Installing the P11D Organiser for the First Time (2024)

Please note:

If the P11D Organiser has been installed previously, you should NOT be following these instructions, you should be heading over to the article that covers moving an existing P11D Organiser system. There is a link to the guide on moving a system here: Moving a P11D Organiser Installation

The Basics

Although the P11D Organiser can be installed on a single, standalone PC, we would always recommend that it is installed on a shared drive or server location – this facilitates multi-user access and ensures data is safeguarded and backed up in-line with your company’s policies and procedures.

It is important to remember that the location needs to be a standard SMB share and must not be a SharePoint or 'synced' drive (such as OneDrive or GoogleDrive) – the same applies to shared drives where a DFS alias is in use (or live file replication). There are more details on why here: Use of GoogleDrive, OneDrive, DropBox, SharePoint (or similar)

Before You Start...

You will require full administration rights for the local machine and to know the location of the intended share if installing onto a NAS/File Server etc.

Essential Components

For the P11D Organiser application to function, there are some key pre-requisites that need to be available on the user’s PC – these are handled by the initial installation process that is detailed below:

• Access to P11D Organiser application and data location (with read/write/modify/execute permissions).
• Application specific DLLs
• PDF Print Driver

Methods of P11D Organiser Operation

It is important to understand that once installed, the P11D Organiser can be operated in one of two ways:

By way of explanation, we saw huge change in the way our customers used the software since Covid occurred and users started to work from home. Network connections were not as solid, and VPN often restricted the operation of software when run directly from server or share. We also saw increased security that 'locked down' network operations, which at the time meant some customers couldn't report to HMRC or use email correctly. We therefore put a lot of effort into 'decoupling' the executable from the data, and transferring customers over to a client/server architecture.

When running in the new mode of operation, each user of the P11D Organiser has their own P11D Organiser application on their local PC, and this connects to the core data over the network - it allows improved security handling, and reduces network traffic.

P11D Organiser application updates are still handled centrally, ensuring all users of the system are running the same version of the software, which is why we now recommend this approach as the default.

New Installations

For a NEW installation, the recommended process is:

1. Run the setup file on the proposed end user’s PC.
2. Choose the location on the shared device.
3. Complete installation.
4. Launch the P11D Organiser from the shortcut that will be on the user’s desktop.
5. Once on the login screen, create a client on the local PC by pressing F6. This will create a local version of the P11D Organiser on the local machine in a folder named P11D Client.

There is a step-by-step walkthrough of the installation in this article: Installation Step by Step Guide (2024)

Once completed, you can then proceed to log in and create user accounts.

1. Log into the software with the username ADMIN and the first use password you have been issued.
2. Setup your user and any additional users via the admin tool.

There is a step-by-step walkthrough of creating users in this article: Setting Up Users (2024)

To Join a New User’s PC to the Existing System

From the new user’s PC, navigate to the shared location, locate the INSTALL folder, and run the Workstation.exe installer from shared location, this will ensure the necessary components are installed.

1. When the installation process is complete, launch the P11D Organiser from the shortcut on the desktop of the user’s PC.
2. On the login screen, create a client on the local PC by pressing F6. This will create a version of the P11D Organiser to the local machine in a folder names P11D Client.

There are more details of creating a client in this article: Creating a P11D Organiser Client (2024)