IEEE Access latex file forces the volume and year to be listed as volume 4 2016, how do I change that?

The year value is hardcoded in the class, which is a bit odd. However, you can patch the footer commands with the etoolbox package to insert a custom macro. The volume is controlled by defining thevol, which works without patching.

MWE:

documentclass{ieeeaccess}
usepackage{cite}
usepackage{amsmath,amssymb,amsfonts}
usepackage{algorithmic}
usepackage{graphicx}
usepackage{caption}
usepackage{textcomp}
usepackage{subfig}
usepackage{etoolbox}
%%% Define variable values
defthevol{3}
defmyyear{2019}
%%% Patch the footer commands
makeatletter
patchcmd{@evenfoot}{2016}{myyear}{}{}
patchcmd{@oddfoot}{2016}{myyear}{}{}
makeatother
defBibTeX{{rm Bkern-.05em{sc ikern-.025em b}kern-.08em
        Tkern-.1667emlower.7exhbox{E}kern-.125emX}}

begin{document}
history{Date of publication xxxx 00, 0000, date of current version xxxx 00, 2019.}
doi{10.1109/ACCESS.2019.DOI}

title{BLA}
author{uppercase{R D}authorrefmark{1}, IEEEmembership{Senior Member, IEEE}}
address[1]{BLA)}
tfootnote{This work was supported in part by CMC Microsystems for the provision of software tools.}

markboth
{R.D headeretal: BLA}
{R.D headeretal: BLA}

corresp{Corresponding author: RD (e-mail: BLA).}

begin{abstract}
BLA
end{abstract}
abc
EOD
end{document}

Result:

Open the latex class ieeeaccess, find the 2016 and change it to 2020

You can redefine the volume and year easily like below in your tex file :

renewcommand{thevol}{15}
renewcommand{theyear}{2020}

However, the year might not change as the IEEE access style class ieeeaccess.cls has mistakenly used hard coded year instead of using this theyear variable.

In that case, you can find the 2016 word in your ieeeaccess.cls file and replace with theyear. Do not change the deftheyear{2016} line in the ieeeaccess.cls file though :)

To remove VOLUME 4,2016 from the Access template. Edit ieeeaccess.cls file. Open the file and search for VOLUME, the value of volume(eg: 4), and value of year (eg:2016). Remove all these values from the ieeeaccess.cls file. This works!