Jul 2020
2
BrightPay Customer Update: July 2020
Welcome to BrightPay's July update. Our most important news this month include:
-
Rehiring Employees After Layoff - The Payroll Implications
-
Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme - Checking refunds in ROS
-
COVID-19 Webinar On-Demand: Important Payroll Updates & Return to Work
3 Important Changes to the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme
As the economy slowly recovers and many businesses reopen their doors, new changes to the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme have been introduced. It’s essential that employers keep up-to-date with these changes so that they know best how to manage their payroll as they bring employees back to work.
What you need to know about Rehiring Employees
Where an employee previously laid off has been re-hired, the employee will qualify for the Wage Subsidy Scheme if their DEASP claim is ceased. Once you've added the employee back onto the payroll, you need to request an RPN for this employee the day before processing the payroll. As well as retrieving the employee’s tax credits and cut-off points, this will also inform Revenue that the employee has been rehired. Revenue will therefore know to issue an amended TWSS instruction, which needs to be downloaded from ROS again and re-imported into the payroll software.
7 Steps To Returning To Work After COVID-19
On the 9th of May 2020, the Government published the Return to Work Safely Protocol. This sets out a number of steps for employers and workers to reduce the risk of exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace. Here we have pulled out and summarised the key points that you need to be aware of moving forward.
BrightPay Connect: Streamlining Remote Working & Payroll Processing
The productivity and efficiency of your team are only as great as your remote working process, especially when it comes to payroll. With more employees continuing to operate from home, there are increased expectations of cloud access to payroll information.
BrightPay Connect’s user-friendly employee app is available to download on Android and iOS devices and allows employees to:
- View their payslip library
- Request annual leave on the go
- Check their leave balance remaining
- View past and scheduled leave
- Access payroll & HR documents
- Update personal details
COVID-19 Webinar - Did you miss it? Watch on-demand now
During our most popular webinar, we looked at recent changes to the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme and the payroll implications of rehiring employees. We also broke down the Return to Work Safely Protocol and summarised it into 7 key points that employers need to be aware of.
Jun 2020
11
PAYE modernisation: Common mistakes and how to avoid them
In January 2019, we saw the biggest overhaul of the Irish PAYE system since it was introduced. PAYE modernisation requires employers to submit the details of each employee’s pay to Revenue on or before each payday. The new real-time reporting system meant that all forms relevant to payroll taxes (P30, P35, P60, and P45) were abolished. Instead, Revenue issues employers with a monthly statement based on the submissions made by the employer with a summary and breakdown of the total liability due.
It probably goes without saying, compliance with PAYE modernisation is compulsory, and the penalty regime is pretty stiff. The regime includes a fixed penalty of €4,000 for each breach of the PAYE legislation and a fixed penalty of €3,000 imposed on the company secretary for each breach.
With these high stakes, there are three big mistakes you need to avoid when it comes to PAYE modernisation.
The DIY approach
We’d be lying if we said it was impossible to comply with PAYE modernisation manually. It’s possible, of course. But lots of things are technically possible: climbing Everest is possible, for example, but it’s difficult.
So yes, technically speaking, your business can go the DIY route to comply with PAYE modernisation. If you don’t have compliant software, the relevant information must be submitted to Revenue manually through Revenue Online System (ROS).
But why struggle when you don’t need to? With the right payroll software in place, the transition can be seamless while also offering many real-time reporting benefits to businesses and employees.
Set and forget
Outsourcing payroll compliance can be a fantastic way to eliminate administrative burdens and free up time. But fundamentally, PAYE modernisation compliance is the employers responsibility.
When you choose an outsourcing partner, you need to be certain that they are not going to overlook your real-time payroll reporting duties. Check with your payroll provider to see how they’re complying, and whether they’re using industry-standard, compliant software like BrightPay.
Not choosing the right software
If you have - rather wisely - opted for the software route to comply with PAYE modernisation, there’s another decision to be made: choosing the right supplier.
There’s a lot of choices out there, but very few software suppliers can lay claim to BrightPay’s level of preparedness.
Before the introduction of PAYE Modernisation, we had already developed this real-time technology and API integration for our UK payroll software. The UK introduced similar real-time reporting requirements in 2013.
We’ve worked with Revenue from day dot to make PAYE modernisation a success, and our software makes compliance simple. Our previous experience allowed us to easily develop payroll integration features that seamlessly align with Revenue’s new reporting requirements.
BrightPay’s pedigree speaks for itself: BrightPay won Payroll Software of the Year 2018 and 2019 and enjoys a 99% customer satisfaction rating. So if you’re seeking the right software partner, look no further.
Book a demo today to discover how BrightPay’s award-winning software can improve your payroll reporting processes.
Jun 2020
3
The Road to COVID-19 Recovery - Return to Work Safely Protocol
Join us on 9th June for a free COVID-19 webinar
This webinar will examine key facts & updated guidance on COVID-19 payroll impacts. Understand what the lockdown easing will mean for your business as you reopen and what COVID-19 safety policies you need to introduce.
Part 1: Important COVID-19 Payroll Updates
In recent months, Revenue have introduced COVID-19 Government schemes to help keep paying employees with a number of important updates being rolled out. The government has announced the first steps to ease the coronavirus restrictions with a roadmap in place for lockdown measures to be slowly lifted. Understand how to adapt your payroll processes to accommodate for the schemes and subsequent updates.
Agenda
- Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme
- The Payroll Implications of Rehiring Employees
- COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment
- Managing Annual Leave during COVID-19
Part 2: Return to Work Safely Protocol
With the emergence from lockdown becoming clearer, businesses will need to start to put plans and COVID-19 policies in place for their employees to go back to the workplace safely. The Irish Government has introduced a Return to Work Safely Protocol for all businesses to follow. This introduces mandatory measures for organisations to take care of their people and safeguard their health and well-being.
All workplaces must adapt their workplace HR policies, procedures and practices to comply fully with the COVID-19 related public health protection measures identified as necessary by the HSE.
Agenda
- Returning Staff from Layoff
- Redundancy
- Return to Work Safely Protocol
Unable to attend?
If you are unable to attend the webinar at the specified time, simply register for the webinar anyway and we will send you the recording afterwards. You can also click here to view more webinar dates.
May 2020
20
Rehiring Employees After Layoff - The Payroll Implications
Thousands of shops, businesses and construction sites have reopened as part of the first phase of the easing of COVID-19 restrictions. In terms of bringing staff back to work, employers should put in place a number of measures, as set out in The Government’s ‘Return to Work Safely Protocol’.
Many businesses are now able to re-engage their staff that had previously been placed on layoff. If an employee was laid off and their employment ceased as a result of COVID-19, and the employer now wishes to place this employee back on the payroll, the employee will qualify for the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme if their DEASP claim is ceased. However, employees must have had a pay date in February and have been included in submissions between 1 February 2020 and 30 March 2020 under the same PPS number to qualify.
Rehired Employees & TWSS Files
During the operational phase of the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme, Revenue are providing all employers with details of the maximum subsidy and maximum top-up for all their employees. This Revenue instruction is in the form of a TWSS file, which was made available to employers on ROS from 4 May 2020.
Where an employee was rehired after 1 May 2020, they were not included in the initial TWSS file, and so J9 submissions for employees rehired after 1 May were processed but rejected for refunding.
From 18 May, the TWSS file now includes rehired employees that were included in an RPN between 2 May 2020 and 17 May 2020, provided the employee was on the employer's payroll on 29 February 2020 with the same PPS number.
From 21 May, Revenue will refresh the TWSS files daily to include rehired employees that have been notified to Revenue and to update the date on the file to reflect when it was refreshed. To be included in this refresh, employers must ensure that the rehired employees are on the payroll and an RPN has been received the day before the employer calculates and submits the first payroll payment to Revenue for the rehired employees. Revenue are currently developing a notification process that will inform employers when a refreshed TWSS file is available to download.
Additional Resource: We have created a template letter that employers can use for employees who are returning from layoff or short-time working.
May 2020
8
Thank You!
The Thesaurus Software team have received lots of words of praise and thanks over the past few weeks. Here's a selection of some of the wonderful comments that have been sent in. We would like to thank everyone for their positive feedback, your kind words are very much appreciated and encourage us to keep going during in these challenging times.
Thank you. Stay Safe.
Apr 2020
30
COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment
If your employer cannot continue to pay you and has to lay you off during the pandemic, you can claim income support from the DEASP. The COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment is available to employees and the self-employed who have lost their job on (or after) 13th March due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Pandemic Unemployment Payment is paid at a flat rate of €350 per week for the duration of the pandemic emergency.
You can apply for the payment if you are aged between 18 and 66 and have lost your employment due to the coronavirus restrictions. Students, non-EEA nationals and part-time workers can apply for the payment. You can also apply if you were working casually and you became fully unemployed as a result of the pandemic.
If you have voluntarily taken time off work to look after your child because of school or childcare closures and you are no longer paid by your employer, you can apply for the Pandemic Unemployment Payment.
You cannot claim the Pandemic Unemployment Payment, if you are continuing to get income from your employment or if you voluntarily left your employment, except to look after your children.
If an employee has been diagnosed with COVID-19 or has been told to self-isolate by their GP, they should instead apply for Illness Benefit, which has also been increased to €350 a week in line with the Pandemic Unemployment Payment.
Join us for a free COVID-19 webinar where we discuss what you need to know about remote working, putting staff on payoff, the Pandemic Unemployment Payment and the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme.
Places are limited - Click here to book your place now.
Apr 2020
27
Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme - What you need to know
The Government has announced measures to provide financial support to employers affected by the COVID-19 crisis. As part of these measures, Revenue is operating a Temporary COVID-19 Wage Subsidy Scheme from 26th March 2020 and it is expected to last for 12 weeks.
The scheme applies to employers who may wish to top up employee payments and for those who are not in a position to do so. To qualify, employers:
- must be experiencing significant negative economic disruption due to COVID-19,
- must be able to demonstrate, to the satisfaction of Revenue, a minimum of a 25% decline in turnover
- must be unable to pay normal wages and normal outgoings fully, and
- retain their employees on the payroll
The scheme replaces the previous Employer COVID-19 Refund Scheme and if you have already registered for the COVID-19 Refund Scheme, you do not need to re-register for the new scheme. Employers that are not registered but wish to register for this scheme can do so through myEnquiries.
The Scheme is restricted to employees who were on the employer’s payroll as at 29 February 2020, and for whom a payroll submission has already been made to Revenue in the period from 1 February 2020 and 15 March 2020. Where employers didn't fulfil their PAYE reporting obligations for February 2020 by 15 March 2020, please click here for further information.
The Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme has been divided into two different phases, the first phase is the transitional phase which will run from 26th March to 3rd May, and the operational phase will be in place from 4th May.
Employee Payments
During the transitional phase, employers can pay 70% of the employee’s average weekly net pay as a non-taxable payment, and in turn receive a refund from Revenue for this (Net pay = Gross less Income Tax, USC & Employee PRSI). The period for calculating an employee's average weekly pay is January & February 2020, but if you are a BrightPay customer, this calculation is automated in BrightPay.
This payment is capped at:
- €410 per week where the average net weekly pay is less than or equal to €586, or
- €350 where the average net weekly pay is greater than €586 and less than or equal to €960
Employees with an average net weekly pay greater than €960 will be excluded from the subsidy scheme. From 16 April 2020, the wage subsidy is available to support employees where their pre-COVID salary was greater than €960 per week, and their salary has now fallen below €960, and this is subject to the tiered arrangements and tapering to ensure that the net pay does not exceed €960 per week.
Where the current gross pay, as reported in the payroll submission, represents a reduction from the average net weekly pay by:
- less than 20%, no subsidy is payable
- between 20% and 39%, a subsidy of up to €205 is payable
- 40% or more, a subsidy of up to €350 is payable
These payments are liable to income tax; however, the subsidy is not taxable in real-time through the PAYE system during the period of the Subsidy scheme. Instead the employee will be liable for tax on the subsidy amount paid to them by their employer by way of review at the end of the year by Revenue.
Employers may top up this payment if they are in a position to do so. This top up amount, when added to the employee’s subsidy payment, cannot be greater than the employee's average net weekly pay. Any top-up payment made is taxable and USC-able, and the combined payment is to be processed under PRSI Class J9. If an employer tops up payments by more than the permitted amount, their subsidy will be tapered, so for every €1 extra paid to an employee, they will lose €1 on the subsidy.
During the transitional phase, employers must work out the payment that can be made to their employees i.e. the 70% tax free payment and the maximum top-up allowed. Revenue will automatically refund €410 per week per employee on the scheme as they won’t know what employees are entitled to. The refund from Revenue will, in general, be made to the employer within 2 working days after receipt of the payroll submission (PSR). At a later date, Revenue will perform a reconciliation and will look for repayment of any overpayments.
During the operational phase, from 4 May 2020, Revenue will inform employers how much they can pay tax free and the maximum top-up allowed. During this time, Revenue will refund the exact amount due as they will have instructed the employer how much can be paid. Click here to find out more about the operational phase.
Join us for a free COVID-19 webinar where we discuss what you need to know about remote working, putting staff on payoff, the Pandemic Unemployment Payment and the Temporary Wage Subsidy Scheme.
Places are limited - Book your place now.
Mar 2020
10
Don’t let Covid-19 stop you from running your payroll
As of 10 March, the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus increased to 24 in Ireland, with cases across Europe also surging. With the number of cases bound to escalate, Leo Varakar has said that if the coronavirus outbreak worsens, between 50% and 60% of the Irish population could be affected.
With panic over coronavirus soaring, many workers are being asked to stay away from the office and do day-to-day tasks from the comfort of their home. Not going into the office is an effective way of preventing the spread of coronavirus, because it minimises the risk of you coming into contact with someone carrying the disease.
Flexible working is becoming a growing trend
The reality is, working from home is already very popular, potential pandemic or not. Flexible working is a trend that has emerged in the last decade as more people seek that ideal work-life balance instead of work-life burnout.
Nearly a quarter of Britain’s workforce now work flexibly, that is, they work part of the week in an office and part at home, highlighting how quickly this trend is growing. Flexible working brings many work-life balance benefits as employees have more time to see their family, exercise and dedicate time to themselves. Seven in 10 of those who work flexibly say they are less stressed as a result of their working arrangement.
As well as the health benefits, it often results in happier employees. They then potentially work harder and are more productive. For employers, flexible working also helps to attract and retain talented employees. Additionally, it can result in increased loyalty and reduced office space cost.
Businesses need to carefully consider which processes and tools will make flexible work as productive and positive as possible for their employees. You need to make sure that they have essentials such as laptops, a reliable internet connection and being able to connect to systems remotely. This would have been difficult a few years ago, but thanks to the cloud, you can have everything you need at all times.
Flexible working with BrightPay Payroll
Although the payroll itself cannot be processed online with BrightPay Connect, the payroll software is still very flexible. Each BrightPay licence can be installed on up to 10 PCs where users have the option to process the payroll from 10 separate locations meaning you don’t need cloud payroll to operate and process your payroll. In addition, you can log into your BrightPay Connect account to view your payroll information at any time. You no longer need to be seated at your desk in the office to access the system - all the data you need to do your job is available on any of the 10 PC’s that the BrightPay application is installed on.
If you are not using the BrightPay Connect add-on, you can still access the payroll data file through a cloud environment to process the payroll. Again, the software itself can be installed to the local C drive of up to 10 PCs, be it a home computer or a laptop. The payroll files can be stored on a secure server or cloud environment, such as Dropbox or Google Drive, where the payroll information can be accessed from multiple computers.
With BrightPay Connect’s automatic cloud backup, payroll information is stored online and can be accessed by employers anywhere, anytime. Employers can also use BrightPay Connect to remotely manage employee’s leave, upload employee documents and send communications to employees that are working remotely.
Will coronavirus lead to long-term changes?
Will 2020 be the year in which office employees working more from home becomes the norm? Although many employers have implemented a mandatory ‘work from home’ policy as a precaution against coronavirus, it could also be the turning point for many businesses to recognise just how beneficial flexible working can be.
Book a demo today to discover how you can process payroll remotely with BrightPay.
Dec 2019
11
The 7 Unmistakable Benefits of Client Payroll Entry
BrightPay Connect is now even better than ever before. Bureau customers who use the cloud add-on now have the ability to send requests to clients through the secure portal. Requests can be sent to get client approval of the payroll summary before the payroll is finalised or to ask clients to upload their employees’ timesheets and payments, known as Client Payroll Entry.
With the new client request features, payroll bureaus can benefit from a reduced workload, increased efficiency, improved GDPR compliance and much more.
- Reduce your workload - By requesting employee timesheets from clients, bureaus can simply click a button to pre-populate the hours and payment information for their client’s employees, reducing the workload and manual data entry associated with running the payroll for your clients.
- Improve GDPR compliance - With the client payroll entry feature, clients can send payroll information containing sensitive personal data through a secure portal instead of sending it via email which would be less secure. The payroll summary can also be sent back to the client for approval through the portal before the payroll is finalised, adding an additional layer of GDPR protection to your client’s data.
- Reduce administration - Clients have the ability to add a new employee. Here the client must add all basic details required for processing the payroll, such as the new employee’s PPS number, date of birth, PRSI class etc. Once accepted by the bureau, the new employee is automatically added to the payroll software, eliminating the need for the bureau to gather this information from the client and manually set up the employee in the payroll software.
- Eliminate the risk of errors - Manual data entry comes with the additional risk of human error. By requesting the client to enter the data, then synchronising the data with the payroll software, bureaus will be eliminating this risk associated with manual data entry.
- Client responsibility - By getting the client to enter the employee payments and approve the payroll run before being finalised, bureaus can take less responsibility for errors and mistakes that occur, with the ultimate responsibility on the client for accuracy of data. There’s also an automated audit trail of users and timestamps of when the various requests were sent and submitted.
- Attract new clients - With less time spent on processing client’s payroll, bureaus will have more time to spend on attracting new clients and being able to cater for an increased number of clients. You will also be able to cater for more complex payroll clients, as the responsibility for entering the payments for irregular employees can be placed on the client themselves.
- Increase efficiency - Overall, bureaus can increase the efficiency of their practice. With less time spent on mundane administrative tasks such as entering employee hours and making corrections to the payroll and an increase in clients, you will be guaranteed to be running your practice much more efficiently and profitably.
Click here to find out more or book an online demo of BrightPay Connect to see how the new client entry features will work.
Nov 2019
29
BrightPay awarded 'Payroll Software of the Year 2019'
BrightPay was announced as the WINNER of ‘Payroll Software of the Year 2019’ at the ICB Luca Awards.
The annual LUCA Awards recognise outstanding achievement in the bookkeeping world, where ICB members and students vote in an online ballot to decide the winners of the awards. This year, BrightPay was awarded Payroll Software of the Year, over shortlisted contenders Moneysoft, Sage and Xero.
The awards took place earlier this week, during the annual two-day Bookkeepers Summit, where the BrightPay team had great feedback from the ICB members who are using BrightPay.
Payroll Software you can trust…
The award comes just one year after BrightPay was announced as the winner of ‘Payroll Software of the Year’ 2018 at the AccountingWEB Software Excellence Awards.
With over 25 years of payroll experience, our products are used to process the payroll for over 250,000 businesses across Ireland and the UK. BrightPay also has an impressive 99% customer satisfaction rate and a 5-star rating on Software Advice.
Book a demo today to discover how BrightPay’s award-winning software can improve your payroll processes and save you time.
