The Enter court orders / CSL option is used to enter the various types of court orders used in the United Kingdom such as Council Tax, Child Support Agency (CSA) and Scottish based orders as well as the collection of student loan (CSL) deductions from employees.
To access Enter court orders / CSL
The Payroll Password form is displayed.
Enter your payroll password.
The PAYROLL menu is displayed.
Select the Enter court orders / CSL option.
Note: If the payroll has been confirmed for the current period the message Court Order records cannot be changed when the payroll has been confirmed is displayed. You should select the OK option to allow for the display of court orders and if necessary return to the payroll menu since further updating of the payroll is not possible without the payroll being reset using the Confirm/reset period payroll option.
The Court order records form is displayed.
Court order records Form
The Court order records form is displayed when you select the Enter Court orders / CSL option from the PAYROLL menu.
What do you want to do or be advised about?
Court order handling summary
The general procedure to follow when processing a court order is as follows:-
Understand the court order type and the sequence it should be applied. Your software supplier will not advise on matters of priority. All queries concerning the priority of your court orders are best directed to the issuer of the court orders.
Check the court order type record within the Miscellaneous options menu, Court order/CSL options menu, Court order types option to determine if the court order type uses payment bands - this is the case if the field called Use payment bands is ticked.
Check the payment bands within the Court order type record by clicking the Payment bands TAB. Check the bands agree with the deduction schedule on the court order being careful to choose the correct court order type. The default types tend to end W for Weekly and M for Monthly payrolls.
If the band amounts in the table are found to be out of date, for example, for a monthly based Council Tax order then click the Amend button. If the court order type is used by any payroll record on the system the message Warning, court order type in use. is shown, you should then click OK to the message and then the Cancel button and instead of amending the existing record create a new court order type record based on a copy of the existing court order type record. This is achieved by next clicking the Copy radio button, clicking the Create button, changing the court order type code by adding a digit to the end of the code, for example, CTAEOM Council Tax Attachment Earning Order Monthly is changed to CTAEOM2 and then completing the payment band details. This is because other court order deductions should not be altered if they are currently deducting the correct amounts.
< /li>If you do not believe the software can still handle the type of order you should contact your software supplier.
The court order should be entered with reference to the Court order records form section of this on-line help file.
Report on the court order payments using the Miscellaneous options menu, Court order/CSL options menu, Court order summary report and if the employee requires details, use the Court order employee report.
The court order should typically be paid by BACS or cheque.
Summary of court order types supported
Council Tax Attachment Earning Orders (CTAEO) % band calculations
Child Support Agency Deduction Earning Orders (DEO)
Priority Attachment of Earning Orders (AEO)
Non Priority AEO
Earning Arrestments (EA) for Scotland
Current Maintenance Arrestments (CMA) for Scotland
Conjoined Arrestment Orders (CAO) for Scotland
Collection of Student Loans (CSL)
Community Charge AEO new (CCAEO) % band calculations
Community Charge AEO old (CCAEO) value band calculations
The court order record consists of up to three TABs. The BACS TAB is only shown if the payroll company is linked to a BACS company. To create a court order first click the Create button otherwise to amend an existing court order first enter the employee number, select the court order if there is more than one court order attached to the employee and then click the Amend button. Complete the Court order and BACS TABs as required.
Court orders Tab
The Court orders form is displayed when you select the Court orders Tab from the Court order records form.
Employee number: The individual number allocated to each employee consisting of up to six digits. This will default to number zero. The employee number chosen may however be changed by the user by entering the employee number or by using the search function described in the tip below.
Tip : Click the Ellipsis button
to search for an employee number from the employee records file by either a surname search or a word search. The search will only list those employees that have been created for your current payroll company and payroll type that do not have their left flag set to Y or P indicating a left employee in the current and previous tax year respectively.
If the payroll type parameter called Block edit of own record is ticked it is not possible to select your own record as identified by the Employee record containing your user id in the User ID field. If you enter your own payroll record number the error message You are not permitted to edit your own payroll record is shown.
The system checks if the employee has left and if the employee has left the following warnings is shown:- Employee has left (DD/MM/YYYY).
Unique identifier: The unique identifier is a system maintained field that is allocated to the court order record to ensure the uniqueness of the record. It is obtained by checking other court orders present for the same employee.
Court Order code: The eight character court order type code.
Tip : Click the Ellipsis button
The court order type data file is installed as a part of system set up but the data file will not be re-issued by your software supplier on future upgrades since it is modified by yourselves as required. Software upgrades may however add new court order types for future use into the data file.
Choose the type of court order, if you are unsure on the type of court order you should always refer to the issuer of the court order.
A Non Priority Attachment of Earnings order will for example be an order that does not carry forward any shortfalls in deductions or protected earnings from one pay period to another. Users in Scotland have separate orders which tend to have codes starting with SCOT.
Note: Various fields that follow will automatically be skipped if not required.
Start date: The start date of the court order is only prompted for when a court order type is calculated on a daily basis. This is controlled by the court order type field called Scottish CMA/CAO field. The court orders types with their default names that are relevant are as follows:-"
SCOTCMA - Scotland - Current Maintenance Arrestment
SCOTCONJ - Scotland - Conjoined with Maintenance
SCOTCONN - Scotland - Conjoined non Maintenance inc.
End date: The end date of the court order is only prompted for when a court order type is calculated on a daily basis. This is controlled by the court order type field called Scottish CMA/CAO field. The court orders types with their default names that are relevant are as follows:-"
SCOTCMA - Scotland - Current Maintenance Arrestment
SCOTCONJ - Scotland - Conjoined with Maintenance
SCOTCONN - Scotland - Conjoined non Maintenance inc.
Administration code: This is an optional field so it may be left blank however it is recommended you complete the field if a court order administration fee is taken rather than manually adding a deduction code to the payroll record. Defining the deduction code allows the system to verify the administration fee and to automatically suspend the fee when required. By adding the deduction code used for the court order administration fee to the court order record the deduction code will automatically be added to the payroll record. If an employee has more than one court order and it is your intention to take a court order administration fee you need to ensure a different deduction code is used for each administration fee.
Tip : Click the Ellipsis button
If an addition code is entered instead of a deduction code an error message is shown:- This code does not refer to a deduction and you are forced to re-enter either a deduction code or to blank off the code.
If there is no space to add the deduction code to the payroll record a warning message is shown:- Unable to update payroll additions/deductions because no slots are available on the payroll record. In the event of this message being shown the administration code should be removed off the court order record or an addition/deduction code should be removed off the payroll record to make space for the court order administration code to be added.
In the unlikely event that the deduction code added as the administration code on the court order record is deleted in between adding the code to the court order record and creating the court order a warning message is shown:- Unable to update payroll additions/deductions, due to error reading deduction record. If this warning occurs you should either re-create the deduction code or amend the administration code on the court order record.
The value of the court order administration fee will be taken into account when determining the court order attachable earnings figure, court order administration fees are then allowed to be taken off the net pay even if the net pay goes below a protected earnings amount.
The value of the administration fee found on the deduction record will be verified against the maximum allowed value defined on the court order type record. The maximum amount varies by court order type. It is currently one pound in England, Wales and Northern Ireland but 50 pence for some court orders used in Scotland. If the court order administration fee is too high you will be shown an error message Deduction code fixed amount exceeds maximum administration costs. and prevented from creating or saving the court order record.
If the court order administration fee deduction code is not a fixed type record declaring the value you are prompted when creating the court order record to enter the administration value. It will default to the maximum amount allowed defined on the court order type record. If the amount entered exceeds the maximum amount allowed defined on the court order type record an error message Maximum permitted amount (X.XX) for the court order type exceeded is shown and you are prevented from creating the court order record.
If the court order type record has been incorrectly set up with a maximum of a zero value court order fee a warning message is shown:- Unable to update payroll additions/deductions due to administration code with max amount of 0. If this warning occurs you should either amend the court order type record to declare the maximum court order administration fee or remove the deduction record from the court order record.
If the court order type record has been deleted or corrupted in between adding the court order type code to the court order record and creating the court order record then an error message is shown:- Unable to update payroll additions/deductions due to error reading court order type. If this warning occurs you should check the court order type record.
Court order NL control: The balance sheet expense code for the court order control must be entered.
Tip : Click the Ellipsis button
When creating or saving the court order record the expense code will be checked to ensure it is a balance sheet account and if not the error message C.Order NL control (CCJEXPEN) Not a balance sheet account is shown. If this error message occurs you should correct the Court order NL control field to ensure it is a balance sheet account.
Sequence to apply: If the employee only has the one court order this may be left as 1. If more than one court order exists for the employee the sequence must be entered. The lowest sequence number is the highest priority court order. Priority orders will have a lower sequence number than non priority orders, the priority is also governed by the date of issue. You should always refer queries on court order priority to the issuer of the court orders.
If for an employee with more than one court order you change the defaulted sequence number and as a result a duplicate sequence number is present you are shown an error message:- Cannot have a duplicated Sequence number. Click the OK button and change the Sequence to apply field.
Attachable earnings: The attachable earnings field is system maintained and updated as a result of running the Calculate period pay option. It may be used to later check on the court order deduction calculation amount if required.
Court order balance: This current or opening balance to be entered from the court order paper work supplied if pre-defined otherwise left as 0, the court order types record will indicate with the Order balance used field if the court order balance is required or not, if the Order balance check box is set to a tick then the court order balance figure should be entered on the court order record.
3 types of court order not requiring a court order balance to be entered are :-
CSA - Child Support Agency Deduction Earning Order (DEO)
SCOTCMA - Scotland - Current Maintenance Arrestment
SCOTCONJ - Scotland - Conjoined with Maintenance
These types will not have the period court order balance showing a negative figure after the calculation, refer to the court order payment field to see the figure deducted.
Deficit on Normal Deduction Rate (NDR): This should be left as 0 to start with. On a set up with a priority order it may be necessary to enter a figure, deficits are logged as positive numbers. The court order types record will indicate with the Priority Order field if the deficit NDR is to be used, only Priority orders accumulate a deficit NDR if the attachable earnings is too low in a payroll period.
Deficit on Protected Earnings Rate (PER): This should be left as 0 to start with. On a set up with a priority order it may be necessary to enter a figure, deficits are logged as positive numbers. The court order types record will indicate with the Priority Order field if the deficit PER is to be used, only Priority orders accumulate a deficit PER if the attachable earnings is less than the PER figure in a payroll period.
Court order payment: This should be left as 0 to start with. On a conversion from another payroll system/earlier AUTOLINE system it will be necessary to enter a figure if the court order report is to be of use. Payments are logged as positive numbers. This field is more useful for CSA and Scottish CMO/CAO orders which do not show the court order balance on the court order record as they are 'On going' orders.
Tax year and Tax period: Each court order allows for up to 4 different Normal Deduction Rates (NDR) and Protected Earning Rates (PER) figures to be entered to start with to save remembering to change the figures later, in most cases court orders will state a single set of figures.
If only a single NDR and PER is stated and the court order deduction is effective from the current payroll period the Tax year and Tax period fields maybe left blank as schedule 1 will be used by default.
If there are several NDR and PER figures quoted the starting payroll period must be entered, the tax year is the starting tax year, for example, for the tax year 2006/2007 the tax year is treated as 2006. The tax period is the first payroll tax period that the NDR and PER are to be used, for example, December on a monthly payroll is tax period 9. Schedules 1 to 4 should be entered in chronological sequence although if not the calculation program will double check your entry and select the correct court schedule to operate with.
Normal deduction: This needs to be entered from the court order paper work supplied if pre-defined otherwise left as 0, the court order types record will indicate with the Use payment bands field if the NDR is required or not. If the Use payment bands to use field is blank a NDR figure should be entered on the court order record. Council Tax, Community Charge and Scotland - Earnings Arrestments (EA) use a % or value based band table to determine the NDR and thus should not have the NDR entered.
Protected earnings: This needs to be entered from the court order paper work supplied if pre-defined otherwise left as 0, the court order types record will indicate with the Scottish CMA/CAO and Daily PER fields if the PER is required or not. If the Scottish CMA/CAO field is unticked in which case the Daily PER field is likely to be 0 then the PER figure should be entered on the court order record.
Note: Not all court orders have a PER quoted, if not quoted and not one of the following, check with the issuer and if confirmed as having no PER, enter as 0. Court orders using a band table usually have the lowest band with a 0 value or 0% payment, this is effectively the PER, you do not in this instance have to enter the lower band amount into the PER field.
If on a multi-tax period payroll such as fortnightly, the PER should be entered as the pay type (e.g weekly) equivalent as the system will automatically multiply it up by the number of tax periods in each payroll period.
Types of court order not requiring a PER to be entered are :-
SCOTCMA -Scotland - Current Maintenance Arrestment
SCOTCONJ - Scotland - Conjoined with Maintenance
SCOTCONN - Scotland - Conjoined Non Maintenance incl.
Period fields: The four fields under the title Periods to the right of the Brought fwd fields are not directly edited. They are completed as a result of using the Calculate period pay option.
Schedules 2,3 and 4 These do not have to be entered for court orders unless several NDR, PER figures are quoted.
What do you want to do?
BACS Tab
The BACS form is displayed when you select the BACS Tab from the Court order records form.
The BACS TAB is only shown if the payroll type is linked to a BACS company.
BACS payment: Tick the BACS payment field if the court order payment is to be paid by BACS, leave it blank if the payment is being paid by another method such as cheque. Once the BACS payment field is ticked the other fields on the BACS TAB are accessible.
Bank sort code: Six digit sort code.
Note: If the sort code entered begins with zeros the leading zeros are not shown but are used on the BACS transmission.
Bank account number: Eight digit account code.
Bank account type: A single digit between 0 and 9. Normally this is zero but this needs to checked with the financial organisation used by the issuer of the court order. This is required for BACS payments and is validated to ensure you have entered a digit between 0 and 9.
Bank account name: Eighteen character account name. A check is performed for invalid characters.
Court reference: Eighteen character reference for the court order payment. A check is performed for invalid characters.
Payment made to BACS: The amount of court order transferred to the BACS Submission module for transmission to BACS during the current payroll period. This amount allows for two or more payment runs to be processed for the employee by BACS within a single payroll period. If money has been transferred to the BACS Submission module using the Miscellaneous options menu option called Transfer BACS buffer to BACS but the money is not being transmitted to BACS due to an error it may be necessary to reset this field to zero using the Miscellaneous options menu, Utilities menu option called Zero off BACS transfer amounts.
Payment category: A one character payment category if payments are to be generated into their own BACS batch otherwise left blank if the payment is to be combined with other BACS transactions for the payroll period.
Tip : Click the Ellipsis button
What do you want to do?
Audit Tab
The Audit form is displayed when you select the Audit Tab from the Court order records form.
The audit data TAB is system maintained and may be used to check when and by who a court order record has been created or amended.
The following fields are displayed on the Audit Tab. All of these fields are self-explanatory and thus no explanation is supplied.
Date created
Time created
Created by
Creation terminal
Date amended
Time amended
Amended by
Amendment terminal
What do you want to do?
PUSH BUTTONS:
Exit: Returns you to the PR MAIN menu.
Help: Displays help on the current application in your default company browser.
Create: Click the Create button before entering the employee number or any other details if creating a new court order record.
Amend: Click the Amend button after entering the employee number and if shown a choice of court orders chosen the court order if wanting to amend an existing court order.
Delete: Click the Delete button after entering the employee number and if shown a choice of court orders chosen the court order if wanting to delete an existing court order.
Save: Saves any changes that you have made to the court order form and allows you to maintain further court orders.
If the payroll type parameter called Posting warning before confirm is ticked the nominal ledger postings to be generated as a result of using the option are verified and any posting validation errors are brought to your attention. Press Continue to close the form and correct the employee or payroll record as soon as possible. Posting errors will normally be due to the Cost centre or Cost centre split fields on the employee record forming an invalid account combination with the NL Grade field on the Static 1 TAB of the payroll record.
Cancel: Cancels any changes that you have made to the court order record form and returns you to the PR MAIN menu.
Ad-hoc: Allows for reporting on the court order records.
Calculate period pay processes and messages
The court order period figures and attachable earnings field are completed when using the Calculate period pay option.
If no court order deduction is taken the court order administration fee deduction record is set to a status of C - Court order suspended and the employee is recalculated with no court order administration fee taken since a court order administration fee should not be taken when no court order deduction is made.
When using the Calculate period pay option various checks are performed which are included on the Calculate period pay exception report with one of the following status codes:-
W: Warning - the message should be read and data checked if necessary. A Warning does not stop the processing of the employee.
A: Action - an action is required as a more serious problem has been detected. An Action message does stop the processing of the employee.
K: Kerridge - contact the software support department. A Kerridge message does stop the processing of the employee and indicates a more serious problem is present on your system needing investigation.
Type Message User Action A Court order administration too high Correct the deduction code value on the payroll record or on the deduction record itself if the deduction code is a fixed type and re-calculate the payroll for the employee.
A Court order payment periods duplicated, order ignored Correct the tax year and tax period schedules on the court order record and re-calculate the payroll for the employee.
A Court order type XXXXXXXX load error, order ignored Check and if necessary re-create the court order type record within the Miscellaneous options, Court order/CSL options menu option called Court order types and re-calculate the payroll for the employee.
A Court order type XXXXXXXX load error Check and if necessary re-create the court order type record within the Miscellaneous options, Court order/CSL options menu option called Court order types and re-calculate the payroll for the employee.
A Court order admin code not found on the payroll record Add the deduction code to the payroll record or remove the deduction code from the Administration fee field on the court order record and re-calculate the payroll for the employee.
A Only one student loan per employee allowed Delete one of the court order records that relate to a Student Loan since only one is allowed per employee and re-calculate the payroll for the employee.
A Court order type XXXXXXXX - invalid student loan flag Check the court order type record within the Miscellaneous options, Court order/CSL options menu option called Court order types to ensure the Student loan field is set to a blank indicating N, Y or I and re-calculate the payroll for the employee.
W Student Loans (CSL) occur - the CSL report should be run A student loan has been collected but the Collection of Student Loans report is not mandatory for running in the Execute EOP option, this is advisory for you to run the report though for your records.
W Student loan not collected due to other court orders You could check to ensure other court orders stopping the collection of the student loan are valid.
W LEAVER: Court order (XXXXXXXX) balance outstanding (#######.##) You should advise the issuer of the court order that the employee is leaving your employment. XXXXXXXX is the unique court order number.
W LEAVER: On going court order (XXXXXXXX) operating You should advise the issuer of the court order that the employee is leaving your employment. XXXXXXXX is the unique court order number.
W SUSPENDED: Court order (XXXXXXXX) balance outstanding (#######.##) You should advise the issuer of the court order that the employee is suspended due to their casual working basis, XXXXXXXX is the unique court order number.
W SUSPENDED: On going court order (XXXXXXXX) operating You should advise the issuer of the court order that the employee is suspended due to their casual working basis, XXXXXXXX is the unique court order number.
Court orders and payslips
Court orders will appear on the deduction or right hand side of the standard payslips in the sequence order and show the amount remaining having taken the payroll period into account to the right of the payslip description stored on the court order type record. Only when a court order is completely paid will the balance not be shown.
Reporting court orders
It is recommended that the Court order summary report be added as a mandatory end of period option report. This report may otherwise be run from the Miscellaneous options, Court order/CSL options menu.
If an employee requires a report of their own court orders this may be produced by using the Miscellaneous options, Court order/CSL options menu option called Court order employee report.
If it is required to report on previous court order payments this may be achieved by using the ad-hoc enquiries or report generator options on the Payroll history file for the current tax year or the Archive history file for the previous tax years. The total court order payments for an employee within a payroll period are stored in the field called TOTCOPAY - Court order payments.
Select new period
When the pay period is carried forward, even at year end the court orders are checked for completion and removal as follows:-
If the court order type record has the Order balance used field ticked and the Carried forward balance is zero the court order is removed.
If the court order type record has the Order balance field unticked the court order record itself may be manually deleted using the main payroll menu option called Enter court orders / CSL.
What is the next process?
Your next step in the payroll process is to use the Enter leaving date option to maintain leavers and to re-instate payroll records to perform final irregular payments to left employees.
The overall process of running a payroll period may be summarised as follows:-
Make amendments to existing employees and create new employee and payroll records and if used, Human Resource records for joiners using either the main employee records or payroll menu option called Full employee edit or the Employee records main menu option called Add/modify employee details, the main payroll menu option called Add/modify payroll record and the main human resources menu option called Human resource records.
Input pay details option to input the main payroll details.
Enter sickness details option to input the sickness details if this option is to be used on your system.
Enter maternity details option to input the maternity details.
Enter paternity details option to input the paternity details.
Enter adoption details option to input the adoption details.
Enter court orders/CSL option to input the court orders and student loan collections.
Enter leaving dates option to maintain leavers and to re-instate payroll records to perform final irregular payments to left employees.
Calculate period payroll option to calculate the payroll.
Reports & enquiries option may be used at this or at any other entry stage to check the data that has been entered onto the system.
Print payslips option to first preview the payslips on screen or to print them on plain paper for checking and then to print the payslips followed by selecting the Update option.
Print cheques option to first preview and then to print cheques if used as a payment method followed by selecting the Update option.
Print bank giros option to first preview and then to print bank giros if used as a payment method followed by selecting the Update option.
Confirm/reset period payroll option to freeze the input of the payroll and to generate nominal and optional BACS postings held at this stage within the payroll module.
BACS listing option to produce a BACS listing report if BACS is used.
Transfer BACS buffer to BACS option to copy the payment data to the BACS submission module on the main accounting system or the payroll system ready for transmission to BACS if BACS is used.
Confirm/reset period payroll option to possibly reset the payroll and to correct the original generated payroll. This is typically followed by selective use of all the steps prior to the first use of the Confirm/reset period payroll option.
Execute EOP options option to produce the reports set up for mandatory running within the payroll period - this is best left until you are satisfied with the accuracy of the payroll processed.
Reports & enquiries option to produce any other optional reports and at payroll year end mandatory reporting.
Select new period option after a nightly system backup to select into the next payroll period or payroll year including the optional copying of the nominal ledger postings to the main accounting system and any other BACS generated postings to the BACS submission module on either the main accounting system or the payroll system ready for transmission to BACS.
