HMRC has notified us of an enhancement to the Agents Online Self-Serve (“AOSS”) function introduced in 2015. The AOSS allows agents to opt in to see the liabilities and payments of employer clients. Some 25,000 agents use the service every quarter.

There were some known issues with the data in the AOSS, including that it did not show the Apprenticeship Levy, where relevant. Agents also said that they disliked the inconsistency with the screens that their employer client could see via their Business Tax Account as these were not the same as the AOSS screens, and larger firms were excluded as they could not opt in for the service.

HMRC committed to improving the service based on this feedback and that work is ongoing. As it continues HMRC has asked us to share with you an agents guide to the new screens which were released to a small number of agents earlier this year.

By way of summary:-

• The new screens will be identical to those the employer client sees – data for a tax month will appear on the 12^th following the end of the tax month; and
• Any data quality issues should also have been resolved.

Over the past few months, more agents have been given access to the new screens which HMRC is managing as an incremental rollout so that it can be sure, at each stage, that the service is running well. HMRC hopes some larger firms will be able to access the service – again, on an incremental basis.

HMRC wishes to stress that the performance and accuracy of the service is really important. If an agent sees data that appears to be incorrect when viewing the new screens, you are encouraged to click the “Get help using this service” link, leave a description of the problem, and send screen grabs so that HMRC can resolve any problem as quickly as possible.