Author: Yvette Lamidey
Published in: Croner CCH
Date: May 2006
Taxation: Electronic Delivery
Data Provisioning Services
HMRC have replaced the Secure Mailbox Service (SMS) with a service that allows the user to download tax code changes and other messages onto their payroll software or into Excel spreadsheets and includes a searchable archiving system.
Until recently users of the Internet service for in-year forms tax code changes, Student Loan notifications, P45, P46, P46 car would have been using the Secure Mailbox Service (SMS) that sits on the UK government gateway (UK GG) either directly via the portal on the HMRC website or through their payroll software.
The SMS for the provision of data was replaced by a new Data Provisioning Service (DPS) this April. It will however, remain in place for true human to human messages only for a short time to be replaced by an HMRC secure mail service for human to human messages in the summer.
The DPS will not be a message based service; users will in effect be downloading data to their systems or into excel spreadsheets using the .csv facility form a database.
For payroll systems that support Internet filing the system upgrades received for 2006/7 will likely include the DPS functionality. HMRC have reported that many developers have added this functionality for 2006/7 even if they may not have supported SMS in previous years and so you may find that where you could not directly access the SMS via your system you will now be able to directly access the DPS through the system.
Many of the third party products i.e. payroll system that access the DPS directly have been designed to check for new data since the last time that you accessed the DPS – each data item will be sequentially numbered and the system will use this numbering system to access the required data. This means that you will only load the latest data. If for some reason you need to reload data then functionality may also be available for you to specify data to be collected from a particular date. The data within the DPS will be held for at least four years and it will enable you to view historical data at employee level – although probably best done by accessing the DPS via the HMRC portal on the website and using the tools available. So if for any reason you need to reload data you could download the information that you need into an excel spreadsheet via a .csv file and then upload this data onto your payroll system.
All P9s and coding notices effective form 6 th April are available via the DPS only. But since any notices of codings etc. effective up to and including 5 th April are accessible via SMS only it would be sensible to check the SMS for any notifications of data sent to you just before the end of the 2005/6 year that you may not have picked up already. NB SL1 and SL2 forms issued on or prior to 5 th April but won't be effective until 6 th April or later due to the 42 day lead time also have to be accessed via the SMS!
The 2005/6 incentive letters will be issued to the DPS on or after 1 st June 2006 .
If you are accessing the DPS via the portal on the HMRC website you will notice a marked difference. The system will have options available to access data for 2005/6 and data for 2006/7. And so in using the 2006/7 option you will be accessing the new DPS and will hopefully notice that it is more user friendly than the old SMS. The viewer includes a query mechanism and displays the data in tabular form. The DPS will still allow you to download data via .csv file into excel spreadsheets for data entry and archiving or to upload onto your system. The facility allows you to download circa 11k tax code changes in this way and so should meet the needs of all employers and agents who do not have direct access to the DPS via their payroll software.
The DPS will also be used for the in-year forms submitted by employers from 6 th April.
It is important to the note that the UK GG SMS service will be decommissioned in July 2006 or thereabouts. It is therefore imperative that you ensure you have archived all of the data in your SMS box by end of June as once it has been decommissioned you won't be able to access the data.
‘You've got mail' alerts
If you want to receive e-mail notification that there are forms to be collected from the DPS you will need to register your e-mail address. Even if you had previously been registered for the old SMS service you will need to re-register since these e-mail addresses, for data protection reasons, couldn't be copied from the government gateway to the Revenue gateway.
To register your e-mail address simply log on to the HMRC PAYE portal using your existing credentials. Once you have reached the PAYE Online page, click on the link ‘provide us with an email address', which can be found at the right hand side of the page within the ‘View PAYE notices' section.
Entering details within this section will only enable you to receive the ‘you've got mail' notification for DPS. To access and use the DPS service you will need to either log on at the Portal or use third party software as usual.
This will not affect any other filing service that you may have registered an email address with however. You should always ensure that all such addresses are kept up to date. PAYE Online service FAQs are regularly updated and can be found on the HMRC web site at http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/ebu/isforpaye.htm
Agents' ‘view your clients'
Agents can only pick up codings and other messages that have been sent within 7 days when logging on and accessing their client list. Any codings that have been issued to the DPS prior to that have to be accessed via the individual employer reference. The IPPM are talking to HMRC about this functionality and asking that the time limit is extended however, any changes to this functionality cannot be considered until after the filing peak.
Agents and employers registered as agents are therefore encouraged to check on a weekly basis for any coding changes etc.
Yvette Lamidey
Yvette Lamidey is director of Paris and Parks Consulting
www.parisandparks.com