Checking your notices

The Overview page

The 'Overview' page is designed to help you prioritise your clients whose notices are correct and those that you want to look at closer.

Finding your notices

Use the user filters at the top of the page to narrow the taxpayer view to only your clients. The people under the ‘Job Manager’ and ‘Account Manager’ filters mirror those in XPM, while the ‘Assignee’ is an independent field that can be changed. If you change the assignee, ProvCheck remembers this for future dates.

Using the workflow bar

Moving across from left to right, the colour-coded workflow bar helps you keep track of your progress. There are two initial bright red checks – ‘Data checks’ and ‘Not allocated’ – followed by nine workflow stages from ‘Not provisional taxpayer’ to 'Sent’.

Your objective is to get all your clients from the dark blue boxes on the left-hand side to the maroon / plum-coloured boxes on the right-hand side. However, you can use the workflow stages in any way that works for your firm.

What are data checks?

If your client is listed under ’Data checks’, ProvCheck has detected something for you to consider before doing your notice reviews. For example:

• The tax date for payment is inconsistent with your client’s balance date and/or provisional tax method. For example, they may have changed to six-monthly GST filing within IR’s system – but this may not be reflected in XPM.
• There is no recent IR data for your client because the client is no longer linked.

In both these cases, these clients may not need a notice and ProvCheck will show ‘N/A’ instead of calculating an estimate. If there is no obligation or they are no longer your client, you can move these clients to the ‘Not required’ stage.

The starting line

ProvCheck initially allocates your clients from the XPM upload between 'Not provisional taxpayers' and 'Not started.'

• 'Not provisional taxpayers' are clients who have had their return for the previous period assessed by IR and their residual income tax (RIT) for that period was under the provisional tax threshold of $5,000. Most of these clients won’t require a notice, however, watch out for any clients who are expecting RIT of greater than $60,000for the current year as they will still need a notice at their final provisional tax date.
• 'Not started' includes all your other clients from the XPM data upload.

'New data' will show any clients that were 'In progress', 'In review' or 'Ready to send' that ProvCheck has received new IR, XPM or tax pooling data for, so you can reconsider those taxpayers.

Selecting an amount

For taxpayers who require a notice, you have the option of selecting one of three amounts for the notice:

• The ProvCheck amount 
• The Xero amount 
• Your own Custom amount. This can be done for multiple clients at the same time using the bulk tools, or individually in the detailed workpaper.

To help you focus on the clients whose amount needs reviewing, ProvCheck calculates its own estimate of the amount due and highlights any difference to the Xero amount.

Working through differences between ProvCheck and Xero

Clicking on your client will take you to their detailed workpaper.

On the left-hand side you will see the IR and Tax Traders data used to calculate the ProvCheck amount. The ProvCheck amount is the IRD assessment for the current tax date, net of any IR credits/debit or Tax Traders positions since the last assessment. This data is updated daily and any changes to the ProvCheck amount will show under ‘New Data’.

On the right-hand side you will see the data that has been uploaded from XPM, alongside the basis for the calculation, and the status of the last few years of returns. This data is not live, and we recommend importing new files from XPM at least weekly. It’s important to note that there can be returns filed recently not reflected in the XPM data.

Differences between the ProvCheck amount and Xero amount arise from:

• Returns approved in XPM not assessed at IR: XPM will use the most recently approved return to calculate the tax amount due. However, the return may be out for signing, waiting for a client interview, or there can be other reasons it is yet to be assessed at IR. As such, ProvCheck will base its assessment on the client’s RIT from two years ago plus 10 percent. If your client has had large fluctuations in their RIT, when you filed their return can have a large impact on their obligation.
• Shortfalls at previous tax dates: the XPM calculation is a year-to-date calculation of all tax debits and credits. It does not consider where a client is exposed to penalties and interest because of a late or underpayment at a previous tax date. In contrast, ProvCheck focusses on debit and credits only since the last assessment for the current tax year and separately highlights shortfalls that can be purchased through the Tax Traders portal.
• Tax Traders positions not reflected in XPM: ProvCheck considers deposits, and purchase plans in place that relate to the current period. Where these are not reflected in XPM, there will be a difference.
• Over-rides in XPM: Sometimes XPM users override the calculation in XPM due to specific client circumstances. This will not be reflected in the ProvCheck amount. For example, a client may be expecting a loss due to unusual trading conditions. Each provisional tax date is a good time to review whether those assumptions are still valid or where changes need to be made.
• Transfers in XPM but not reflected at IR: You may have planned transfers for your client, but they may not yet have happened or been actioned correctly by IR, resulting in differences.

Documenting your findings

Once you’ve determined the amount for their notice, select either the ProvCheck or Xero amount or enter a custom amount as the amount for the notice.

There are three places to record your workings:

• Carry forward notes: These notes will be retained for the next tax date. This is a good place to record client payment preferences.
• Conclusion for [tax date]: Use this note box to record your reasoning for the selected instalment amount. This will not carry forward to the next date.
• Attachments: Here you can add a hyperlink to your workings and other important documents. This is particularly helpful where you are acting on specific instructions or calculations and you want a single source of information. These documents are only accessible to people who have access to your file management system.

Where XPM and ProvCheck agree

Where there is no difference between XPM and ProvCheck, or a minimal rounding difference, the risk of the proposed notice amount being incorrect has been significantly reduced. However, we recommend you scan through your full list of clients to consider:

• Any clients whose returns may be completed prior to the notice date.
• Any client specific knowledge.

Once you’ve selected an amount and documented your findings, you can then move this client to the next step in your workflow – for example, 'In review' or 'Ready to send.'