XML Submissions to the HMRC

Options within Datafile allow for the submission of P45(1), P45(3), P46 and P14/P35 end of year documents to the HMRC as an alternative to producing printed copies. Communication processes when submitting to the HMRC go through several stages – back and forth – before the submission is validated and accepted.

At times throughout the year the HMRC can get exceptionally busy (typically at payroll year-end) and will either take several minutes to return a submission acceptance/rejection or will suspend validation indefinitely for a number of weeks (typically this affects submission of separate P14/P35 end-of-year returns after April 6^th where the P35 appears to constantly ‘poll’ as the HMRC advises to check back again-and-again in 10 seconds).

New, in Release 6.1, once the document submission has been made to the HMRC the operator will have the option to SKIP the remaining communication stages – the system will also automatically skip if the HMRC is sending repeated polling / acknowledgment loops (loops around 10 times) or if the delay on a polling loop is advised at 180 seconds or greater. If the SKIP option is used, either by the operator or applied automatically by Datafile, the user is advised that the document has been submitted to the HMRC and to check back later to see whether the submission has been accepted or rejected.

Selecting the SKIP button (or if automatically selected for you based on responses) asks:

If respond ‘No’ the system goes back to polling / waiting for response, if respond ‘Yes’ you are warned the ‘document’ has been submitted and to check the results later.

The ‘check’ process is achieved through a new menu option for ‘Check for Active Submissions’.



On selection you are asked for the type of submissions you wish to check for – the in-year movement submissions of P46/P45(3) or P45-Leaver documents, or the end-of year submissions. Set either or both as required.

You are also prompted whether you wish to check for this company only – if left blank then the system will also check the status of any other submissions under the same tax office reference number you may have skipped.

On selection of the RUN option the system uses the same communication processes with the HMRC as earlier to check for any active submissions. If a submission has now been validated you will be warned accordingly and asked to ‘complete’ the submission, if the submission is still being processed you will be asked to check back later.

Completing a submission will return the validation results from the HMRC which warn whether the submission has been accepted or rejected. If the submission is rejected then you will have to make the corrections advised and re-submit.

 Note

If you elect to SKIP a submission and then submit another document, for the same employee or different employee, then the system will automatically launch the check process as part of the second submission.

If the first submission is still being validated then, provided you are not submitting the same document for the same employee, the system will proceed with the second submission (which you can again SKIP before the validation stage if required). If the second submission is for the same document / employee you will be asked to check back again later and the new submission will not be processed.

If the first submission has been validated you will be asked to complete this submission first (as per the process above) and then, provided the new submission is for a different employee the system will continue with the second submission.If the submission is for the same employee you will be prompted if you really wish to proceed with the new submission – select as required.

Whilst the new SKIP options are available immediately on program update the ‘Check for Active Submissions’ process needs to be added to the menu – suggest the main PR.D03 menu. Sign on as the CONFIG user and amend the required application menu to add the new reports with the following parameters

Check for Active Submissions P-Program PR.EXE Parameter 7900