Personal, Business, and Trust Tax Support

Import data from HMRC to Personal Tax

From version 17.2, Personal, Business and Trust Tax supports the import of client employment and Class 2 National Insurance data directly from HMRC. Follow these steps to set up, authorise, and import HMRC data.
Authorisation
The following procedure explains how an administrator can authorise a user to access data from HMRC in Personal, Business and Trust Tax. You will need Government Gateway credentials and access to Digita Database Security.
  1. Open Data Security and select the
    HMRC Data Authorisation
     tab.
  2. Select the appropriate Gateway ID for your user from the top panel.
  3. Select
    Authorise
    . 
  4. In the dialog box about credentials, select
    OK
    .
  5. On the sign-in page, enter the
    Government Gateway User ID
     and
    Password
    , then select
    Sign in
    .
    note
    You may be asked to set up and enter a two-step verification at this stage. This is an HMRC requirement. For more information, read the announcement at Protecting our customers with two steps - Tax agent blog. If you have questions about the requirement, contact the HMRC Online Services Helpdesk (telephone 0300 200 3600).
  6. Select
    Grant authority.
  7. In the success message dialog box, select
    OK
    .
  8. The Status should now be set to
    Authorised
    .
    note
    The
    Authorise
     button has changed to
    Reauthorise
    . This is because the token supplied has a specific lifetime and once it expires you can select
    Reauthorise
     to reactivate the link.
  9. Select the
    User Permissions
     tab and the user that you want to be able to access HMRC's data.
  10. Select
    Edit User
     (If you have multiple users you wish to authorise, you will need to do each one individually).
  11. In the Edit User dialog, select
    Tax Account Authorisation,
     then the relevant Government Gateway credentials from the
    Associated Credentials
     drop-down list.
  12. Select
    OK
    .
  13. View the Permissions for your user and ensure that the relevant HMRC data permissions have been granted. This will be automatically selected if the user has a role of Administrator. If not, you must ensure that you select the appropriate check boxes in the permissions section.
  14. Select
    Close
     to save the changes.
Once the Associated Credentials have been selected, the status will show either
Authorised
 or
Not Authorised
. The user will also show in the list of users authorised to the Gateway ID on the HMRC Data Authorisation tab. You are now able to retrieve data directly.
Retrieving data
note
Before retrieving data:
  • the client must have a valid UTR and a tax return in the current year;
  • the user must have the appropriate HMRC Data permissions authorisation to retrieve data from HMRC.
  1. Open the client and select the
    Client Summary
     tab.
  2. In the Information Explorer pane, expand the Schedules list and select
    Get HMRC Data
    . (Alternatively, select
    Form
    then
    Get HMRC Data
     from the main menu.)
  3. Any schedules containing HMRC data that's different to the data in Personal Tax will be displayed with an icon of a document and green arrow.
  4. Select the appropriate schedule to open the HMRC Differences dialog box.
  5. Review the differences and select
    Accept
     to update the schedule information with the HMRC data.
note
It's only possible to import data for employment income and Class 2 National Insurance (where there is a sole trade or partnership record). Personal Tax will be updated to facilitate importing of other data if this becomes allowed by HMRC.
Accepting data
When checking for data with HMRC, you will need to review any sources that are returned and/or schedules that are created. The following screenshot was taken from a dummy case where no employment schedule existed for 2016/17 and the data was then imported from HMRC. (This is accessed by selecting
Get data
prompt against the Employment or NIC record.
HMRC Differences dialog with 4 columns: Details, Schedule Data, HMRC Data, and Differences. Buttons include Accept, Reject, Skip and Cancel. The example screen shows data for PAYE Ref and Employer Name in both Schedule Data and HMRC Data columns.
Key to the HMRC Differences dialog box
Schedule Data table column
The values in this column indicates a total of the information currently held in Personal Tax for the corresponding HMRC form box item.
HMRC Data
Indicates the amount of a particular box item on a form.
Differences
The discrepancy between the Schedule Data and the HMRC Data for each item.
Accept button
This button overwrites the schedule information currently held in Personal Tax with the values shown in the HMRC Data column. Your administrator will need to grant you Accept HMRC Data permissions to use this functionality. Once you have accepted, the icon of a document and green arrow will disappear, which shows that there are no longer any differences.
Reject button
Select this button to decline to the overwrite the schedule information currently held in Personal Tax. Your administrator will need to grant you Reject HMRC Data permissions to use this function. Once you have rejected, the icon of a document with green arrow will disappear and you will no longer have the opportunity to view any differences for this schedule. A warning message is displayed to this effect. If you select
Reject
 but then decide in future that you want to import information, you would need to delete the employment record and then select
Get Data
 again.
Skip button
Select this button to close the HMRC Differences dialog box. The schedule information currently held in Personal Tax will remain the same. The document icon with the green arrow will not disappear if you select the
Skip
 button, so you can revisit the HMRC Differences dialog box to see the differences at a later time.
National Insurance
  1. With the client open, select the
    Client Summary
     tab.
  2. From the Information Explorer pane on the left, select the
    plus
     icons to expand the
    Others
     folder and double-click
    NIC Other Details
    . (Alternatively, select
    Edit
    ,
    Schedule Editor
     and N
    IC Profits Adjustment
    .)
  3. Double-click the relevant schedule to open the HMRC Differences dialog box.
  4. Review the data and Accept or Reject as appropriate.
note
If you do not have a trade set up, the ability to Accept the data will be disabled.
Current issues
We know of the following issues affecting the import of data.
Pensions importing as employment
Where HMRC have a employers reference against pension income, it will be imported as an employment record. HMRC are looking into this issue. Until they resolve this, you will need to check the imported employment data is correct.
Employee leaving and rejoining the same employment in year
Where this happens, HMRC will have two lots of employment data for the employee, but only one employer’s reference and so just one set of data will be imported. This is something that HMRC will aim to resolve in future.
Data mismatch
If any data imported does not match with documents you hold ( e.g. a form P60 or P11D), you will need to query this with HMRC as we only import the data which HMRC have made available.
Bearer token is missing or not authorised
This is where HMRC’s API does not identify you as being authorised to access data. This is usually where a 64-8 authorisation is not in place although we have had reports of this error where a 64-8 is in existence. You would need to discuss such a case with HMRC's online services helpdesk to resolve it or obtain the PAYE details direct from your client instead.

This article applies to:

  • Product: Digita Personal Business and Trust Tax
  • Subject: Import