2026-3 Payroll Accord release notes

Tax Year Compliance: VocaLink

• Updated VocaLink modulus checking datafile with validation files v9.00 and v9.10.

Tax Year Parameters

• Updated the CONST2000 value for the 2027/28 tax year.

Payrolled Benefits in Kind: 2027 Mandation (foundations, not yet enabled)

These changes lay the foundations for payrolling Benefits in Kind from 2027/28. 

Car Details now opens from the Payroll Company/User ribbon, and Parameters has a new read-only Benefits tab; both are visible to all customers now.

• Moved Car Benefits (Car Details) maintenance from Utilities into the Payroll Company/User ribbon.

  

   

• Read-only Benefits tab;

  

Bureau Improvements – Backup/Restore

• Activated the new Backup/Restore functionality.

• Removed unused backup/restore database options from the Backup/Restore dialog.

Bureau Improvements – Task Batch Manager

• Output files (PDF, XLSX or both) can now be opened directly from the Last Run Result button.

• The Payroll Calculation Exception Report can be opened from Last Run Result, and completion messages have been reworded.
• Modernised the Task Batch Manager dialogs, including improved layout and fonts, resizable windows, Run/Stop buttons, disabled irrelevant controls, and typo and button label fixes.

Performance: Tax Code Update and End of Year

• Optimised the Tax Code Update for very large employee volumes.

• Users can now choose to re-apply a tax code update to employees already processed; previously these employees were skipped silently.

• Improved the performance and responsiveness of EOY Reset Accumulators.

Wage Type Alternative Name

• The alternative wage type name is now shown in the Select Wage Type and Add Wage Types from Template dialogs.

Car Benefits

• Car List and Calculate Car Benefits buttons are now disabled for fixed wage types unrelated to car benefits.

Hosted (Azure) Connection Resilience

• Export & Email Payslips and Export & Email Employee Reports no longer abort large runs when the database connection drops mid-job.

Other Enhancements

• Added a Feature Toggles tab to the Payroll About box. First delivered in 2026.2.1. 

  

   

• Added SSO stamp type support to the database for the MyPay, HR and CSI sync process.

• Accord can now hold a Company group ID per company, used to identify customers for billing.

  

   

Webmail Service

• Upgraded the Webmail Service to Visual Studio 2026 and a newer .NET version.

• Reduced upload round trips by increasing the file chunk size.

• Moved the Webmail Service installer and code into the main source control repository.

• Migrated Accord to Visual Studio 2026, including the BCG libraries and Stingray Studio 2026.1.

• Updated the SAP Crystal Reports runtime from SP32 to SP39.

• Updated installer dependencies to the October 2026 .NET runtime patch and made .NET runtime detection version-agnostic.

• Removed redundant and older-year files from the installer.

• Modernised the SQL Server schema by replacing ntext columns, and aligned the Sybase creation script and datatypes.

• Updated the database base tables script to use current SQL Server user creation syntax.

• Application Insights telemetry is now registered only when configured.
   

Fixes

This release also includes smaller fixes and quality improvements, covering restores, Task Batch Manager, wage type copying, EPS submissions, and on-screen messages and labels.