IRIS Spring 2023 Full Features v23.1
Overview
The IRIS Accountancy Suite Spring release version 23.1.0 includes all legislative updates to ensure your ongoing compliance, plus some enhancements based upon your feedback, including an improvement in the speed of generating accounts reports, introduction of a compliant template for preparing accounts for dormant limited companies and LLPs using FRS 105. The ability to sort the columns in the Property income section of Personal Tax and a new field has been added to the Transmit Internet Return screen across Tax to identify Amended Returns, this will be populated automatically when the Return is produced.
IRIS Accounts Production
Report generation speed improvements
We understand that time spent waiting for accounts reports to be produced can seem like an eternity and become frustrating. Over the last 6 months, we have conducted a significant root and branch review of how Limited company accounts (including groups) and LLP reports were being generated by the software with the primary focus on how we could improve the speed of production.
As a result, we have implemented some changes behind the scenes that maintain all compliance and presentation but have significantly improved the time reports are generated, on average by a considerable 47%. This benefit will be felt within all accounting standards and ultimately allow you to spend time on higher value work.
Limited Company and LLP Dormant accounts using FRS 105
We have introduced a compliant template to allow you to prepare accounts for dormant Limited Companies and LLP’s using accounting standard FRS 105. To generate these accounts, ensure you have selected FRS 105 reporting standard and then select the ‘DOR’ report when producing the accounts.
When preparing these accounts, we have also included supporting disclosure for companies acting as an agent for a person. This can be found within the Data Screens, Notes to the Financial Statements, Dormant Only. These accounts can be produced for both HMRC if the Members option is selected or Companies House if Registrar option is chosen. Initially these accounts can only be filed by paper, but we will be looking to include an electronic option in a future release.
FRS 102 – Cashflow Statement (Note 1) Reconciliation of Profit
When preparing accounts using accounting standard FRS 102 and completing a Cashflow Statement, we have introduced a third new option to start the Reconciliation from the Operating Profit value within the accompanying note 1.
This updated disclosure can be found within the Data Screens, Cash Flow Statement, Operating Activities, Reconciliation of Profit. It has historically only been possible to start note 1 from either Profit before Tax (T) or Profit for the Financial year (P). By starting the Reconciliation from the Operating Profit (O) improves the flexibility on the note.
We have also applied the appropriate iXBRL tag to ensure accounts that are submitted electronically will also remain compliant. The same functionality has been applied for not only standalone Limited companies but also Groups with consolidated cashflows and LLP accounts formats giving you this new flexibility across the full range of accounts that could require the need for a Cashflow Statement.
Independent Examiner Report update
For Incorporated Charities with gross income above £250,000, we have updated the Independent Examiner report disclosure to now include prescribed wording to match the relevant professional body you are reporting under. We have also allowed for the relevant professional body to be included below the name of the independent examiner signing the report.
We have included the most common professional bodies depending on the country of legislation selected and have updated the web site address for the relevant professional guidance. This change can be located within two places on the Data screens from either General Information, Independent Examiner or Auditors and Independent Examiner, Independent Examiner, Name, Professional Details etc. and will only become available for reports signed on or after 3rd April 2023. If you still need to use the original report after that date, it will be available under Data Screen for Old Legislation up to 31st December 2023. Finally, the revised data screens can be set to a default level from either Chart, Practice or Partner.
Directors Report Individuals pronoun
Following an update made to the client record to allow an individual to have their gender assigned as ‘Other‘, within Accounts Production, we have introduced the ability to amend the pronoun in the Directors report for a single director company.
A new Data Screen has been introduced within, Directors, Sole Director Identifying as Other. This will allow a default pronoun of ‘they‘ or ‘their‘ to be updated with a more suitable choice. When applied, this will modify the directors report output according to the changes.
Update to the Ratios report
We have updated the Ratios report so that the information contained within, matches the output in the Elements Financial Performance Review (FPR) report. The first is an additional line item for net profit / (loss) after tax and renamed the existing net profit / (loss) to net profit / (loss) before tax.
The second is to update the profit ratios in the later part of the report to reflect the same changes (that is, profit before and after tax). Finally, we have included the trade creditor ratio to now bed reported in days. The Ratios report can be produced using the acronym ‘RAT‘.
IRIS Personal Tax
Legislation updates
Qualifying Asset Holding Companies
From 2023 onwards, updates have been made to IRIS Personal Tax to identify shareholdings from a qualifying asset holding company, with the added ability to select whether the shares are Excluded indexed securities or shares repurchased.
These additional fields can be found within the Shareholding details section of capital assets.
Jointly held individual details – Property record prepared by
In the tax return guidance for property income (UK and Foreign) it states the following for jointly held property income, ‘Tell us the name and address of the person who prepares your property records in the Any other information box on page TR 7 of your tax return’.
In order to cater for this guidance, we have updated the ‘Joint Sharers‘ data entry screen with a tick option ‘property record prepared by‘ for UK and foreign property data entry. This is an optional selection; if selected the software will automatically populate the tax return with the selected individual details.
Sortable columns within the Property section
Updates have been made to the UK property and foreign property data entry screens. It is now possible to sort the transactions entered within the Income and expenses screens; this can be sorted alphabetically on the descriptions or numerically on the expense types.
Relevant unique reference added to the EIS/SEIS screens
In the SA101 tax return guidance it is requested that details about each investment be given in box 19 on TR7. To cater for this, a unique investment reference field has been added to all data entry screens within the ‘Business Investments‘ section of IRIS Personal Tax. This reference will automatically populate on the return.
IRIS Business Tax
Legislation updates
Associated companies
From 1st April 2023, the government has increased the rate of corporation tax for certain businesses dependent on the level of limited company profits. The rate of corporation tax is set at 19% for profits less than £50,000 and 25% for any company over this limit. However, for companies with profits that fall between the upper and lower limit, marginal relief can be claimed.
The increase of Corporation tax rates, along with the re-introduction of marginal relief was implemented within the Autumn IRIS release. However, with the reintroduction of Upper, lower limits and marginal relief, naturally we see the reintroduction of associated companies.
HMRC have added new fields to the CT600 for associated companies (Boxes 326 – 328), which will replace the 51% group companies (Box 625). These new data entry fields have been added to IRIS Business Tax.
IRIS will automatically calculate the apportionment of the upper and lower limits and apply the applicable tax rate to the company total taxable profits, where an entry has been made within the corresponding associated company fields.
CT600 – Research and Development (SME and RDEC rate changes)
RDEC rate change
It was announced that from April 2023 the RDEC tax credit rate will be updated from 13% to 20%, updates have been made to the R&D data entry screen to cater for this rate increase, the sofware will automatically apply the corresponding rate dependent on the accounting period.
The software has been updated to cater for all scenarios including those with straddling periods, where the rate will be both 13% and 20% dependent on the date the expenditure was incurred.
SME R&D Tax Credit rate change
It was announced that from April 2023 the SME Tax credit rate will decrease from 14.5% to 10% along with a decrease in the additional deduction on SME tax credit expenditure which has decreased from 130% to 86%.
The IRIS Business Tax R&D Tax credit data entry screens automatically calculate the expenditure uplift along with automatically calculating the amount of payable tax credit. The software has been updated to reflect these rate changes eliminating the need to manually calculate the tax credit. The software will apply these rates for periods starting on or after 1st April 2023 but also cater for periods that straddling April 2023.
Energy (oil and Gas) profits levy
From 1st January 2023 oil and gas companies are required to pay an increase profits levy. To cater for this increase, new data entry has been implemented into the software under the Calculation tab in the treeview, ‘Energy (Oil and Gas) profits levy‘. Entering a value within this screen will update all necessary reports.
All Tax
Tax legislation and annual updates
Capital allowances £1,ooo,ooo AIA limit
In the mini budget it was announced that the planned reduction of the AIA limit to £200,000 from 1st April 2023 would be scrapped. The system has been updated to continue to automatically apply AIA up to the £1,000,000 limit. This has been set in the software to apply to all future accounting periods.
Amended indicator added to the Transmit internet return screen
Up until now it has not been possible to identify whether a return was either generated as a ‘New‘ or ‘Amended‘ return, we have therefore updated the transmit internet return screen for all tax products. A new column has been added called ‘New / Amended‘ which will be automatically completed based on the type of return completed. We have also added filtering to allow for easier analysis of tax returns generated across the practice or for an individual client.
Improved Navigation of the Capital assets – Shareholding data entry
Where a significant number of events have been entered against a shareholding and an event is edited, upon leaving this event the software will automatically redirect back to the top of the list.
To improve the navigation of this screen, we have changed this functionality for the latest event that has been edited to be highlighted, which will allow for better tracking of events in the list. (Edit | Capital assets | Shareholdings | Events)
Tax Legislation and annual Updates:
- Updated Dividends databases
- Updates to SA100, SA800, SA900, CT600, SA700 and R185 forms
- Updates to e-checklists for 2022/23
- All the updated reports, calculations and rates for the 2022/23 tax year
- Updates to Capital Allowances
IRIS Core
Other Gender Added to Personal Client Records
With the April release we have added a third option for gender titled ‘Other‘. This is to allow users to respectfully show their clients gender identity on their record.
Elements client Sync Control Panel
To give choice over which client records are sent and subsequently syncronised with Elements, we have introduced a Sync Control Panel. This new feature enables you to control which clients are initially sent to Elements; you can search for client records based on a range of criteria and bulk apply / disapply a syncronisation flag.
