HR and payroll often treat the annual employer return as a portal chore. The application is the extract: who was paid, what was withheld, which benefits were declared. If the extract is wrong, a clean portal submission simply stores the error.
A short reconciling sample—new joiners, leavers, and a few benefit-in-kind cases—catches more than a last-day stare at the confirmation screen. Give exceptions to named owners with a date before the filing window, not after.
We review the application. We do not run payroll. That boundary keeps the findings usable for the people who actually change the extract.