Working from home – Payroll Manager

This guide is designed to help if you normally use Payroll Manager at work, but temporarily need to operate the payroll from home.

How Payroll Manager works

There are two main aspects to using Payroll Manager to process your payroll – i.e. the payroll software and the payroll data files

The payroll software is called ‘Payroll Manager‘, and is downloaded from our website and installed onto the hard drive of your computer.

The payroll data files contain information about your payroll (i.e the employees names and addresses, pay, deductions, pensions etc). These files are created by the user, and by default will be stored in a folder called ‘Payroll‘ in the users ‘Documents‘ folder  – e.g. C:\Users|Your Username\Documents\Payroll (although you may have chosen to save them somewhere else). Each company that you process payroll for has a separate payroll data file for each tax year.

Using Payroll Manager on your home computer

In order to temporarily run the payroll from your home computer you will need to first install Payroll Manager, and then transfer backup copies of your payroll data files onto that computer. When the times comes to start

using the work computer again, you should make new backup copies of your payroll data files, and then restore them onto the ‘work’ computer.

Please note that Payroll Manager is compatible with Windows 11 and Windows 10  (and will not work on a Mac/iPad/tablet)

Moving from the ‘Work’ computer to your ‘Home’ computer

• Get your data files from the ‘Work’ computer. Select ‘File-Utilities-Backup/Restore-Backup all Files in default folder‘ from the menu. If you already have a file open, then Payroll Manager will prompt you to close this first. A box will appear that will let you chose where to save the files – browse to your chosen location – (be it a USB memory stick or similar) and click ‘OK’. You will then see a message informing you that the backup(s) have been created.
• Make a note of your User Licence Code. You can find this by clicking ‘Help – User Licence‘ from the main menu of Payroll Manager.
• Install Payroll Manager on the ‘Home’ computer. Go to our website ( moneysoft.co.uk ) on your ‘Home’ computer and click on the ‘Downloads‘ link at the top of the page. Click on the link marked ‘Full Download’ on the right hand side of the page. Follow the on-screen instructions. This will install Payroll Manager on the ‘Home’ computer.
• Run the program on the new computer, and enter your current User Licence Code when asked to do so. Please note that it is OK to use the same User Licence Code on your ‘Work’ and ‘Home’ computers, as long as the software is not actually run on both computers at the same time.
• Insert the device (e.g. memory stick, external hard drive) onto which you backed up your payroll files.  Select ‘File-Utilities-Backup/Restore-Restore Multiple Files‘ from the menu, and select the device. The available backup files will be shown. Click on one of them, then hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard and press A (which will select all the files) and then click on the Restore button. A window will appear titled ‘Browse for folder’. Payroll Manager will automatically select the correct (default) folder for restoring files to. Click ‘OK’. A message will confirm that the files have been restored. Click ‘OK’ to close the screen.
• Click on File-Open and you should see all your files.

When you finish working from home – moving back to the ‘Work’ computer

When you wish to start using the ‘Work’ computer again then you should make backup copies of each of the payroll data files that you have been working with on the ‘Home’ computer, and then restore these backups onto the ‘Work’ computer.

• Select ‘File-Utilities-Backup/Restore-Backup all Files in default folder‘ from the menu. If you already have a file open, then Payroll Manager will prompt you to close this first. A box will appear that will let you chose where to save the files – browse to your chosen location – (be it a USB memory stick or similar) and click ‘OK’. You will then see a message informing you that the backup(s) have been created.
• Run Payroll Manager on the ‘Work’ computer.
• Insert the device (e.g. memory stick, external hard drive) onto which you backed up your payroll files.  Select ‘File-Utilities-Backup/Restore-Restore Multiple Files‘ from the menu, and select the device. The available backup files will be shown. Click on one of them, then hold down the CTRL key on your keyboard and press A (which will select all the files) and then click on the Restore button. A window will appear titled ‘Browse for folder’. Payroll Manager will automatically select the correct (default) folder for restoring files to. Click ‘OK’. A message will confirm that the files have been restored. Click ‘OK’ to close the screen.

The payroll information contained in the payroll data files on the ‘Work’ computer will now include any work that you have been doing on the ‘Home’ computer.