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UK Payroll - Auto updates for national Insurance category (NI)

It would be great if Xero could implement an automatic change/suggestion to change to category A after an H-category employee doesn't meet the criteria anymore.
One of our employees just had his birthday and I noticed the category doesn't automatically update and there's no flag to say they might now be ineligible for a certain code.
I imagine there are more companies with the same problem where it's gone unnoticed that the National Insurance Category hasn't automatically updated as nearly everything else does and it's easy to miss a birthday!

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Axis Electrical Ltd shared this idea  ·   ·  Report…  ·  Admin →
delivered  ·  AdminKelly Munro (Community Manager, Xero) responded  · 

Hi community, we've rolled out a change to Xero Payroll (UK), and now Xero will automatically apply the new NI category to a pay run based on an employees birthdate, and if they are entering into a new NI category. Meaning you no longer have to manually track and updates these.


We appreciate all your contributions and letting us know how valuable this feature is for you. 😊

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  • Claire Sharp commented  ·   ·  Report

    It is ridiculous that this is still proving to be an ongoing issue for so many people, come on Xero, I thought you were better than this. It is vital that our payroll software alerts us to changes in age and therefore NI status, otherwise, what is the point is continuing to use Xero?

  • Sarah Winship commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is so important, we run a lot of client's payrolls in xero and I've just spotted someone who turned 21 a few weeks ago but was still on Category M.
    Surely xero can add some kind of alert to flag up employees who are turning 21 or reaching state pension age, or reaching the NMW age bracket?

  • Sean Huxley commented  ·   ·  Report

    Ideally auto update or at least a reminder.
    How are we to remember when an employee turns 21 and needs to be changed from M to A

  • Callum Bristow commented  ·   ·  Report

    Odd that this isn't a feature by default when it seems pretty easy to implement and is required by law.

  • Maria Martin-Perez commented  ·   ·  Report

    yes , for write to work , we should be able to get reminders too. please get this shorted is very much needed

  • Catherine Rogers commented  ·   ·  Report

    Can I add my "Please sort this asap" in relation to state pension age.
    When you are preparing payroll for multiple clients, you won't know when the employees have reached the age. To check dates of birth manually each month is a time consuming task.
    Many other software companies flag this automatically - like Sage & Quickbooks - so Xero - you are way behind the competition.

  • Mark Johnson commented  ·   ·  Report

    My issue is the retirement age NI issue. Now have to go get a refund. Not looking forward to that.

  • Kerry Ogden commented  ·   ·  Report

    Is a law and very important, so as not to charge / not charge correct NI.

    Other payroll softwares flag this, as you would expect.

    I charged a man who went over retirement age NI and it’s not easy to refund it

    Xero please note, if you get NI wrong it’s a lot more difficult to correct than income tax

  • Natalie Christie commented  ·   ·  Report

    This is an important function which needs to be added to Xero Payroll as soon as possible

  • Robert Taylor commented  ·   ·  Report

    I work in the payroll software industry. Once upon a time a guy from HMRC used to stay with us for a couple of days to run loads of tests and I'm pretty sure this was one of the criteria to get us on the approved payroll supplier list. Sadly this rigorous testing no longer exists.

  • Shona Rankine commented  ·   ·  Report

    Totally agree with the comments below - this should be automatic. Xero knows the persons birth date. How hard can it be to update from M to A when someone reaches 21 - or at least trigger a warning.

  • Emma Gude commented  ·   ·  Report

    This would be such a great idea as at the moment it is something we need to be monitoring.

  • Karen Smout commented  ·   ·  Report

    I have an employee over state pensionable age so they should no longer be paying NI. Xero hasn't auto updated the NI category and I can't see how to do it manually, and there don't appear to be any guidance notes anywhere. Come on Xero, there's lots of us in the UK using the system, it needs to reflect our tax and NI rules!

  • Karen Smout commented  ·   ·  Report

    Xero - how can you not sort this out? it's a tax rule in the UK, it shouldn't be down to voting and interest in it, it should be mandatory.

  • Amanda Hines commented  ·   ·  Report

    Yes, had similar problem - assumed Xero would flag this with me, employee turned 21 in the month and should have changed from an M code to an A code!
    I'm lucky as only a small number of payrolls but is easily missed.

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