Version 8.1 | Version 6.1.1 | Version 6.1 | Version 4.1

What’s New in Version 4.1

Aren Payroll 4.1 and Aren Register 4.1 were released in 2010, replacing Aren Payroll 3.1 and Aren Register 2.1, respectively. The underlying database was changed and several features added to the software. Here are the main improvements as of Update 7:

General

  1. Multi-user capability with support for up to three concurrent users. (Premier edition only)
  2. More efficient access to data records meaning that the program will work well for organisations of all sizes, even those with thousands of employees.
  3. Data is stored independently of the program which allows users to save data in folders that are protected by the operating system while leaving the program in its default installation folder.
  4. There is no restriction on the number of data folders that users can define. Each data folder is independent—users who have access to one data folder do not necessarily have access to others.
  5. Backup and restore speeds were greatly improved.
  6. An audit trail to track major events such as user logins, month end procedures and backups was added.
  7. The program is able to detect failed month or period end procedures and alert the user. The user cannot open employee data files or run another period end procedure without restoring from an earlier backup.

User Interface

  1. Records in data entry forms can be sorted by either last name or employee number.
  2. The ability to search the payroll transactions and leave files by last name was added. Previously, one could only search these files by employee number.

Payroll Processing

  1. Employees who belong to two co-operatives or pension funds are catered for.
  2. Employees can be classified into pay groups for payment purposes. Payment reports can be filtered by pay groups in addition to admin units, stations or banks. Pay groups are arbitrary and can represent pay points, pay date, bank branch, etc. (Premier edition only)
  3. Envelope labels for employees paid in cash were added. (Premier edition only)
  4. A cost recovery field type was added to the payroll transactions file. This is useful for tracking amounts deducted from employees to recover expenses that the company has incurred on their account.

Taxation

  1. The payroll calculates and deducts local service tax.
  2. The payroll also calculates low interest benefit on loans given to employees at an interest rate below the statutory interest rate for the year.
  3. The option to tax individual employees at the top PAYE rate was added.
  4. PAYE adjustment in June is now an option for each employee and not the whole organisation. When selected, PAYE is adjusted even for those who have worked fewer than 12 months.

Reports

  1. The company logo can be printed at the top of each payslip. (This feature was available in later versions of Aren Register 2.1)
  2. There is now an option to print loan interest and principal separately in payslips.
  3. There are separate reports for normal and double overtime each showing hourly rate and number of hours worked.
  4. Control accounts and muster roll reports are available for each pay period, month or year. Previously these reports were only available for a single pay period.
  5. There is a new monthly report for local service tax.
  6. Several more reports can be exported to text: nominal rolls, absence and leave reports, control account, payslips, co-operative and pension returns, and monthly tax and NSSF returns. This is in addition to the muster roll and bank transfer reports that were previously exportable.