By Ruaan de Swardt

With technology being what it is, challenges do present itself in the life of the average QuickBooks user.  In this edition we’ll be looking at issues specifically aimed at our Payroll audience – namely bi-annual submissions.

You may wonder why I’m focussing on a seemingly standard routine exercise this month. You’d expect your HR manager to contend with it once, perhaps twice a year.  However, it is a ‘big deal’, largely because it has changed the UI (User Interface) of Quick Payroll. This is why I’m focussing on it.

Bi-Annual Submissions and Quick Payroll

If you recently updated your Payroll from Ver 1.2.42 to 1.2.43, you may have seen a couple of new fields when editing employees i.e. Postal address, Banking, SEZ  and UIF type code fields.

(Refer to Payroll newsflash 11 Aug 2014).

These fields have been introduced/adapted to integrate with SARS E@syfile for the employer when submitting EMP501’s during the mid-year submissions (dubbed Aug Bi-annuals) and at the completion of the Tax year in February.

In the past employers got away with a slap on the wrist for certain file import warnings – no penalties would be levied.  Be warned, the ‘grace period’ for this has come to an end. Payroll software has to match the field expectations set by SARS specifications, which brought about some obstacles which I wish to discuss here.

Obstacle #1

Early-bird submissions may have received the following integration warnings seen in E@syfile 6.6.0:

• Employer Trade Classification missing or invalid
• UIF Ref Number mandatory if code 4141 has a value greater than 0 – code 2024
• SDL Ref Number mandatory if code 4142 has a value greater than 0 – code 2022

Fortunately, this was identified early on and a fix was made available for Quick Payroll Ver 1.2.43.

(Refer to Payroll newsflash 10 September 2014)

Obstacle #2

SEZ Codes (Special Economic Zone) invalid or missing – code 3264.

Another obstacle users faced was error code 3264 – indicating that a wrong/invalid SEZ code was specified. SEZ codes have changed for August submissions, but the in-product code list has not changed – rendering the latter null and void. Users must use SEZ code ZAR (and not consult the in-product SEZ code binocular lookup field).

Missed last month’s technical newsletter? Summary of what was covered:

QuickBooks is compatible with Terminal Server

QuickBooks is not a flat file

QuickBooks Toolkit

Windows compatibility

Third Party Integration

Microsoft Outlook compatibility