Year-end Update Guide 2026

Matt Jennings Updated by Matt Jennings

Pre requisites to running a year end

  • System upgraded to the latest Version 2.64 (For hosted customers, the upgrade is performed by Advanced). If you host payroll on your own internal servers, this will need to be performed by you. (Upgrading your system). For on-premise customers, the upgrade link for v.2.64.0 can be found here. This will be available after 5pm on 05/03/2026.
  • All final pay cycles of the tax year updated, and final FPS or EPS completed with “This is the last submission of the tax year” ticked when processing. You only need to ensure this is ticked on one of the EPS or FPS and not both. (Last submission of the year)

Instruction Steps

  1. Copy year-end folder
  2. Run year-end check report
  3. Print P60s
  4. Company year-end
  5. Employee year-end

All steps are to be actioned within the Live data folder and not the year-end copy.

Copy Year-end data instructions

To Copy the data file select File in the top left of the Payroll application, then select Copy year 2025/26 data.

Once that option is selected, a message box will appear asking you to confirm. Click OK to continue. Payroll will then create a folder called  year2526 winpay folder.

This process should be repeated for each of your live data folders. To do this, you will need to change the live data directory.

To change data directory go to file – change data directory.

Select the 3 dots to the right of the screen – click on the data directory you intend to go into and click ok

Run Year-end check report

You must run the Year-end check report from the Year-end menu in Payroll.

Make sure there are no errors and that you review any warnings that appear. It is imperative that you correct any of the errors found.

If you have been running the month-end check regularly throughout the year, then this should minimise the amount of errors that need to be corrected.

To generate a P60, select P60 from the Year-end menu in the Payroll toolbar:

Ensure 2025 is entered in the “These P60s are for tax year starting” field.

For a PDF copy of the P60 click on PDF

Company year-end

Select the Year-end menu on the Payroll toolbar and then select Company year-end from the dropdown menu.

This will open the following form:

Ensure that the correct tax year (2025) is selected in the box at the top. Click Yes to proceed, which will open the following screen:

This gives you the option of updating your small employer status. Click Yes to allow Payroll to determine each company’s Small employer status, or No to omit this process.

This will be repeated for the Paying apprentice levy option. Again, choose Yes or No depending on your choice.

After you pick Yes or No, a form will be displayed. This allows the user to choose to print, display, email or create a PDF of the company year-end report:

Selecting cancel will abort the whole process and you will need to repeat the company year-end procedure from the start. 

The next screen allows the user to select which companies to be processed. Choose list view to display the companies, or simply click all if you want all companies to be processed.

Split Companies

If you have any split companies, you will need to check each company individually. To do this, go to Company across the top menu bar and then maintain details.

Next, select a split company and click modify. Proceed to the HMRC Payments tab and ensure the employment allowance fields are correct.

Employee Year-end

Tax code uplifts are done automatically during the employee year-end procedure.

Click on Year-end in the payroll toolbar and choose employee year-end from the drop-down menu.

This will open a new window which will ask you to confirm that you want to carry on with the Employee year-end process. Click Yes to continue.

You will need to perform this step for each pay group within the system.

You have successfully completed year-end.

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