Importing from SAGE 50 Payroll - using a CSV File (start of year)

BrightPay facilitates the importing of employee information in CSV format from SAGE 50 Payroll.

A CSV import of both employee and their mid-year pay information can be performed in BrightPay at any point in the tax year.

Importing into BrightPay at the Start of the Tax Year

Please log in to BrightPay with your Bright ID. If you have already purchased BrightPay or another Bright product or used BrightPay Connect you will already have a Bright Id. If you do not have a Bright Id please click sign up for a Bright Id. 

As a new user, when you log into BrightPay, on the Welcome to BrightPay you will have a step by step guide on how to set up your information.

Step 1 - You will need to set up an Organisation. For assistance on setting up your organisation please see here.

Step 2 - Please Create or Import an employer - For assistance on setting up your employer please see our step by step guide.

Step 3 - Open the employer in order to import your employee and pay information into BrightPay.

In order to export your data from Sage to csv file(s) please:

1)  Export your CSV file containing your employee information from within your Sage 50 Payroll Software

Apologies for the poor representation of Sage screens below. We were asked by Sage to desist from using actual screen shots.

In Sage 50 Payroll go to > 'File > Data Export > Payroll Data Export':

1 a) Select Employee Details and click 'Next' 

1 b) Select the location where you would like to save your file to using the 'Browse' button - click 'Next' when ready.

1 c) Click 'Finish'

Now go to the location where you have saved your CSV file to and change the name of the file to 'sage.csv'. This can be done by right-clicking on the file name and selecting 'Rename'.

By doing this, BrightPay will be able to recognise that you are importing from SAGE 50 Payroll.

Important note: Do not open the CSV file, as Excel will format items such as sort code and account numbers and they may no longer be importable into BrightPay.

2) Now create your Employer into BrightPay.

2 a) To manually create an employer in BrightPay select Add New Employer.

2 b) You can manually enter in the name of your employer. This is the name you have registered with Revenue and will appear on the payslips for your employees. Select 'Next'.

2 c) A new employer has to be assigned to an organisation. Select the organisation you wish to add your employer to.

If you wish you can mark an employer as available to admin members of the organisation only. This means that only the owner and administrator members of the Organisation will be able to see this employer when they access BrightPay.

Select 'Next'

2 d) You’ll be asked how would you like to use BrightPay – three options are available:

1. Start at the beginning of the tax year - select this option if you are running payroll from the start of the tax year

2. Start Partway in the tax year – you should select this option if you are starting payroll partway in the tax year with no previous payroll records in the same tax year

3. Continue Partway in the tax year – you should select this option if you have already have payroll records for the tax year up to this point and wish to continue from where you have left off. Selecting this option will allow you to enter in year-to-date figures for each employee.

If you wish to import employee information at the start of the tax year Select 'Start at beginning of the tax year' and Select 'Next'

2 e) Complete each screen accordingly with your relevant employer information.

For further assistance with this, please see our support section on Adding a New Employer.

3 ) Once you have entered in and saved your employer information, go to > Employees > Import & Export > Import/Update Employees from CSV File....

4 ) On the Import Employees from CSV File window select 'Continue'

5 ) Browse to the location of your SAGE CSV file, select it and press 'Upload'.

6 ) BrightPay will ask you to confirm that this is a SAGE file - click yes to confirm.

7 ) Your employee information will be displayed on screen. Please select Continue to move forward to the import screen.

8 ) On the import screen BrightPay will automatically match up your column information and will automatically untick the header row. Please untick any rows you do not wish to be imported into your employer.

9 ) Click Import to compete the import of your employee information.

Your employee information will be imported into BrightPay.

Following the import, further employee information can be manually entered within 'Employees', if required. Alternatively you may wish to update missing employee information using CSV file.

It is also recommended that all employee details are reviewed before processing any payroll to ensure information imported in is correct and applicable for the tax year in question.

After reviewing your employee information, simply click the 'Payroll' tab to commence processing payroll.