Managing Payroll Access: Essential Advice for Employers

How can you make payroll more secure?

Do you process payroll in-house? If so, you are likely aware of how important it is to keep your employee’s pay information secure and to control who has access to the payroll and who can process it. However, maintaining such tight control over payroll functions can cause frustration and delays.

BrightPay Connect, the optional cloud add-on to BrightPay Payroll, makes it easier to manage who has access to the payroll information. The User Management interface offers flexibility and security by allowing you to set employees up as either Administrators or Standard Users. Both sets of users have different levels of permissions and there are advantages for both.

Connect Users:

An administrator has full control over the BrightPay Connect account. Typically, the business owner and the payroll processor are set up as administrators. As an administrator, they have the ability to edit account settings, add new users, and manage all employee information and processes. Access restrictions cannot be added for administrators and so it is recommended to have as few administrators as possible.

An administrator can add a new standard user. Standard users can be set-up with certain types of permissions and restrictions. For example, the HR Manager can be given permission to approve employee leave requests for all departments, to view financial information including payslips and reports, and upload HR documents to distribute to employees. However, the Marketing Manager can be given permission to only approve leave requests for employees in their specific department, without any access to the payroll information or HR documents.

To watch how to set up an administrator or standard user, click here.

Benefits

There are a number of benefits to having an easy, secure and flexible User Management system.

1. Save Time: Effective user management can save you time in a number of ways. By setting up your accountant as a standard user with permissions to view payroll reports, you will no longer have to communicate back and forth with them about payroll. Additionally, communications between HR and employees regarding leave requests can be reduced by delegating the responsibility among department managers.
2. Improve Operations Management: Department managers are likely to have a much better understanding of their project timelines and deadlines than the HR department. By allowing these managers to have control over leave requests, they can better manage their team’s schedule and workload.
3. Increase Security: Payroll data holds sensitive financial and personal information that you are legally obliged to keep secure. No-one wants a situation where an employee can view personal and financial information that they shouldn’t. With the User Management system, you can securely manage who can access payroll data, which also helps you with GDPR compliance.
4. Improve Flexibility: What happens if you are not available to run this month’s payroll? With BrightPay Connect, standard users can be given permission to ‘Connect and sync employer data’. This means that, although the other person is a standard user, they can still be given permissions to run the payroll on the desktop application of the payroll software, and synchronise the payroll to Connect when completed, so that both users will have the most up-to-date version of the payroll. BrightPay Connect also includes improved multi-user access, where the software will notify you if another user is currently in the payroll, or if you are not using the most up-to-date version of the payroll.

Interested in learning more? Book an online demo today to discover more about BrightPay Connect and the many other ways it can benefit your business.

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Furlough Scheme: Set to change next week

The 2021 Budget, announced at the beginning of March, introduced the government’s spending plans for the upcoming year and the measures they’re taking to wind down the furlough scheme while at the same time supporting businesses and employees. It was announced that the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (CJRS) would be extended until 30th September with a number of changes introduced before its closure. This week, on July 1st, changes will be made to the level of grant available.

What is the current subsidy scheme?

Currently, under the existing scheme rules, employers can claim grants covering 80% of wages up to a cap of £2,500 for the hours an employee is not working. Where the employee is not working, the employer does not have to contribute towards wages for unworked hours, but they are responsible for paying employer NICs and pension contributions. Where an employee is on flexible furlough, employers must pay the full amount for any hours worked (including doing work-related training).

What’s set to change?

From 1st July, the level of grant will be reduced, and employers will be asked to contribute towards the cost of their furloughed employees’ wages. The Government will contribute 70% of wages, up to a maximum of £2,187.50 per month for hours not worked. The employer will also have to contribute 10% of wages so that the employee receives 80% of their usual wages for any hours not worked (up to cap of £2,500). You can choose to top up your employees’ wages above the 80% total at your own expense. You must also continue to pay the employer National Insurance contributions and pension contributions.

Any more changes?

The Government subsidy will continue to drop. In August and September, this contribution will drop to 60% of wages, up to £1,875 per month for hours not worked. The employer will be required to contribute 20% of wages for hours not worked, (again, up to a cap of £2,500).

Support Available

BrightPay hosts frequent webinars, free-of-charge, to support the accounting and bookkeeping community. Take a look at our upcoming webinar where we’ll be discussing the changes to the furlough scheme and how BrightPay payroll software caters for CJRS.

Check out the full list of our upcoming webinars here.

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• Furlough extension: How the rules are changing
• Informally Payrolling of Benefits Changes for 2021-22
• The Impact the National Minimum Wage Rise has on Furloughed Employees

Avoid penalties & pay HMRC within 90 seconds (even on weekends)

The late payment of income tax, National Insurance Contributions (NIC), student loan deductions and income tax due under the Construction Industry Scheme (CIS) can lead to penalties for employers and contractors of all sizes. With so much to think of when running a business, forgetting to pay your PAYE bill on time each period, can end up costing you.

Penalties for overdue payments:

Your bill must be paid by the 22nd of the next tax month if you pay monthly or by the 22nd after the end of the quarter if you pay quarterly. It can be easy to forget to pay on time, especially if you pay by card online, by Bacs or by cash or cheque at your bank, as with these methods you will need to allow 3 business days for your payment to process. If you are paying by direct debit for the first time you will need to give 5 business days for your payment to process and once set up, this method takes 3 business days to process. The waiting time for payments to process means payment deadlines can easily be missed, especially when weekends and bank holidays need to be considered.  

What steps can you take to insure you don’t miss payments to HMRC?

Choose a payroll software that displays amounts due and keeps track of payments to HMRC

Your payroll software should facilitate the recording of payments made to HMRC. BrightPay is a payroll software which has a HRMC Payments tab from which you can view a detailed summary of your tax, NIC and student loan liabilities for the current period. From here you can also add any CIS deductions, tax refunds from HMRC or any funding from HMRC which may apply. Your amount due to HMRC will be displayed, and once a payment has been made, you can enter the amount paid and payment date.

Having this function in the payroll software serves as a reminder to payroll processers to send their payments to HMRC.

Pay HMRC directly from your payroll software - within 90 seconds

As mentioned above, certain methods of making payment to HMRC can take between 3 to 5 business days to process. If the deadline falls on a weekend or bank holiday you must make sure your payment reaches HMRC on the last working day before it. The only method of payment that can guarantee same day payment to HMRC, even on the weekend or bank holidays, is when you make payment by Faster Payments.

New to BrightPay this year is an integration with payments platform Modulr. Since March, our customers have been using this integration to pay their employees directly from the payroll software. Now, we have added a feature which allows you to pay HMRC directly from the payroll software through Modulr, using the Faster Payments method. This means that with a few simple clicks within the payroll software, you can have your payments sent and received by HMRC in under two minutes. The simplicity and convenience of using this method over others means that payments can be made at the eleventh hour, without having to worry about penalties for overdue payments.

Book a free BrightPay demo today and learn how BrightPay can help you avoid penalties, stay compliant and make running payroll as easy as possible.

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Posted byElaine CarrollinPAYEPayroll Software

We need to talk about automatic enrolment compliance

The past year has been rough for all businesses. (That’s my submission to the “Most Obvious Statement of the Year” awards - hope I win!) But seriously, we all know it’s been the pits. With everything going on it can be really easy to forget about all the commitments you still have to fulfil as an employer, even in the midst of a pandemic. Auto-enrolment is one such thing.

What is auto enrolment? Put simply, by law, every employer with at least one member of staff must enrol all those who are eligible into a workplace pension scheme which they must also contribute to. Since 2019, employers are required to pay 3% of employees’ qualifying earnings, the employee pays 4%, and the government adds relief of 1% tax - making the total contribution 8%. Tidy right? (It’s called automatic enrolment as it’s automatic for staff - they don’t have to do anything to be enrolled into a pension scheme. The employer should do this for them).

Well, some staff may wish not to avail of the workplace pension scheme you signed them up to for various reasons. But regardless, after three years, every three years, you must put the staff back into it. This is re-enrolment. With this you must complete a re-declaration of compliance to tell the Pensions Regulator that you’ve met your duties. If you don’t do this you can be fined.

But is it like a fine? Or a fine fine? Well, they can get pretty hefty, put it like that. If the Pensions Regulator isn’t satisfied with how you’re running a pension scheme they can issue a Compliance Notice, Improvement Notice or Unpaid Contribution Notice. They may also estimate any unpaid contributions, charge interest on them and recover any unpaid contributions. If they’re still not happy and feel you haven’t complied with your obligations then they’ll come to your house, kick your door down and slap you upside the head. Just kidding, but they will issue you with a penalty notice and fine. These include :

• A Fixed Penalty Notice with a fixed fine of £400
• An Escalating Penalty Notice that charges £50 to £10,000 for every day you are non-compliant depending on how many employees you have in the PAYE scheme
• A Prohibited Recruitment Conduct Penalty Notice with a maximum fine of £5,000
• A Civil Penalty Notice for non-payment of contributions, of up to £5,000 per individual and £50,000 per organisation
• An Unpaid Contributions Notice - this requires you to pay unpaid contributions plus interest and may make the employer liable to pay the employees' contributions which are overdue.

Crikey! I did tell you they aren’t messing about! So how can you avoid getting a penalty? Well, you can leave sticky notes on your calendar for every three years to remember to re-enrol employees, or you can tie a piece of string around your thumb really tight to remind you, or you can use an automated payroll system that will do all of the hard work for you in the background.

BrightPay Payroll Software is just the ticket. It’s an award-winning payroll software that automates all auto enrolment duties including re-enrolling employees for both employers and payroll bureaus. BrightPay is compatible with 18 different workplace pension providers and includes direct API integration with NEST, The People’s Pension, Smart Pension and Aviva. The software carries out all the employee assessments automatically and even sends out automatically prepared enrolment letters personalised to each individual employee. There is so much more I can say about this but instead let me direct to this page where the full features are outlined.

But the best bit? While most of the payroll software providers charge extra for the service, BrightPay provides it at no extra cost. *Mic drop* - wow! If that isn’t music to your ears then you must be deaf. Head on over and take another mental load off your poor suffering shoulders. You’ll never have to worry about the Pensions Regulator kicking your door down ever again.

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• Auto-enrolment contributions during furlough
• The payroll mistake that could cost you (and how to avoid a fine)

Posted byAoibheann ByrneinAuto Enrolment

3 APIs that your Business Should be Using

Have you ever been asked, “can’t you just use an API for that?” and thought to yourself “what the hell is an API and how does it work?”. APIs are a type of integration and are used in everyday life. API stands for application programming interface which allow two applications to talk to each other. APIs increase automation, improve efficiency and if you use APIs to your advantage, they'll make your life a lot easier.

If you’re a payroll processor you’re going to be very happy to hear that BrightPay payroll software includes a number of API integrations. These include direct payments from BrightPay, payroll journal APIs and integration with pension providers.

1. Direct Payments

BrightPay’s integration with Modulr will give you a fast, secure and easy way to pay employees and subcontractors through BrightPay. Get ultimate convenience with real-time and 24/7 payments including one-off and emergency payments. To avail of this integration, users will require an active Modulr account. Visit the Modulr website for more information.

Prior Problem: Time-consuming Bacs files and a 3-day process to pay employees

Our Solution: Pay employees in less than 90 seconds

2. Accounting Software

With BrightPay’s payroll journal integration, users will be able to directly send the payroll journal directly to the accounting package from within BrightPay. This accounts software integration eliminates the need to export the CSV file from the payroll software and import it into the accounting system, saving time and reducing the risk of errors. BrightPay includes direct API integration with Xero, AccountsIQ, Quickbooks Online and many more. A 'generic' CSV file journal option is also available for those who use other accounting software packages that are not listed on our website. Please note: the generic CSV file journal option is not part of the API integrations.

Prior Problem: Manually exporting wage journals and importing them into the accounting software

Our Solution: No more manual work – do it all within BrightPay

3. Pension Providers

BrightPay offers direct API integration with four pension providers: NEST, The People's Pension, Smart Pension and Aviva. This functionality means that users can submit their workplace pension data from within the payroll software directly into the pension provider. This API integration allows BrightPay users to send their pension data with one click.

Prior Problem: A lot of time spent importing and exporting files to send them to the pension provider

Our Solution: Send pension data to the pension provider with just one click

BrightPay invests a lot of time developing API integrations to improve the software and increase functionality for its users.

Book an online demo of BrightPay today to see how the accounts, pension and direct payments API integration features can benefit your business and help automate payroll tasks.

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Posted byHolly McHughinPayroll Software

New Feature! Pay HMRC using Modulr

BrightPay’s recent partnership with Modulr was launched with the aim of providing our customers with the most seamless payroll workflow possible. The API integration allows accountants and business owners to pay employees directly from BrightPay.

Our customers responded to the partnership with enthusiasm, registering with Modulr to set up their accounts to try it for themselves. James Toulson, Managing Director of One Less Worry payroll services, who signed up to Modulr, had this to say after trying our new direct payments feature:

Responding to feedback:

Since launching the integration, we’ve worked closely with our customers to understand what worked well and what could be improved. One feature that customers felt would be particularly useful, was a direct payment method to HMRC using the Modulr integration.

To that end, we’re happy to announce that all BrightPay and Modulr customers can now pay HMRC the tax and National Insurance (and any other deductions) owed for each pay period, directly through the payroll software.

What does this mean?

This new feature provides a fast, secure and easy way to pay HMRC through BrightPay. It adds to Modulr’s already existing functionality that helps you to:

• Pay Instantly (under 90 seconds)
• Pay anytime, anywhere (including weekends and bank holidays)
• Save even more time by cutting out numerous steps associated with Direct Debit and Bacs when paying employees and when paying HMRC
• Cut down on errors associated with manual entry

Already a customer? You can view a step-by-step guide on how to pay HMRC using Modulr here.

Pricing Structure

Our aim of creating the best customer experience possible drove our decision to partner with Modulr, a fintech company which is transforming the way companies do business. Modulr are also the payments partner behind the digital banking app, Revolut.

With this partnership, we wanted to provide as many customers as possible with an improved payroll workflow. If you are an accountant processing payroll for a number of clients, click here to view Modulr's pricing. If you only process payroll for your own employees, click here to view Modulr's pricing. 

Get in touch:

Interested in learning more? Get in touch with the BrightPay team to discover the benefits of Modulr’s integration by clicking here. Already a BrightPay customer? Book a demo directly with the Modulr team to learn more.

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Posted byÁine CourtneyinHMRCNew FeaturesPayroll Software

The key to managing the annual leave backlog

Managers will likely be in a situation where many employees will request to take leave at the same time. Whether it’s during the summer months, winter months or during school holidays, there will be a higher demand for leave at certain times of the year. But how do you handle it?

Employers should have a clear policy on holiday requests. Typically, a “first-come, first-served” approach works well. While it might not be possible to please everyone and give them their requested time off, it is important that you deal with annual leave requests in a way that is transparent and fair to all employees.

With the average annual leave in the UK at approximately 28 days per year, a recent Glassdoor Annual Leave Survey revealed that the average UK employee only uses 77% of their annual leave per year. To achieve a better work-life balance, employers should encourage employees to take their full annual leave days every year to avoid burn out further down the line.

Where possible, managers should allow and accept the annual leave requested. However, managers have the right to decline holiday requests (with the correct notice) if the timing of leave would result in the business being understaffed and unmanageable.

If your business is faced with a high demand for annual leave for certain time periods every year, you can require employees to take annual leave on dates chosen by the employer. Employers must give the employee twice as many days’ notice as the period of leave requested.

By introducing BrightPay Connect, employees can access a self-service portal via an app on their smartphone or tablet device. They will be able to request leave 24/7 from anywhere, meaning they don’t need to be in the workplace to request leave. When an employee requests leave, the employer will get a notification to login to their online portal to approve or reject the leave. The requests will be time stamped so you can see the order in which they come in. Employers can access a company-wide calendar that will display all leave so that you can ensure adequate staffing before approving an annual leave request.

You can have multiple users on BrightPay Connect meaning each department/line manager can approve leave for their own department. More information on user access and permissions can be found here.

Book a 10-minute online demo of BrightPay Connect to discover how it can benefit your business.

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Posted byHolly McHughinAnnual Leave

Customer Update: June 2021

Welcome to BrightPay's June update. Our most important news this month include:

• The importance of automated backups

• BrightPay & QuickFile: Connecting Payroll and Accounting Software

• P11D & working from home expenses: What you need to know

Leaving Lockdown & The Ongoing Need for Furlough       

Although the UK is approaching the end of the roadmap out of lockdown, many businesses will need to avail of the furlough scheme until its very end in September 2021. Join BrightPay for a free webinar on 16th June where we discuss the furlough changes that are taking effect from the beginning of July.

Disaster Recovery and How Cloud Backups Can Help   

Data loss poses a serious and unpredictable risk for many businesses. Never lose your payroll data again with BrightPay Connect as it maintains a chronological history of your backups. You can restore and download any of the backups to your PC or Mac at any time. 

Digital Banking and its Impact on the Payroll Sector 

Rather than using the traditional Bacs payment services to pay employees, you can use Faster Payments Service to send money in real-time between bank accounts. A digital payments infrastructure offers greater payroll flexibility, reducing unnecessary stress. 

How to Manage the Annual Leave Backlog  

Posted byHolly McHughinCustomer Update