At a glance
As the world's seventh-largest pharmaceutical company measured by revenues, AstraZeneca has operations in over 100 countries worldwide. It has a portfolio of products for major disease areas, including cancer, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, infection, neuroscience, respiratory and inflammation. AstraZeneca relies on Avco’s Payroll Bureau service for managing and sending payroll files to HMRC.
The Problem
With operations in over 100 countries, AstraZeneca employs a huge workforce. In the UK, the pharmaceutical giant employs more than 65,000 people, and – with each department employing its own MIS for managing employee information – the company faced a dilemma when it came to submitting payroll files to HMRC. They needed a solution that:
- Integrated with their current MIS packages
- Could work with any MIS package's export data
- Could unify file submission to HMRC, while amalgamating the employee information from all the departments
On top of all of this, they needed someone to look after the entire e-filing process itself.
The Approach
Avco’s bureau service looks after the file conversion and transfers on behalf of AstraZeneca. Avco also provides a format conversion service for any payroll software currently used at AstraZeneca that does not produce HM Revenue & Customs data in the specified GFF, EDIFACT or XML formats. The custom-built interfacing and conversion software allows AstraZeneca to retain its existing payroll system but still comply with the new Inland Revenue requirements.
