More than 1,200 agents have signed up to participate in trials of the new Agent Online Self-Serve.

In August, HMRC requested volunteers from firms with up to 500 employer clients to participate in the trials. The current AOSS service is designed for smaller sized agents. In preparation for the move from private beta to a public beta service for PAYE liabilities and payments, and the future extension to SA, VAT, and CT, trials will now focus on firms with up to 200 clients within each individual service from these tax regimes.

The project is being run using “agile methodology” which enables an iterative approach to development where changes and enhancements in response to testing and feedback are incorporated. As a result of testing over the summer, HMRC are revising their approach.

This is to ensure the service performs well across a range of tax regimes, rather than larger agents on one regime. The full list of services are listed on the ‘Services you can use’ section of ‘Your HMRC services’ after log in to HMRC online services for agents.

In line with the current phase of this AOSS private beta service design, the focus is on firms with up to 200 clients in each individual service. Agents with over 200 clients in any service who have already sought to join the private beta trial will be contacted and informed of the new criteria and where possible will be invited to test future services in the pipeline to be developed. These will include the development of services for larger firms to also access AOSS.