PAYE22015 - employer records: trace employer record: fuzzy matching

COP Function EI has the benefit of ‘fuzzy’ matching, that is, specific characters may be used in place of unknown characters in the name or address. Use of these special characters will increase the potential number of ‘hits’, but will also slow down the search.

Long name

You do not need to enter the whole of a long name. Instead enter the first four or five letters followed immediately by a hyphen. For example, SZOB-.

The computer will search the index for all records starting with the letters that you have entered.

Unknown letter

Where one or more letters are unknown, you can replace those letters with the symbol @. For example, if you are unsure whether the employer’s name is CARN or CAIN you can enter CA@N.

The computer will search the index for all records matching the letters that you have entered, with any letter as the third character.

Possible additional letter

Where you are unsure whether or not a letter should be present, you can enter a ? where that letter may (or may not) be. For example, an employer’s name may be spelled THOMSON or THOMPSON. You can enter THOM?SON.

The computer will search the index for all records under both spellings of the name.

Punctuation

It is not necessary to enter punctuation in the name. Leave a space instead

• Rather than O’REILLY, enter O REILLY
• Rather than BROOKE-TAYLOR, enter BROOKE TAYLOR