RELEASE_2026_11 feature tour

Before, Home showed six counts and an Import link. The counts were employees, starters, leavers, logins, companies and pay runs. Home did not show if HMRC and NEST were working.

Now, Home shows the payroll, the sign-ins, the companies and the pay runs first. Each one opens its own page. Below them, Home shows the live status of HMRC RTI and NEST. It also shows the endpoints that your reports use, and the five latest support articles.

See immediately if HMRC and NEST are working, and read the latest support news.

Before, it was difficult to choose one company from many. The list was long, and each page asked for the company again.

Now, you choose the company one time, in the navigation bar. A bureau can have hundreds of companies. To make the list shorter, type some letters in the search box.

Each page that needs a company remembers your selection. You do not choose it again, and you do not scroll through a long list.

Before, All Companies was at the bottom of the company selector. It was difficult to find.

Now, All companies is a switch. It shows the employees of all client companies. The Department column changes to Company, so a search shows the company of each employee.

Find an employee in seconds, in any company.

Before, all tools were on one Toolshed page, which you opened from the navigation bar. You had to know that a tool was there before you looked for it.

Now, the Employees list, the Companies list, the Pay Item editor, Pay Definitions and Report Definitions each have a Tools button. It shows the tools for the work on that page. All Tools is still on the Setup menu.

Find a tool where you do its work.

Before, the layout was not clear. After each change, you had to click again to see the result. The payslip covered the values that you entered.

Now, pay items are rows, and the payslip is next to them. When you change a pay item, the payslip is calculated again immediately. The left and right arrow keys move to the previous or next employee. Current, Leavers and All are radio buttons next to the employee. They replace a dropdown. Add Pay Items from gives an employee all the pay items of a test employee, in one step.

See the result of a change on the pay before you save it. Nothing is saved until you click Update.

Before, a payrolled benefit was a usual Payment Pay Item. It did not say which type of benefit it was.

Now, a benefit is an MPBiK Pay Item. Its Expense Type gives the type of benefit, for example a van, van fuel or private medical. The FPS reports each benefit by its type. From 6 April 2027, Class 1A is charged where it applies. The payslip shows the benefit in kind and the tax.

From April 2027, you must payroll cars, vans, their fuel and private medical. Other benefits are optional.

Before, you needed only a password to sign in.

Now, a Client can make two-factor authentication necessary for its administrators. A Company can make it necessary for its employees. The method can be an authenticator app only, or an app or an emailed code. A Company can also stop sign-in through a social network.

A stolen password is not sufficient to sign in.

Before, you typed the legal name and address of a company by hand. You compared them with Companies House by eye.

Now, Search Companies House is on the Main and Postal tabs of a company. It searches the register by name or number. Select the company, and its legal name and registered address are filled in.

Set up a company in seconds, exactly as it is registered.

Before, Create new scheme in the Pay Item editor opened an empty Pay Definition. You typed each setting of the scheme. Then you added the reports of the pension provider yourself.

Now, Company add pension scheme is an easy to use step-by-step wizard, on the Tools menu of Pay Definitions. Create new scheme in the Pay Item editor starts it too. You choose the pension provider. Each step asks for some settings, and shows only the answers that the provider allows. The Check step shows each answer and the reports that the wizard adds.

Add a pension scheme and all its reports, with only the answers that your provider allows.

Before, you found the format of your bank in the BACS and Faster Payment files guide. You copied its settings into a new Report Definition.

Now, Company add bank file is an easy to use step-by-step wizard, on the Tools menu of Report Definitions. You choose your bank from a list. The wizard adds the report with its settings. The Check step names the words that you must change before the first pay run. If your bank is not on the list, the wizard adds a report for the type of file that your bank takes. You then complete it.

Set up your bank file in two clicks, with no copy and paste.

Before, you had to set up a net payment, for example expenses, by hand from the Payment Pay Template.

Now, you can choose the Payment (Net) template, in the Template list of a new Pay Definition. An import uses it for NonTaxOrNICPmt.

Set up a net payment immediately.

Before, you could not correct National Insurance from an earlier period in the pay run.

Now, the NIC Pay Item accepts an employee correction and an employer correction, used one time. The payslip and the FPS include them.

Correct NIC in the next pay run.

Before, if pay was also taxed in another country, the UK taxed all of it.

Now, a GB FTC Pay Item sets the share of pay for UK duties. PAYE taxes only that share, and the Pay Item offsets the foreign tax credit.

The correct tax for an employee with duties in another country.

Before, employees were always in one fixed order. Nobody chose this order.

Now, you choose the order: by surname, forename, works id or username. The lists, the Pay Item editor, payslips and reports all use this order.

Find an employee where you expect, on all pages.

Before, an employee's name was always shown the same way: surname first, then the works id and the department.

Now, you choose how an employee is shown on one line, for example in a dropdown, a task or a list of members. Show the name as Finn, Huckleberry or as Huckleberry Finn. Choose if the works id, department and username are shown with it.

Employees are shown as your team knows them, and only as long as necessary.

The choice for each level is on the Preferences tab of its page. Find the client at Setup > Client, a company at Companies, and an administrator at Setup > Administrators.

Each choice is where you already set up that client, company or administrator.

Before, you could not choose. The order and the display of an employee were fixed.

Now, you set the order and display for the whole client, which includes all its companies. Each company can choose differently, and its choice replaces the client's choice. An administrator can choose for the companies that they work on, if the company has no choice.

Choose one time for all users. Change it only where a company or an administrator works differently.

Before, an upload, an import and a report compare each looked different. Their steps had numbers, not names.

Now, each is a wizard. The names of its steps are across the top. The question is above the fields that answer it. The button that goes back is less bright than the button that goes on.

When you know one wizard, you know them all.

Before, you made a set of shifts one Pay Definition at a time. You set up the data feed that fills them by hand.

Now, Company add Shifts is an easy to use step-by-step wizard. It makes Shift 1 to Shift 7 at the same time, and the data feed that fills them.

Set up shifts, and the data feed that fills them, in one step.

Before, you could not remove or zero all the pay items that a data feed had loaded.

Now, the upload page of a data feed has a button for this. A shift data feed has Remove all shifts. Other data feeds have Zero all pay items. The button asks you to confirm.

Clear a data feed in one click.

Before, you could find when the tax code, address or bank account of an employee changed only one pay run at a time.

Now, Employee create history workbook, in Tools, is an easy to use step-by-step wizard. It makes a workbook with one row for each pay run, with the columns of the employee download.

See when any data of an employee changed, in one sheet.

Before, you moved employees to a different pay frequency one pane at a time, in the Pay Item editor. If you missed a pane, an employee was not paid. Nothing told you until after the pay run.

Now, Switch Pay Item frequency is an easy to use step-by-step wizard, on the Tools menu of the Pay Item editor. It moves a company, some departments or named employees to a different frequency in one run. It shows only frequencies that have a Pay Schedule in the company. Before you click Switch, the Check step says what will change.

Move many employees at the same time, and know exactly what will change before you start.

Before, the tax fields of an employee were in no order. The seven fields from a P45 were in two rows.

Now, the employee's own details are first. P45, National Insurance and Director are folded, and CIS is last.

A clear, simple view of the tax of an employee.

Before, a page that you saw As Employee looked like all other pages.

Now, it opens inside a tablet.

Always know when you see what the employee sees.

Before, the live payslip of an employee showed net pay third, below gross pay, as plain numbers.

Now, net pay is first, in large text. Below it are the gross pay and deductions, with all the figures in groups.

Employees see immediately what they will get.

Before, a list showed "Employees", "Update" and "Delete" on each row.

Now, each list is on a card. Those words are column headings, and Update and Delete are icons. A badge shows how many items its link opens. A name opens the item that it names.

Read the list, not the same words on each row.

Before, an empty list said only "No matching records found". You had to find out if the search or a filter caused the empty list.

Now, an empty list says what you searched for, and in which employees. The filters that made the list shorter have an amber outline. If a name is not in the current employees, it is usually in the leavers.

See immediately why nothing was found, and where to look.

Before, employee, company and client records had tabs inside a tab, which was confusing.

Now, all tabs are horizontal, and rails are vertical.

See all parts of a record immediately, and go directly to the part that you need.

Before, an empty value looked like all other cells. Only the mini payslip gave messages.

Now, each empty cell shows Missing value, with a red ring. The payslip says who must supply the value.

See immediately what is missing, and who supplies it.

Before, if the form refused a pay item, the pay item was not saved. The payslip showed the old figures, with no message.

Now, the payslip shows in red why the pay item was refused.

Know immediately why the payslip is different from the screen.

Before, the editor did not show a Pay Item on a frequency that had no Pay Schedule. This occurred when you deleted a Pay Schedule. It also occurred when an employee had an annual Pay Item in a company that pays monthly. You could not see these Pay Items, but they prevented the same Pay Definition on another frequency.

Now, each of these frequencies has its own tab. The tab says that nothing on it will be paid. It lets you move the Pay Items to a frequency that is paid, or delete them.

No Pay Item is hidden. If a Pay Item cannot be paid, you can correct it where you see it.

Before, the payslip showed its errors in four different ways. Only the pay run log said what to do.

Now, each message starts with No Pay. It says what is wrong, in terms of the pay schedule. It ends with a Hint that tells you how to correct it.

Correct an unpaid employee before the pay run, not after it.

Before, the group of a Pay Definition was a dropdown. Nothing said that it made the template list shorter.

Now, the groups are in one row, with the most common first. The template list shows only the templates of the group that you select.

Find the correct template in one click.

Before, you could save a Pay Definition that reads a buss that it also writes. The next pay run then stopped, and did not say which Pay Definition caused it.

Now, Update refuses this Pay Definition. It gives the input, the buss and the output, with a hint to correct it.

The mistake is found when you make it, not on pay day.

Before, a Salary Overtime line on the payslip showed the hourly rate from the salary and the multiplier, such as 58.97 x 2.00 x 10.00.

Now, a new Salary Overtime Pay Definition shows the multiplied rate: the hourly rate from the salary times the multiplier. For example, 58.97 at double time shows as 117.94 x 10.00. A Salary Overtime Pay Definition that you have already keeps its Display as.

The employee sees the rate that they were paid.

Before, you opened each report of the pay run in turn to check it before approval.

Now, before approval, one screen shows the important data from all reports. Each report has its own row, with its errors or warnings below it. The approval starts on Yes.

Approve a pay run much more quickly, with little risk that you miss something important.

Before, the GB P32 sheet of Pre-approval summary2 showed only a draft until you approved the pay run. The draft gave part of the figures, for that pay run only. It did not include Employment Allowance, recoverables or the levy.

Now, when one monthly pay run is the whole tax month, the sheet shows the full P32 before you approve. The figures are the same as after approval. They include the values that the EPS will send, for example Employment Allowance. From April 2027, the P32 also includes Class 1A National Insurance on payrolled benefits.

Know what you must pay HMRC before you approve.

Before, Analyse showed the item in a plain box, like the four boxes below it. Three of these boxes let you type, but the text had no effect.

Now, the item chooser is the only control. Cards show what went in, what came out, what it kept, and the payslip, next to each other. This is the same in a pay run and on the page of an employee.

See immediately how a pay item worked.

Before, NEST needed one hour to enrol a new member, but a pay run made its reports in ten minutes. If you approved a pay run with an enrolment, this caused a pay run exception. The contributions were still sent, but the administrator had to correct the exception.

Now, the pay run waits for the time that NEST says it needs, plus the same time again. The log of the submission says how long NEST expects.

Approve the pay run. NEST enrolment and contributions complete, and the next pay run starts automatically. You have no exception to correct.

Before, after a release, a pay run created with the older version generally needed to be redone with the Redo button before documents could be viewed and approved.

Now, Debbie redoes it in its prompt, approval and finalise windows, as the Redo button does. Debbie approves the new pay run of an automatic schedule. She leaves the pay run of a manual schedule for the administrator.

You do not redo pay runs by hand after a release.

Before, a deduction that you added after the journal was set up had no destination account. The journal did not balance, and it showed a warning.

Now, each such deduction has its own row, with its name and a mark that it needs an account. The journal balances.

No more unbalanced journals.

Before, pay runs were kept for the statutory period. They were kept longer only if you paid for it.

Now, each pay run is kept free for 6.25 years. After that, a Client can keep it for as long as it chooses.

More than six years of payroll history, at no cost.

Before, status and severity were solid badges in full colour. A list of usual pay runs looked like a list of alarms.

Now, a finished pay run has a green ring. Only a warning or an error is solid.

See immediately which pay run needs your attention.

Before, you could see the documents of a pay run only when the pay run was complete. A payslip for 500 employees took 8.5 seconds to open.

Now, a banner above the pay run says when its documents are ready, some seconds after it starts. The banner is a link. The pay run list updates immediately when a pay run changes. It shows each step when it is saved. A payslip for a few employees opens almost immediately. A payslip for 500 employees opens in 2.5 seconds.

Check payslips and reports more quickly, while the pay run continues.

Before, the documents of a pay run were a long list of repeated links.

Now, each pay run is a folder. Its documents are tiles. A tile shows the logo of the document, for example NEST, P45 or automatic enrolment, or its format, for example PDF, spreadsheet or XML. You can search, or download all as a zip file.

See immediately what a pay run made, and view or download only what you need.

Before, all payslips had the same portrait layout.

Now, the payslip is in cards. A bureau that prints or posts its payslips can choose a landscape payslip, with one page for each employee. It shows the same data as the portrait payslip, with the same names, but not the addresses.

Payslips that are easier to read, in the layout that agrees with how you send them.

Before, you set what employees see only from the Companies list. To make employees privileged, you moved them between two lists.

Now, the Setup menu of Documents opens these preferences. They control if employees see live payslips and documents in progress, and if those have a DRAFT watermark. They also set which employees are privileged, and which company documents they see.

Control what employees see from the page where you see their documents.

Before, Employee test "What If" put all the data on one long form. It had its own company, status and department filters only to find the employee. Each payslip came back on its own tab, so you saw one month at a time.

Now, Employee future payslips, in Tools, is an easy to use step-by-step wizard. Choose the employee, change their pay items, and choose how many months. The payslips come back next to each other. Copy them into Word, download them for Excel, or print them.

See what a change will pay in the next months, before you make it. The payslips are not real, and nothing is saved.

Before, the stages of a Pay Item upload were not on one card. Its workbooks were in a menu.

Now, Upload Pay Item workbook is an easy to use step-by-step wizard. Before you click Publish, Review shows each new Pay Item. It also shows each change, with the old value next to the new value.

Check each change before you save it.

Before, the errors of an upload were in a form field. Each error used the words of the database.

Now, the errors are on their own card. Each error says what is wrong and gives the nearest name. You can open each error to see more detail.

Correct a bad upload in one step.

Before, an import gave each employee two rows. One row said New, and the other row showed their pay items.

Now, each employee has one row. It says if they are new or updated, and shows their pay items next to them.

See immediately what an import did.

Before, Employee bulk edit asked for all the data on one page. You had to write by hand how each column of the spreadsheet went into a field.

Now, Employee bulk edit is an easy to use step-by-step wizard, on the Tools menu of the Employees list. First it asks for the companies and the spreadsheet, then the fields. Then it asks how a row finds its employee. Last, it asks which column fills each field, from the headings of the spreadsheet. A test drive writes nothing.

Change many employees from a spreadsheet at the same time, and see the result before it is saved.

Before, a report compare showed its differences with codes, for example @@ -15,6 +15,7 @@. A difference of one penny highlighted a full field.

Now, it says how many rows are different. With Highlight, Ignore amount differences and Show, you see only what is important.

Find a one-penny difference in a bank file immediately.

Before, the Pay Schedule page asked for all the data at the same time, on one long page.

Now, the page first asks for the name and the frequency. Departments, the pay day, the pay period and approval are each folded until you open them. A new Pay Schedule starts with values filled in. Its name, dates and prompts change to agree with the frequency that you choose.

Set up a Pay Schedule in a few clicks, and change only what is different.

Before, you gave a logo as a web address. If the address changed, the logo went missing. You chose each payslip colour yourself.

Now, you upload a logo on the Branding tab of a client or a company. The logo of a client is used for all its companies, unless a company overrides it. Use the logo's colours shows three colour choices from the logo, each on a small payslip. Click Use these colours on the one that you like. Each company chooses its own colours, in the same way.

Payslips in your own brand, in a few clicks.

Before, to select many items, you held a key while you clicked. A click without the key cleared all other selections.

Now, each choice is a tick box. Where they help, there is a search, Select all and a Selected switch.

Select many items and lose none.

Before, a delete gave its question and what else it deleted in the same sentence. Its button was the usual blue.

Now, a separate warning says what else is deleted. The button is red.

Know what a delete removes before you confirm it.

Before, you could start a pay run or a data feed while the one before it was still in progress. The two runs then had conflicts.

Now, another pay run or data feed cannot start until the one before it is finished.

No more conflicts between runs.

Smaller changes and fixes in this release:

• An upload shows its errors on their own card, and each error only one time.
• An upload of one hundred employees takes one third less time.
• The log of a data feed says which sheet of a workbook it read.
• Search shows "Search" in the same way in all three places.
• Each error shows at the level that it deserves, and a warning looks like a warning.
• A submission says why it was sent or not sent. The reason can be nothing to send, no credentials, a pre-approval run, or a test service.
• When you start a workflow, it says which way to start, with the usual way first.
• Each task has the name of the step that it runs.
• A click on a column heading no longer selects the full column. A paste then fills one cell, not all cells.
• You can again upload a list of employees for a custom pay run.
• The P32 takes its company from the navigation bar.
• The help for a page is in the Help menu of the navigation bar, as This page.
• The navigation bar stays on one line on a 1280 pixel screen, for example 1920 at 150%.
• If a wizard cannot read a file, it says why on the step. It keeps the answers that you gave.
• A choice shown as pairs shows the value in the pay item, and saves the value that you select.
• A link to a tab opens that tab.
• After Update, the Pay Item editor shows the saved values.
• Each page is on a card, so each page looks like the pages it links to.
• The step of a submission says on its own tab what it found, for example that NEST has no schedule for the period.
• The 2027-28 rates and thresholds are in the app.
• If you rewind a pay run and answer No to its approval, the pay run is not approved.
• A leaver is taxed on 0T only after they leave, not from the day that you enter Pay after end and the end date.
• Statutory sick pay and parental pay are calculated correctly across many pay runs, and before and after the April rate change.
• You can view a Xero CSV export again after approval.
• The 2026-27 company car and fuel benefit figures agree with the figures of HMRC.