Payroll: Rollback closed payroll year

[Geoff_]

Can we please have the facility of rolling back the payroll year?

It seems so cumbersome to have to find the backup and install it just to run Group Certificates and produce the EMDUPE file etc.

"Payroll rolling back"

[ronatbas]

Hi Geoff

Aside from the near impossibility of this at a computing level I can envisage lots of hazards with should it be possible. Unless there were special safeguards in place, you could have the situation  where modifications were made after the payroll was reported and before the company return was done.

RonB

[Steven_M]

Hi @Geoff_

Thank you for the feedback in regards to AccountRight and rolling back a payroll year.  While I can see the benefit of rolling back a payroll year for more clients such as completing the payment summary process,  I've marked this idea as something that we will consider in the future. At this stage the payroll data is removed from the payroll table during the payroll year roll over and therefore would need to be retained for that roll back to occur.

While we do welcome your suggestion, its something that we may consider further down the track and not at this time. Based on feedback it may be something that we review in the future.

[CuriousG]

I think you guys might be underestimating exactly how frustrating the lack of this functionality is.

It is not an uncommon occurrence and causes a great deal of stress, especially as a new user of the online products that do not prompt for local backups, do not allow cloud restores without a $50 fee etc.

As a programmer myself I see no technical reason for this inflexibility, yes I appreciate you are deleting records, which obviously makes recreating the old information a significant issue, but even if it required manual re-entry it might be helpful to some.

Aside from that I fail to see why it would be difficult to keep the previous several years in the data - it is not a significant storage burden and in a world of ever reducing HDD prices seems like an unnecessary culling of fairly important data that can be done all to easily by the user.

Just like rolling over years I think this is a very odd approach all round and definitely needs a rethink sooner rather than later

[Steven_M]

Hi @CuriousG

Thank you for your feedback in regards to the idea to roll back a payroll year.

While we do appreciated that not having a roll back option for the payroll is can cause a great deal of stress generally at already busy time of the year, currently the data does get replaced to make way for the next payroll year's data. Therefore the actual records are remarked in the database as previous year data rather than current. The actual data still exists and you can produce reports on it, however its just that the Payroll History on the card is removed. As this is used for Payment Summaries, reports and other information it would be difficult to readd as its based on the payslip information and user entry on a per month basis.

Having said that the idea has been marked as Maybe Later. As this may be something that we would consider investigating further for inclusion in the program.

[CuriousG]

That's great Steve,

Sorry, the data deletion issues was not clear in the previous posts, so I appreciate the clarification.

In that case the feature should be relatively easy to implement surely, I appreciate you considering it as a "Maybe Later", but for such low hanging fruit it seems like a lot of stress for users that could easily be avoided. 

I speak to this out of personal frustration in part, but mostly because I have worked with several separate bookkeepers who themselves have had to learn the hard way and had multiple clients who have been affected and greatly frustrated by these issues.

I appreciate that becoming expert in any software necessitates a certain understanding of software foibles and limitations, and your experts tend to learn these things and avoid them out of necessity, but there is a point at which these sorts of hard limitations should really not exist without some mechanism (even if it were a paid MYOB service) to rectify the situation.

Bigger Picture:

In a world of competing products, where users will jump ship for ever more trivial reasons, all sources of user frustration in your own software should be of paramount importance, wouldn’t you agree?

Thanks

[CloverQ]

Hi @CuriousG

Thank you very much for your feedback, I have passed it to the relevant team. While it is something we might consider down the road, I'm afraid it isn't on the priority list at this stage.  

When the user try to open over a payroll year or a financial year, it does prompt them to backup the company file, which is the second last step. If you prefer, you can also go to Setup > Preferences > Security > tick the option 'Prompt for data backup when closing'.

Together with the concern mentioned by RonB above, I'm afraid we don't have immediate plan for this option. When we do consider adding it in AccountRight, we will update the status of this idea accordingly.

Hope this helps.

[luong]

Can we please have payroll rolling back feature?

I roll over payroll year without back up file so that i could not prepare PAYG summary to lodge to ATO. This is big problem. So, That is great if i have payroll rolling back feature.

[ADigney]

I would like to make the a suggestion that the end of financial year compulsory close of a payroll year be removed.

Apparently MYOB is the only software company that still has this feature and I have recently found out, the hard way, how hugely inconvenient and frustrating this is. I recently found a mistake in my payroll for 15-16 after I had closed the year, as previously mentioned it is compulsory before I can process the next finanical years pays (very inconvenient), and had to restore my backup from 1 month ago. Hours of work has to be re-done. NOT HAPPY!

If this feature had not been present I would've been able to fix the mistake without re-doing all of the work. I am seriously thinking of changing software programs as it seems there a few other features that MYOB are behind the times on.

I am also not happy about the response/attitude I received from the call centre. When did the call centre go overseas? I pay premium prices for this program and I get people who don't comprehend or speak english well, and then give me attitude because of it.

[Lyn6164]

I totally agree with the payroll rollover issue.  Have had several instances where we have had to change details after the PAYG Summaries were issued.  it is a manual process and lots of info to the Accountant to explain later. 

Its a shame you had a bad experience with the Call Centre, i had cause to call them this week for my client and the lady I spoke to was excellent, knowledgable and fixed my issue.  I am sure the call centre is still in Melbourne?

[IanChait]

Hi, If I find it necessary to adjust the prior years payroll, I do it in the back up file, to get the correct Reports etc, and then enter a General Journal in the current file to reflect the changes in the prior year. This avoids the need to re-enter data.