PAYE Data Migration Guide
- Stuart McKay
Before beginning the process of migration your payroll data, it's essential to prepare the necessary data and ensure that both systems are ready for the transfer
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Prepare and extract your existing data
Ensure that all payroll records are up to date, accurate, and in an exportable format. Key information includes:
Employee details (e.g., names, addresses, NI numbers)
Pension enrolment status
Pay history for the current tax year
Year-to-date (YTD) totals for gross pay, tax, national insurance, pensions, and benefits
Holiday accrual balances (where required) together with payment averages
Workers to include: Imported data should include all active workers and any leavers that have received a payslip in the current tax year.
Data Clean-Up: Review and clean the data for errors, inconsistencies, or missing information. It’s easier to resolve issues before migrating data into InPay.
System Review: Ensure InPay is configured to match the pay elements, tax codes, and calculation rules from the old system.
Data Export: Use your old payroll system’s reporting tools to export the required PAYE data.
Convert and importing your data
The next step is to prepare your extracted payroll data from your existing system for migration:
Data Conversion:
Your extracted data will need to be converted in to an InPay import friendly format. Our conversion template can be used to create all the required import files.
Step 1 - Download Our Conversion Template
The conversion template contains macros. These must be enabled to correctly use the template.
Step 2 - Populate and export your data using the template
Use our migration document guidelines to ensure your data is populated accurately, and you are able to generate your import files.
Step 3 - Importing your data
Now that you have converted and exported the files using the template, you are ready to import your data.
The export template will generate 11 files. If you do not have these files, review the migration document guidelines help page.
Follow the steps below to import each file:
File name | InPay Import Routine | Description | Records Included |
|---|---|---|---|
00. Template Summary.csv | n/a | Not imported to InPay. It serves as a useful summary and displays totals contained within the template. |
|
| InPay: Import/Export > Import Data Format: Employee Starter | Contains a list of worker records not created in InPay as a result of InTime integration. | Template migration type = “Full” |
| InPay: Import/Export > Import Data Format: Employee YTD Pay Balances | Contains the current employment taxable, tax paid, SMP,SPPb,student loan and postgraduate YTD data. | Template migration type = “Full” or “Partial”. Doesn’t include = “NILetter” |
| InPay: Import/Export > Import Data Format: Employee YTD NI Balances | Contains the NI contribution values together with the relevant thresholds YTD data. | All migration types |
| InPay: Import/Export > Import Data Format: Employee Pensions | Contains pension enrolment details. | Template migration type = “Full” or “Partial”. Doesn’t include = “NILetter” |
| InPay: Import/Export > Import Data Format: Employee Holiday Scheme | Contain holiday scheme enrolment details including the carried forward holiday entitlement balance | Template migration type = “Full” or “Partial”. Doesn’t include = “NILetter” |
| InPay: Import/Export > Import Data Format: Employee Basic | Contains pension postponement, opt out and termination details. It will also mark all workers as “current” and sets the email payslip flag to “Yes” on each worker. | Template migration type = “Full” or “Partial”. Doesn’t include = “NILetter” |
| InPay: Import/Export > Custom Import Format: Employee YTD Pay Balances | Contains employee and employer pension YTD balances. Note, that you may need to update the pay element names in the file to match the pay elements created by InPay. | Template migration type = “Full” or “Partial”. Doesn’t include = “NILetter” |
| InPay: Import/Export > Custom Import Format: Student Loan | Contains student loan plan type details | Template migration type = “Full” or “Partial”. Doesn’t include = “NILetter” |
| InPay: Import/Export > Custom Import Format: Student Loan | Contains postgraduate loan details This uses the same importer as the student loan format | Template migration type = “Full” or “Partial”. Doesn’t include = “NILetter” |
| InPay: Import/Export > Import Data Format: Employee Tax Codes | Contains current tax code details together with previous taxable and tax paid. Previous taxable and tax paid will only display if start date is within the current tax year | Template migration type = “Partial”. |
Step 4 - Holiday Pay Reference Period
If you have configured an accrual scheme within InPay. You will also need to import the 52 week pay reference period for each applicable worker.
Once the files from Step 3 have been imported, you will be ready to import the holiday pay reference period which InPay will use to calculate the average pay rate at which holiday claims will be paid.
Follow the instructions below:
Ensure that each of your payroll frequencies have 52 weeks or 12 months prior to the current period data is being imported against. InPay will store pay reference data
Within InPay, go to Import/Export > Import Data. Select the format “Employee Holiday Scheme”.
Under “Template” select each of your pay frequencies in turn.
Populate your data in to the appropriate fields. The template will be formatted to provide the period units and period pay. Enter the units and pay that were holiday accruable in to the fields.
Import the template to Import/Export > Import Data. Select the format “Employee Holiday Scheme”.
Reconciliation of Migrated Data
After completing your data import, it’s vital to reconcile the migrated data to ensure accuracy:
Generate Reports:
We have provided a list of recommended reports to download as part of your reconciliation checks.
To access the report menu, go to InPay: Reporting > Standard Reports
Report | Run Instructions | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
Tax code and Taxable YTD | Category: 2. Pay Report: Import Reconciliation | A breakdown of the current tax code applied to each worker together with details of the tax paid YTD and any statutory payments/deductions |
NI Contribution and threshold YTD | Category: 2. Pay Report: Import Reconciliation NI | A breakdown of the national insurance contribution YTD including the thresholds. |
Worker pension details | Category: 5. Pension Export Report: Basic Pension | A breakdown of each workers pension status, including postponement, opt in, opt out dates together with enrolment details and YTD balances. |
AEO’s | Category: 1. Employee Report: Attachment of earnings New | A breakdown of all arrestment orders populated in InPay. |
Holiday balances | Category: 1. Employee Report: Holiday | A breakdown of each workers holiday entitlement, including the hours/days, average rate and estimated amount due. |
Student Loans | Category: 1. Employee Report: Student Loans | A breakdown of student loand and postgraduate loans allocated against worker records. |
Please note that InPay’s P32 report will not include any imported year-to-date balances, only actuals processed. Reconcilaition should be carried out using the reports above, or any other applicable report you run as part of your checks.
Cross-Check Against Legacy System: Compare the reports from InPay with the reports from your old payroll system to ensure consistency in employee data, tax codes, pay elements, and year-to-date totals.
Resolve Discrepancies: Investigate and resolve any mismatches, such as differences in pay amounts, missing employees, or incorrect tax codes.
Conclusion
Following this guide will help you successfully migrate your PAYE data to InPay. Careful planning, data validation, and thorough reconciliation are critical steps in ensuring that your payroll system functions smoothly after migration.
Feel free to adapt this outline based on specific features or workflows your team uses