amended on the payslip, otherwise the value is locked on the payslip.
6. Minor improvements such as updated list of banks, added new warning preventing the Year End being carried out before time, added number of hours basic pay for Casual Payslips, widened totals on YTD Summary report, widened totals on P8A Page 2, changed memory warning message to be less aggressive.
7. Fixed minor bugs with incomplete transaction types generating an error message on the payslip, Job Costing Export, bug with hourly rate conversion to annual salary on contracts screen, more descriptive error messages for automatic updates, general performance issues and Sage Line 100 Export.
EasyPay Version 7.26
Posted 29th January 2008
This new version adds new features within the Payroll options. These features are:
1. Annual Inflation / Pay Increase - An automatic facility to increase the pay of all members of staff by a specified percent.
2. Create All Payslips - This option will create all the uncreated payslips for the current period.
3. Create And Pay All Payslips - This option will create and pay all the unpaid payslips for the current period.
4. Added Monthly SI Remittance Report. This is useful for companies that pay SI on a monthly basis.
5. Added Individual Employee Leave and Leave Balance Reports.
6. Every transaction type (e.g. Overtime rates, HSA) can now be set as "amendable on payslip" - or not in the Transaction Type settings. This extra protection helps ensure that mistakes do not occur by allowing the user to amend standard fixed amounts.
6. Fixed a number of bugs. In particular in ability to easily print a P7, P4/P5 for an individual employee as of version 7.23. In addition fixed an important bug with leave schemes which had arisen since version 7.22. Another bug has been fixed which was making it tricky for some people to amend transaction values on payslips.
EasyPay Version 7.23
Posted 15th January 2008
This version contains several new features as well as performance improvements for some reports and resolved some bugs concerning internet updates and software activation. We recommend that all users upgrade to this new version ASAP to take advantage of the improvements. The main new features are:
1. New Report - 2008 Form P8A, with improvements to the Nett Pay report and YTD report.
2. Sage Line 100 Export facility.
3. EQ Payments Export facility.
4. Role based access. e.g. An easypay user can have their user access restricted just to the Leave screens. This can be very useful as it allows the leave features to be used by someone other than the payroll officer and this person can be prevented from viewing or editing the payroll information.
5. Improved leave system. You can now choose between simple or complex based leave booking system. This setting is found in the company settings. If you choose simple leave booking system, then all leave will be recorded in units of days. Otherwise if complex is chosen, leave may be recorded in units of days and hours. We recommend keeping to the simple system unless there is a specific requirement to measure leave in hours. Further enhancements will be made to the leave system this month and we welcome your feedback.
6. Added French, Dutch and Danish to list of nationalities.
7. Streamlined Sage Line 100 Job Costing import facility.
8. Added software registration process. We recommend filling out your registration details in full on installation of this update. These details will be used for future support and license registration.
9. Added new Exceeded Leave Entitlement report and fixed issues with old Leave Report.
EasyPay Version 7.18
Posted 17th December 2007
This version adds Sage Line 100 Job Costing Import facilities and addresses several minor bugs with the Leave Management system.
This upgrade addresses error message 82 and adds updated coinage report facilities.
EasyPay Version 7.03
Posted 2nd July 2007
We are pleased to announce that we have already updated EasyPay to handle the new tax system and bands announced by the Chief Minister last week! All existing clients are invited to upgrade right away. This new version has some minor bug fixes. It has a modified P7 report, P8 and P8A reports. It also has a new SI history report.
EasyPay Version 7.00
Posted 19th June 2007
This new version adds updated forms for the tax year end, a number of refinements and addresses some very minor bugs that were reported.