Forbes Payroll is a payroll package designed to be very easy to use. It is intended for use by accountants doing a number of small payrolls.

8.1.1 Features of the package

8.2.1 Starting the payroll program

Alternatively select the employer in the client database and choose Payroll from the Tools menu.

8.2.2 Company Details

Select Details from the Company menu to set up the company details.

8.2.3 Adding employees.

Click on the Add button in the Employee group. Fill in the employee's details.

The rate field is for the default monthly or weekly gross pay. This can easily be overridden later. It is important to fill in the taxcode box.

8.2.4 Employee details.

Click on the Add button in the Employee group. Fill in the employee's details.

The rate field is for the default monthly or weekly gross pay. This can easily be overridden later. It is important to fill in the taxcode box.

further details can be completed by pressing the details button

8.2.5 Changing year.

Go to Tools then User Setup.

8.2.6 Saving the payroll.

Choose Save from the File menu. Forbes PAYE suggests a filename. You should override this if it is different from you client code.

8.2.7 Opening an existing payroll.

Choose Open from the File menu. Select the payroll you have previously saved.

8.3.1 Entering pay for a period

To enter pay for a period, first select an employee (single click), then press the Add button.

Enter the period number, e.g. 2 for month 2 (May) or Week 2 if weekly paid employee and the gross pay. The tax code for the period will be picked up from under employee details. To go back and change pay for a period, select the period and press the Edit button.

8.3.2 Entering pay and tax from a previous employment.

Select the employee. Select the pay period when the information becomes available. Press the Edit button to bring up the details of that particular pay period. Press the Prev Emp tab. Fill in the details of gross pay and tax from the previous employment.

8.3.2 Detailed breakdown of pay

Select the employee and the period. When the Pay dialog appears as below, click on the description button.

Enter the descriptions and amounts. You can also enter an optional code starting with a # sign. When you press OK, the totalled income will go into the gross box.

8.3.3 Detailed breakdown of deductions

When the pay dialog is displayed, press the "Other" button. This will bring up the other pay details dialog shown below.

Press the "Details" button, to bring up the pay details dialog shown below

Enter the descriptions and amounts. You can also enter an optional code starting with a # sign.

8.4.1 P11 Calculations

Click on the P11 tab to the bottom of the payroll screen. You get the choice of Tax and NIC, Tax only or NIC only

This will complete a P11 calculation sheet for the currently selected employee. (Below is an example of choosing Tax only).

8.4.2 NI tables

If you need to use a NI table other than table 'A' for an employee, change the table by selecting the employee and pressing the Edit button to bring up their details. Modify the NI table.

To retrospectively change the NI table selection for a previous pay period, select the period and use the Edit button.

8.4.3 Directors NI

For calculating directors NI press the director button under employee details.

8.4.4 Monthly payroll

Click the Payroll tax and then the Monthly or Weekly to produce a total of all employee pay.

8.5.1 Printing Payslips

Select the employee and period of choice and press the Payslip button. In the payslip screen that appears, use the printer icon or File then Print to print the slip. Once you have printed the paylip, close the payslip window by choosing File then Close or clicking on close box in top right of the payslip window.

To print payslips for all employees, use the 'All payslips' button. Individual employees can be excluded by ticking using the 'no payslip' box under employee details.

A pre-printed payslip, printed through PDF can be chosen from the File, Print, On pre-printed stationery, provided the Payslip tab is selected. This will launch Adobe Acrobat and you can print the payslip(s) through there.

8.5.1 Printing Payslips

Bring up the payslip on screen and choose File, Print, On pre-printed stationery, provided the Payslip tab is selected. This will launch Adobe Acrobat and you can print the payslip(s) through there.

A print adjustments box will appear as shown. These can be changed depending on your particular printer. The default settings should be acceptable for most printers. See 'adjusting the printer parameters' below for a more detailed explanation on these adjustments. Adobe Acrobat should launch provided it is installed (if not go to www.adobe.com and download for free or see our cd). The P60/P14 can then be printed from there.

Initially leave offsets at 0,0 and 100,100

When it comes up in Adobe and you choose print, make sure that Adobe is not moving things around - deselect scaling and centring

The layout on screen is in a standard format, the pre-printed layout will vary depending on settings.

8.5.1 Selecting the layout

Under Tools / User Setup / Payslips

When you have two payslips per page the offset box is the distance from the top of the page to the second payslip in tenths of a millimetre. In the example shown, 1430 indicates the second payslip starts 143.0mm (14.3 cm) from the top of the page. Once the top payslip is aligned correctly you can adjust this to get the second one correct.

The pre printaed layout box allows you to select a predefined layout. "A" corresponds to a standard Sage compatible payslip, "B" to a standard Iris one. See the section below for modifying these to create your own.

8.5.1 Editing the layout

Under Tools / Advanced / Edit Payslip layout

8.6.1 Starting a P14 or P60 Form

P14 and P60 printing requires a supply of the HMRC laser portrait P60s

8.6.2 PDF printing

Once the payroll is complete for the year. Click on the EOY tab. A summary of the P14/P60 data is diplayed. The default settings are for portrait forms. To select Landscape, go to tools, user setup and tick 'use landscape P14s'. Once chosen the orientation, go to File,Print,On Preprinted Stationery.

A print adjustments box will appear as shown. These can be changed depending on your particular printer. The default settings should be acceptable for most printers. See 'adjusting the printer parameters' below for a more detailed explanation on these adjustments. Adobe Acrobat should launch provided it is installed (if not go to www.adobe.com and download for free or see our cd). The P60/P14 can then be printed from there.

Initially leave offsets at 0,0 and 100,100

When it comes up in Adobe and you choose print, make sure that Adobe is not moving things around - deselect scaling and centring

The offset parameters, horizontal and vertical affect the positioning of the top left of the output. They are specified in units of mm. If your output is coming out say 2mm too far to the right, subtract 2 from the value in offset horizontal. In the example above it would be reduced to -2. Similarily increasing horizontal offset will move the output further to the right. To adjust the boxes along the top of the form, reduce vertical offset to move the output up and increase it to move it down. Vertical offset is also specified in units of mm.

Once you have the boxes correctly aligned down the left and along the top of the form, you can adjust the remaining boxes using horizontal and vertical scaling. These are percentages. If your printer were perfect these would both be set at 100%. Looking at a box towards the bottom right, such as Tax Credits in this employment, reducing horizontal scaling by increments 1% will move the contents of this box approximately 3mm to the left. Increasing the scaling will move it to the right. Reducing vertical scaling in increments of 1% will move the contents up by approximately 2mm. Similarily increasing vertical scaling will move it down the page.

To produce a P45 go to the View, P45 menu and this produces a summary of the necessary P45 data. To print, this, go to File, Print, On pre-printed stationery and this will print out the P45 on the Inland Revenue supplied form

To file this electronically select the appropriate command from the eFile menu.

It is now possible to file the P35/P14 data by internet. You will need to make sure you have been quite thorough in filling out the company details. See section 8.2.2 above.