Coronavirus – Furlough Information

The Chancellor of the Exchequer has set out a package of temporary and targeted measures to support public services, people and businesses through this period of disruption caused by COVID-19. This includes support to employers to enable them to continue paying part of their employees’ salary for those employees that would otherwise have been laid off during this crisis. Designated affected employees are known as ‘furloughed workers’.

Proccessing Furlough Workers In Opera

Whilst there has been no specific guidance from HMRC as to how to process such employees, you may wish to consider creating a new payment profile(s) or group(s) for furloughed workers using the reports available to help identify the furloughed values.

The latest HMRC guidance about this scheme and other initiatives can be found by following this Link.

In addition HMRC have provided an informative webinar covering the following topics;

• The Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
• Refunding Eligible Statutory Sick Pay Costs
• Furloughed Employees

Please follow the Link.

Help And Support If Your Business Has Been Affected By Coronavirus (COVID-19)

HMRC have provided additional information for help & support if your business is affected by coronovirus (COVID-19). Please follow the Link.

If you require any further assistance, please contact us on 08000 195101 or email info@profile.co.uk

– The Profile Team

Business Continuity: We’re here to help

As we all continue to strive through these rapidly changing times, Profile is here to support and help you in any way we can. Its essential businesses have clarity of their finances to ensure vital decisions can be made with confidence and ensure they continue to trade through the current situation.

Profile offers a variety of Solutions to offer your organisation the reporting tools it requires. Opera 3 Credit Management Module is a cashflow management tool which consolidates all the information required for effective credit control. It will give you the visibility to prioritise which debtors to call/act upon to help you manage your outstanding debts, helping you get paid faster, boost your cashflow and improve your overall financial position.

Another great financial reporting tool is Pegasus XRL, creating live links to your financial data it can provide a holistic view of your organisation’s position. Pegasus XRL allows Microsoft Excel to dynamically link to Opera 3 meaning you’re able to produce accurate reports, which automatically refresh with the latest information which could prove critical to your organisation’s reactions to the ever-changing situation. Our report writing services mean we can provide you with the tools to quickly analyse your income/expenditure and help manage your cashflow.

Lastly, if you are experiencing any difficulties through staff shortages due to illness or self-isolation, please get in touch to discuss how we could help with your day-to-day accounts processing or running your payroll for you.

The Profile team continues to do all we can to safeguard our customers as well as our employees, so please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of any assistance to safeguard your organisation through this challenging period.

Call us now on 08000 195 101, email sales@profile.co.uk or contact your Account Manager today to see how Profile can help you.

– The Profile Team

Need Help To Work Remotely?

As the Coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to create a global impact on communities and families around the world, Profile acknowledges this is a difficult time for all of us. The health and wellbeing of our employees and customers remains our priority, and we are committed to supporting you and your business as we all go through this quickly evolving situation.

Many businesses are implementing several precautions to keep their organisations and their employees safe. Following Government guidelines, companies are being advised to work remotely wherever possible to reduce unnecessary contact.

So how can Profile help? With no-one being able to determine how long employees will need to be able to work remotely, Profile can offer various Hardware Solutions to ensure your business is well equipped through this time. We are able to provide an array of options such as remote desktop servers, laptops, printers, broadband connections etc to facilitate your business continuing to operate wherever possible. On top of this, Profile can also help support your staff in getting set up for working from home.

Call us now on 08000 195 101 or email sales@profile.co.uk to find out more about how Profile can help you through this difficult period and build your business contingency plan.

– The Profile Team

Coronavirus – Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)

Following announcements in the recent Budget, The Department for Work and Pensions is making temporary arrangements to support those impacted by coronavirus.

One of those arrangements is that employees who cannot work due to the coronavirus and are eligible for Statutory Sick Pay will get SSP from day one, rather than from the fourth day of their illness. This also applies to those people who are self-isolating in line with government advice to prevent its spread. This measure applies retrospectively from 13 March 2020.

Employers are also urged to use their discretion about what evidence, if any, they ask for. If employees need to provide evidence to their employer that they need to stay at home due to the coronavirus, they will be able to get it from the NHS 111 Online instead of having to get a fit note from their doctor.

Employers with fewer than 250 employees will be able to reclaim Statutory Sick Pay for employees unable to work because of coronavirus. This refund will be for up to two weeks per employee. How this refund will be made is not yet known.

To pay the three SSP waiting days in Opera 3 we recommend you create a new payment profile and select the SSP payment profile type. This will ensure the total SSP year to date values are correct.

Finally, you will need to manually calculate the value to pay and enter this against the payment profile in the employee’s Pay and Deductions screen.

Please note: The weekly allowance for SSP will increase from £94.25 to £95.85 on 6 April 2020.

– The Profile Team

@Profile March 2020 – Springing Into 2020!

Welcome to our spring edition of the quarterly @Profile newsletter. Here we’ll be running through all the latest updates as we jump into 2020. We will be opening with an introduction to Opera 3 SQL SE and a brief reminder regarding your Payroll End of Year. Then we a quick overview of our recently built Media Centre and before you through our Opera Tip Of The Month. Profile is also capable of more than just IT as you’ll see!

Why Not Upgrade To Opera 3 SQL SE…

Over the previous months, you may have seen or heard about Opera 3 SQL SE at one of our Payroll End Of Year Seminars or on one of our webinars. If you have, then you would have seen that Opera 3 SQL SE is going to be here for the future. Pegasus recently announced its product defined roadmap moving forward, your business can proceed with the confidence that all new functionalities will be added to Opera 3 SQL SE. With Pegasus optimising the code for improved performance, users will be happy to know they can upgrade to a familiar user interface meaning no further training would be required and they can continue operating the software in the same way they have been.

Pegasus have implemented the latest Microsoft technologies and a SQL Server within Opera 3 SQL SE to be able to process more and add increased security to your business. A major factor in so many users choosing to upgrade is due to the SQL Server Side Processing allowing Data Intensive Processes to run on the server leaving users free to continue their everyday activities, improving productivity and ensuring your business doesn’t come to a halt.

For an in-depth look at the reasons why you should upgrade to Opera 3 SQL SE Click Here.

Have You Sorted Your Payroll End Of Year/MTD Upgrade?

With all the commotion of Payroll End Of Year soon to be springing up on everyone, have you sorted your Payroll/MTD upgrade? With this being an incredibly busy time of year for us at Profile, please get in touch with your Account Manager at the earliest opportunity to ensure we can arrange your upgrade in the most convenient manner for your business.

Check The New Media Centre

Profile has now implemented a new Media Centre to our website, to offer our customers a convenient location to find all of our Whitepapers, Brochures/Datasheets, Product Demos and all of our FAQS. We’ll be adding to this regularly to ensure there is always additional material on hand to answer any of your queries and plenty of information to showcase our latest products.

Opera Tip Of The Month!

As you may have already seen, here at Profile we are releasing helpful hints and tips in relation to Opera every month to improve your user experience. Each of these hints and tips is established from frequently asked questions we receive, you’ll be able to find all of these within our Media Centre. This month, you’ll be able to discover How To Export Data To Excel directly from your Opera system. Be sure to keep an eye out for all our monthly hints and tips to help you along the way.

We’re Here For All Your Stationery Needs

Profile does more than just IT! We’re also on hand to answer all of your stationery needs. Let Profile alleviate the stress of Payroll End Of Year as you can find all of your end of year stationery online with us. Head to our Stationery Page to see a full list of what we have to offer and the various quantities we have available to accommodate your business.

Coronavirus/COVID-19 Continuity Statement

Following the emerging situation regarding the global outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19), Profile are closely monitoring the situation and following the advice directed by HM Government and Public Health England. Read Profile’s official statement by clicking here.

-The Profile Team

Coronavirus/COVID-19 Continuity Statement

Following the emerging situation regarding the global outbreak of Coronavirus (COVID-19), our main priority is to ensure the health and wellbeing of our staff and the employees of our customers, whilst trying to maintain the continuity of business.

Here at Profile we are closely monitoring the situation and will be following advice directed by HM Government and Public Health England to consider and update our plans accordingly.

We will endeavour to ensure our services will continue for support and remote work as close to normal as possible, but site visits may potentially be restricted. We will maintain services wherever possible remotely and in light of this we’re enforcing the following measures:

• Profile will be directing necessary operations and plans to reassign staff from non-critical functions if colleague absence is a threat.
• Our IT infrastructure is ready to facilitate all staff to be able to work remotely.
• We are carrying out ongoing checks and assessments of key suppliers, vendors or other parties and their risk levels.
• If a Profile staff member begins exhibiting coronavirus-like symptoms based on Government guidance, they will then be directed to stay at home, working remotely where possible.
• We have internal communication plans to immediately communicate our business continuity plans, updates and changes.

We will update this article in line with changes and feedback through this evolving situation, if you have any questions or queries through this period, please contact your Account Manager.

– The Profile Team

Standing Out In An Overcrowded Market

To succeed in retail you need to be able to react quickly to market demands and be able to stand out above the competition. An integrated till system that links directly to your stock control and accounts package means that you have access to real-time information at the touch of a button. EPOS enables brands the use of promotions and discounts based on real-time stock/sales information and tailored loyalty options will help your business stand out in the ever-crowded market.

How can a business stand out to the modern-day customer?

*62% of customers expect personalised discounts based on past purchases. The modern consumer desires tailored offers to suit their needs, this is the best way of skipping the queue of competitors and getting your business seen. KCPOS was built to automatically transfer product, pricing and customer accounts data whenever necessary without wasting time, enabling staff to concentrate on other tasks. When integrated with YO-YO Wallet, retailers can target potential campaigns towards customers based on their previous purchases, which could include product types or buying patterns, offering customers that personal touch to gain a competitive advantage.

Stock management is a key component of a thriving organisation. Maintaining customer happiness initially comes from fulfilling their order, and stems from having stock checks live and up-to-date. KC Smart Stock gives you accurate updates of your stock from your warehouse to your stores, providing a more transparent view over your goods and ensures your business never has too little or too many of a product. Its Stock Forecasting abilities means your company avoids implementing markdowns on stock that has been sat there for too long, ultimately optimising profitability for your business.

You can call us on 08000 195 101 or email sales@profile.co.uk to find out more about how Profile can benefit your business.

– The Profile Team

*salesforce – https://www.salesforce.com/blog/2016/11/swap-data-for-personalized-marketing.html

Stop Missing Stock!

Are you tired of spending on unnecessary stock holdings?

Being able to report accurately across your whole organisation with greater visibility would enable your business to streamline, automate and modernise for long-term success and protect your organisation’s potential profits. Adding a holistic view empowers your team with the competitive advantages from improved efficiencies.

Finding a solution to integrate all aspects of your organisation can become a greater challenge when considering your business must maintain client’s and supplier’s data securely. A lapse in data security can lead to a variety of issues, Profile offers an array of ERP Solutions that can be deployed on-premise or cloud-based to sustain high levels of data security.

Many business leaders are anxious to implement new processes and want to avoid potential interruptions in their day-to-day activities. All solutions Profile provide are intuitive and easy-to-learn. Using our rapid implementation methodology, solutions can be rolled out to users with minimal disruptions.

You can call us on 08000 195 101 or email sales@profile.co.uk to find out more about how Profile can benefit your business.

– The Profile Team

Shortages of stock causing issues with orders?

‘I don’t have the stock to fulfil my order” The phrase heard one too many times within the retail sector. Are you finding it tough to keep stock up to date?

Equipping your business with visibility across your entire enterise will enable leaders in your organisation the clarity to identify issues/adjustments from stock management to sales. Marketing campaigns and offers can be created from the figures revealed. Meanwhile, Profile also has a host of Software Solutions with the power to keep your stock up to date from a number of locations.

Whilst many businesses are on the lookout to make improvements, disruption to a business’ day-to-day running can cause a loss in invaluable sales. Thankfully, Profile offers a variety of solutions that will seamlessly integrate with your organisation’s current software without having to mould your business to any system.

You can call us on 08000 195 101 or email sales@profile.co.uk to find out more about how Profile can benefit your business.

– The Profile Team

Business Intelligence That Makes A Difference!

Are you tired of spending hours preparing for important meetings muddling your way through messy data? Many businesses have long been hunting for new methods to provide clarity across their enterprise to make decision making more confident and efficient. Power BI now offers organisations the ability to turn their data collected from various, unrelated sources and transform it into interactive visual dashboards – creating the holistic overview that businesses have been calling out for.

Power BI is a beneficial tool that connects data sources (like Opera 3, Priority, Excel spreadsheets or any SQL database) and can be used across your business for analytics, forecasting, reporting and recognising trends. Users can explore and drill down into their data and reports in a personalised visual manner enabling a thorough understanding of their business. By empowering your workforce with more information, you can improve all areas of your business – whether it be making important, informed decisions or determining where resources should be spent.

Summary of benefits:

• Build powerful reports using multiple sources
• Easy to read visualisation of data from across your entire business
• Simple drill-down functionality for high levels of detail
• Makes decision making more efficient and confident
• Collaborate and share reports easily with Office 365 integration
• Access information anywhere with mobile devices

Profile has developed a link that syncs Opera 3 tables with SQL and allows Power BI to read them along with Data Dictionaries and Report Packs. To discover more about the Profile Power BI link for Opera 3, visit our Profile Utilities page.

You can call us on 08000 195 101, email sales@profile.co.uk or contact your account manager for further information on Power BI.

– The Profile Team

Happy Customers, Happy Profits!

Customer happiness is the key to any business thriving. However, ensuring deadlines are met and customers are receiving deliveries on time are main factors in a company’s survival, is your business doing enough?

When businesses choose to expand into new markets, new product lines must ensure your organisation still remains to produce the highest quality to ensure growth, meanwhile being able to improve operational efficiency will look to enforce your business’ long term plan. Profile offers a variety of Software Solutions that protect your brand without slowing down your output.

Being able to ease the task of financial and operational challenges can be made possible by Pegasus Opera 3. Opera 3 is an end to end software solution capable of providing functionalities for all your critical processes. From the payroll team to company profitability, sales to debt management, the holistic view Opera 3 enables your business means leaders within your business will have greater reporting capabilities. Greater visibility means a more thorough look at stock levels and purchasing, and also detailed reports on customer’s debts, these features being a key highlight how Profile can help tighten your profitability and plan for the future.

Automated processes are able to eliminate the potential of those costly human error mistakes. Correcting errors slows down all operational activities whilst plummeting outputs, these are just a select few benefits of Pegasus Opera 3. Along with a proven ROI, the low total cost of ownership and providing the results you demand and ending the hassle of complex modifications.

You can call us on 08000 195 101 or email sales@profile.co.uk to find out more about how Profile can benefit your business.

– The Profile Team

P11D’s Made Easier!

It’s time to make completing your P11D Returns and P46 Submissions easier! Pegasus P11D Organiser is a complete expenses and benefits management system that does just that! It’s an advance but simple and easy-to-use solution for managing expenses and benefits and reporting their cash equivalents to HMRC.

Once you have finished entering your P11D information for the year, it’s as simple as clicking a button to send the information online to HMRC. This information is sent to HMRC servers via the internet and is automatically validated against their business rules for accuracy. Submitting online, therefore, minimises the chances of incorrect returns in comparison to paper submissions and benefit details will be incorporated into the employee’s tax codes once the submission is accepted in much less time than if they were entered manually.

For those employers that provide company cars to employees, you will be pleased to learn that the P11D Organiser can be used to produce P46(car) forms automatically. These in-year P46(car) forms of company car changes can also be submitted electronically through the Government Gateway, to ensure your employee’s tax codes are kept as up to date as possible.

Summary of benefits:

• Integrates fully with Opera 3 and Capital Gold Payroll
• Can be used as ‘stand-alone’
• More efficient and reliable than using paper
• Secure and convenient when sending benefits information online
• Cuts costs on postage and administration

You can call us on 08000 195 101, email sales@profile.co.uk or contact your account manager for further information on the P11D Organiser.

– The Profile Team