Dec 2014
23
Auto enrolment with BrightPay: The Movie
Meet John, the small business owner who uses BrightPay payroll software to easily manage his automatic enrolment duties.
In this video, John uses a NEST pension scheme to enrol his employees. However BrightPay is also compatible with NOW: Pensions, The People's Pension, Scottish Widows, and many more.
BrightPay provides everything you need to prepare your clients for Auto Enrolment.
- Staging and employee assessment
- Postponement feature
- Handles employee communications
- Ongoing monitoring and reporting
- Opt - outs and refund options
- Free email and phone support
- Fully compatible with RTI submissions & HMRC payments
- Integration with many pension providers (including tailored CSV preparation)
BrightPay is HMRC approved, RTI compliant and ICB (Institute of Chartered Bookkeepers) accredited.
Nov 2014
28
Exhibiting at Chartered Accountants Hall
BrightPay were in London today at the ICAEW Sole Practitioners Conference in Chartered Accountants Hall, Moorgate.
200 ICAEW members attended the event. The subject matter of the lectures included:
Automatic enrolment
Economy update
Tax update
Panel debate: Tomorrow's practice
And more ...
Aug 2014
1
Thesaurus Software enters corporate partnership agreement with The Start Up Loans Company
Thesaurus Software is delighted to announce that it has entered into a corporate partnership with The Start Up Loans Company.
Through this exclusive arrangement, Start up Loans' clients will be offered free payroll software and support.
The Start Up Loans Company is a UK government funded initiative aimed to help new businesses by offering loans at attractive rates for the purpose of start up funding. Start Up Loans also helps with discounted and/or free products, services and mentoring which the start ups require to get up and running. This is where Thesaurus Software comes in with its free offering of BrightPay payroll software.
The Start Up Loans Company has funded and guided over 19,000 new businesses since its inception two years ago. Approximately 40 new businesses are started a day through the scheme.
May 2014
26
BrightPay at the Business Show 2014
We recently attended the Business Show 2014 at the Excel in London's docklands.
The show is aimed at start up businesses and those interested in becoming self employed.
BrightPay's lead programmer, Ross Webster, was asked by a passing cameraman to give a spontaneous interview.
Ross performed well as there was literally no time to prepare!
The cameraman then turned his attention to Paul Byrne ...
Feb 2014
7
Auto enrolment and the small employer
UK businesses with less than 30 employees will be impacted by auto enrolment from the start of 2016.
BrightPay will be a great aid with auto enrolment as it already has all the information required to assess which of your staff should be enrolled and then to handle the pension deductions (and your contributions) in the manner prescribed by the regulations.
Apart from assessing employees and handling deductions, there are numerous additional auto enrolment tasks that BrightPay will help you with. An example of this is producing the letters or emails that must be sent to your employees on enrolment (or postponement).
A month or two before your staging date (the date on which your auto enrolment responsibilities commence), decide which pension provider to use and register with that provider. NEST is probably the most popular scheme as it is government backed and has an obligation to accept employers of all sizes and employees of all earnings. This is different to some schemes who may attempt to cherry pick who they take on.
When your staging date arrives, an hour or two should be sufficient to deal with the following auto enrolment tasks:
- enrolling all relevant employees (i.e. all eligible jobholders)
- communicating as required to all employees
- setting up and commencing employee deductions and employer contributions
BrightPay will guide you through the above tasks.
From that point on it is just a matter of monitoring. The initial month or two after staging you will need to deal with any requests from employees to opt out and any requests from employees, who you were not obliged to enrol, to opt in (or join).
BrightPay will monitor the age and earnings of your staff in each subsequent pay period to see if any further enrolments are required and if any new employees should be enrolled. For most small businesses, these enrolment events will probably happen no more than once or twice a year and each such event should only take a few minutes to process.
A contribution file will need to be submitted after each pay period to the pension provider and payments of all amounts due must be made by 22nd of the following month. This file will be produced by BrightPay in much the same way as RTI files are currently produced.
So, your new payroll workflow will be something like:
- Process hours, overtime etc.
- Deal with any enrolment events identified by your software
- Finalise the pay period
- Distribute payslips
- Submit RTI file to HMRC
- Submit contribution file to the pension provider
Steps 2 and 6 are new.
In conclusion, staging will be a small bit of work but, after that, auto enrolment should become a seamless part of your payroll process.
Jan 2014
25
Auto enrolment and BrightPay
You have probably heard about automatic enrolment by now. If you don't yet know what it is, or if you need a quick reminder, there is a very helpful guide to automatic enrolment at The Pensions Regulator website.
What is my Staging Date for Automatic Enrolment?
The staging date is when you must automatically enrol your employees into a qualifying pension scheme.
You can find out your staging date at the Pensions Regulator website link given above. If you have less than fifty employees, your staging date will be no earlier than 1st August 2015 (subject to very few exceptions).
If need be, you can postpone your obligations for a further three months from your staging date.
Will BrightPay support Automatic Enrolment?
The Pensions Regulator Automatic Enrolment guide suggests that supporting software should:
- enable you to assess your workforce (existing and new employees), monitor eligibility criteria, and enrol staff into a qualifying pension scheme
- allow the postponement of auto enrolment for relevant employees
- calculate pension contribution amounts
- handle opt-ins and joining
- handle opt-outs and refunds
- support you in generating and issuing communications to your staff
- keep records and provide reports
- interoperate with some or all pension scheme provider systems for information/payment submissions
BrightPay 2014/15 will support all of these requirements. We plan to initially provide interoperability with NEST, and will be working with other providers as time goes on.
If automatic enrolment is not relevant for you in 2014/15, the only changes you will notice in BrightPay are that you may be asked to enter your staging date, and that the completion of the date of birth field will be mandatory for all employees.
Will there be an additional charge for Automatic Enrolment functionality in BrightPay 2014/15?
No. We will continue to offer the same simple pricing model, including free support.
Please keep an eye on our blog for further updates on automatic enrolment and how it works in BrightPay.
If you have any more questions, please call or email us. We are confident that automatic enrolment will be easy with BrightPay.
Aug 2013
27
Payroll World Awards - Shortlist announcement
BrightPay has been shortlisted as a finalist in the 'payroll software product' category for the Payroll World Awards 2013! The full list of finalists will be publicised on the Payroll World Awards website, via email and in the magazine on the 30 August.
Bright Contracts – Employment contracts and handbooks
BrightPay – Payroll Software
Aug 2013
22
CIPP Payroll and Pensions Awards Shortlist Announced
Following a judging which took place on Friday 16 August 2013, we are delighted to announce that CIPP have short-listed BrightPay for the CIPP’s payroll and pensions excellence awards.
BrightPay has been shortlisted in the "Payroll product of the year" category.
The winner will be announced on 26th September 2013.
Jul 2013
23
BrightPay supporting Barretstown
Congratulations to our BrightPay team members, Denise and Caroline, on their completion of the PowerFit spinathon in aid of Barretstown.
Thesaurus Software is a strong advocate of Barretstown who offer an invaluable service to society rebuilding the lives of seriously ill children and their families.
We at Thesaurus Software recognise the hard work of all charities and the current difficulties they face in meeting their challenges, to that end we offer all registered charities a free standard payroll software license and customer support on an ongoing basis. Click here for our terms and conditions.
Bright Contracts – Employment contracts and handbooks
BrightPay – Payroll Software
Jun 2013
18
Paying HMRC
HMRC have issued guidance (and a reminder) on the PAYE payment position for employers reporting PAYE in real time, as they appreciate that many employers are still getting used to this new way of reporting. Click here for the full article.
Bright Contracts – Employment Contracts and Handbooks.
BrightPay – Payroll & Auto Enrolment Software.
