A payroll software planning record that ties customer evidence to commercial gates

Complete this template for one release, buyer group and tax year. Replace every bracketed prompt with evidence or mark it unknown. A plan that hides uncertainty will fail precisely where payroll needs a clear decision owner.

Outcome and audience

Target user: [role and operating model]

Payroll context: [employee range, pay frequencies, PAYE schemes, pension providers]

Observed problem: [event, frequency, consequence and current workaround]

Promised outcome: [measurable result]

Unsupported cases: [territories, worker situations, integrations and service tasks]

Attach anonymised evidence from recent payroll cycles. HMRC's running payroll overview can help map the standard tax-month sequence, but the customer's actual approvals and systems must come from research.

Reporting and calculation scope

Area	Supported version	Evidence	Owner	Next review
PAYE tax	[tax year]	[test reference]	[name]	[date]
National Insurance	[tax year]	[test reference]	[name]	[date]
Student loans	[tax year]	[test reference]	[name]	[date]
FPS and EPS	[schema or rule]	[acknowledgement]	[name]	[date]
Statutory payments	[scope]	[case set]	[name]	[date]

Use the HMRC software-developer collection to locate current specifications. Its 2026 to 2027 test-data page explains that the examples support developers' own testing. Passing supplied cases does not replace wider product, integration and regression tests.

Pension workflow

Assessment performed: [yes, no or partial]

Contribution basis and tax-relief method: [verified configuration]

Provider exchange: [scheme, format, version and rejection route]

Join, leave and communication scope: [tasks and owner]

Records retained: [content, period and access]

Check the plan against The Pensions Regulator's payroll software task list. Avoid a single "pensions supported" tick that conceals untested tasks.

Data, access and continuity

Record controller, processor and sub-processor roles; data categories; lawful instructions; retention; user roles; administrator authentication; logging; exports; backups; restoration and incident ownership. Include service dependencies and the tested recovery time for payroll-critical functions.

If the product interacts with HMRC services, review the current web-services access policy. Do not design a workaround around collecting another party's sign-in details.

Delivery and commercial gates

Set dated gates for design review, specification freeze, test completion, parallel payroll, customer acceptance, support readiness and release approval. For each, name the evidence required and the person able to stop launch.

Model pricing against observed onboarding, support, exception and maintenance costs. List assumptions for active employees, extra runs and migration. Review actual cohort margin after several cycles.

Finish with unresolved decisions, dependencies and expiry dates. The template is complete only when a reviewer can see what is supported, what remains uncertain and what evidence permits the next step.

Pilot and acceptance record

Authoritative live process: [existing system and owner]

Parallel cases: [ordinary, boundary and exception scenarios]

Reconciliation result: [differences, causes and resolution]

Stop conditions: [events that prevent progression]

Customer acceptance: [role, date and evidence]

No pilot should quietly become production because a deadline arrives. State which system calculates the live payroll, who may submit information and how test records are isolated.

Measurement and review

Define completed payroll, accepted submission, correction, support incident and active billed employee before reporting them. Record product outcomes separately from leads and trials. Review after each run during the pilot, then set a cadence appropriate to the release.

At review, compare actual support, infrastructure and maintenance work with the pricing assumption. Retire metrics that do not influence a decision. Preserve the signed version of the plan so later teams can see which scope and evidence governed the release.