Sage 50 have released a mandatory update to the Payroll V21 software, to take you to version number 21.03.410.

The software will not run unless you install the update, however if you do not have administrator privileges then the update may not install correctly and you could get an error message such as “Error 1325.alison.mead is not a valid short file name.”

We suggest you do not run the update when presented with the option, but you cancel and re run payroll by right clicking the icon and choosing the ‘run as administrator’ option, then follow the instructions on screen to install the update.

If you do run the update and it brings up the error message, subsequently if you then view “Help and about” in your Sage – it will appear to have been updated successfully by reporting v21.03.410 but as the support line at Sage said to me – ‘it’s lying to you’.

You must install the software again from a profile with full administrator privileges – you can find the update saved in the directory “C:\ProgramData\Sage\Central\AutoUpdates” in order to run it manually from your administrator log in.

If you have any further issues then call Sage Support (as for payroll software we recommend that you should always have Sage Cover in order to keep compliant with payroll legislation changes).  If you do not have Sage Cover then please get in touch with us and we can arrange the cover on your behalf.