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
27
How cloud payroll portals can improve your cybersecurity
Until the recent past, small businesses were unlikely targets for sophisticated cyber-attacks. But in the internet era, things have changed dramatically.
SMEs are doing more business online than ever and they are using cloud services that don’t use strong encryption technology. It’s turned your average SME into a likely, lucrative target. There’s a lot of sensitive data to be had, and if it’s behind a door with an easy lock to pick then all the better.
This new reality is on display in official statistics. Over four in ten businesses (43%) and two in ten charities (19%) experienced a cybersecurity breach or attack in 2018, according to the government’s cybersecurity breaches survey.
Three-quarters of businesses (74%) and over half of all charities (53%) surveyed also identified cybersecurity as a high priority for their organisation’s senior management. It’s likely GDPR and its stiffened sanctions for breaches and blunders has a lot to do with this heightened priority.
Payroll processing is a key innovation battleground in this new era of hacks and data regulation. Clients want the convenience of online access to their payroll information, but they also demand (and require) the very best in security.
For a bureau, offering best-in-class cybersecurity is a valuable way to add and demonstrate value, with very little actual effort on your part. A bureau using the most secure cloud payroll facility will offer data security as standard.
Meanwhile, the security itself is actually handled by the software supplier and the infrastructure they provide. All you need to do is make the right choice when it comes to picking a software partner.
When using BrightPay Connect in conjunction with your BrightPay desktop application, for instance, all communication between both systems is carried out on a safe channel with maximum security.
BrightPay utilises all manner of best practice to guard against nefarious tactics such as data injection, authentication hacking, cross-site scripting, exposure flaws, request forgery, and the many other types of vulnerabilities.
BrightPay Connect utilises the Microsoft Azure platform to give users reliability, scalability, data redundancy, geo-replication and timely security updates out of the box.
As a payroll bureau, cybersecurity is a critical commercial area. You must be able to promise security to both current and prospective clients. By investing in payroll software that offers cloud integration powered by the latest tech, that’s an easy promise to keep. Being at the bleeding edge of cybersecurity has never been simpler.
Book a demo today to discover more ways that BrightPay Connect can protect your business.
Nov 2019
19
Can the Cloud help you attract staff?
The Cloud is the current buzz-word in technology. Employers in the know are reaping the benefits from its capabilities, including helping them attract and retain new staff.
Why is this important? Becoming an employer of choice has never been more important, especially as we are at near full employment. A quick search of any of the main job boards will show an abundance of available jobs. It’s a jobseeker’s market. The challenge for employers therefore is to attract and retain the best candidates. One way to attract and retain employees is to offer them something new, something edgy… a strong, feature-rich, cloud employee self-service system could be it.
Today’s world has gone online, everyone has social media accounts, we are all familiar with buying many of our goods and services online. This is particularly true for millenials (generally defined as those born between 1984 and 1999) who are are fast becoming the largest sector of our workforce. Understanding how to tap into their fast-paced expectations is crucial for business success.
Businesses who do not compete in this space run risks of being overlooked by prospective employees, millennials in particular. This is where employers should consider a cloud, employee self-service system. Offering online access to their annual leave calendar, their personal details, their employers details, all their HR documents and all of their payslips on their smartphones via a dedicated employee app is the smartest, most cost effective way to show your employees you are in the same digital space that they are.
Book a demo today to find out how your business can benefit from cloud self-service systems.
Nov 2019
12
How to choose the right Cloud HR platform for your business
Choosing the right HR platform for your business can be difficult. To help you make the right decision we have highlighted five points you need to consider first.
- Cost – Migrating to the cloud should be cost-effective since it does not require you to purchase any new hardware or software. This minimizes up-front costs from the start. You want a product that can grow as you grow or that can accommodate a temporary slowdown in business so you're not paying for something you don't need or worse, find yourself outgrowing your product.
- Productivity – Along with this, you want a product that reduces man-hours, you want it to take those mundane, day-to-day HR tasks off your desk, the requests, the interruptions that distract you from getting your work done. Look for a product that facilitates multiple users. One that allows you to delegate tasks like approving holidays or grant selected access, like letting your accountant see your payroll reports or your P30 breakdown.
- Compliance – You want a product that takes into account the obligations you have as an employer, both under employment law and GDPR, and that includes features that make compliance easy, stress-free and trackable.
- Simplicity – Choose a product that removes the risk for human error in processes. Make sure it is user-friendly and that training and support is available for you to use it effectively. The best cloud vendors will provide the proper tools and education needed to migrate your data with ease.
- Connection – Pick a product with attractive employee features. Make sure your employees, current and future, know that you’re a progressive company and interested in your employee’s welfare. Your employees are not going to be excited about something unless it works for them. People nowadays expect their needs to be met through technology. Banking? Communicating? Tracking your steps? Applying for jobs? Booking a flight? It’s all online. Employees expect to be able to manage their lives online. Make sure you are right there on the cutting-edge of cloud technology!
Book a demo today to find out how BrightPay Connect can improve your business.
Aug 2019
27
More capacity, more time: Payroll as a cloud service
Payroll processing has never exactly been the belle of the ball. Businesses disliked it because it’s onerous, while accountants loathe it because payroll has proven difficult to monetise. Not to mention, the work is complex and there are bountiful opportunities to mess it up.
But now, payroll is finally having a moment. Cloud portals have altered the landscape, unlocking new productivity and profits for businesses and accountants. Moving beyond the confines of the desktop and connecting payroll software to the cloud opens all sorts of new, exciting prospects.
The benefits of cloud allows constant and iterative improvements because software companies can offer added benefits and additional layers of access via the web, rather than through more traditional, unsecured methods like sending attachments via email. This formula for progress holds true for cloud payroll accessibility. Synching your payroll data to the cloud enables new features, fully supported by a remote access infrastructure for your clients that’s always improving the payroll process.
As for your clients and their employees, a cloud portal can act as an in-house HR system, streamlining many internal payroll administrative duties. For employees, there is just one login to view employee documents and a company noticeboard. Employers can upload documents such as employment contracts, staff handbooks, privacy policies, training manuals. The employer can decide whether the employee should have access to view the document or not, using it as a central location for everything to do with each individual employee.
Cloud integration updates your information in real time which is easily accessible at any time via any device with internet access. Whether it’s just checking something after hours, or enabling flexible online access to payroll information creates freedom. Cloud payroll portals are making it easier and cheaper to provide payroll services at scale for all of your clients. Drudge work is automated, it’s more collaborative, and a simple, intuitive online interface speeds up your work.
But the potential profits from online payroll platforms aren’t just about payroll itself. Time is money, as the old saying goes. Less work filling in boxes means more time spent on lucrative work such as advisory services, consulting and new business development. All throughout the accounting profession, we’ve seen that when firms cut the time spent on traditional services like bookkeeping, tax preparation and now payroll, they can then take on additional clients and projects, using the same number of staff.
More capacity, more time, more flexibility, more collaboration, more profits: the benefits of cloud automation and remote self-service portals will seep into every corner of your practice.
Book a BrightPay Connect demo today to increase your profits from your payroll service.
Aug 2019
7
Save the trees: Instant access to payroll data with no paper trail
We don’t get paychecks anymore, do we? The concept has been banished to TV shows set in the 1960s, where we see a down-on-their-luck salesman contemplate their paper cheque with sad resignation.
Outside of these cultural portrayals, we’ve all moved along to bank transfers. And yet, there’s still one hangover from the era of manual, paper led payroll: the payslip.
Many of us, despite receiving our pay electronically, will receive a paper payslip detailing precisely how much we’ve earned and the taxes we’ve paid. Often these slips will clutter on the employee’s desk, unsecured and aimless.
But how much can you innovate with the old fashioned payslip, anyhow? Quite a bit, actually. This resource heavy, old school process can be taken entirely online. All employee payslips can be securely stored and instantly accessible on BrightPay Connect.
From here, individual employees can also access their HR documents such as their contract of employment through a personal self-service portal as and when they need it. That’s less legwork for you and a simple, well-organised process for the employee.
This can completely replace the more labour intensive process you have now. Payslips can be set up by the user to be automatically available on BrightPay Connect with an email notification to employees, eliminating the need to email them or print it out to hand out, one-by-one manually.
But, of course, employers should still have the choice to do it their way. The business can always email, download or print payslips from BrightPay Payroll. Whichever way the client would prefer is fine, but it remains seamless for you, the accountant.
It’s all about what’s most comfortable. With 24/7 access to employee payslips and other payroll reports, missing payslips and confusion will be consigned to the past. No more manual processes, no more unnecessary legwork - just the information when you need it, in one location, accessible from anywhere for the accountant, employer and employee.
And with BrightPay Connect, the self-service process empowers the employee beyond payslips. The self-service portal is a powerful, multi-purpose cloud tool.
Employees can access their own personal leave calendar, view remaining holiday days, view sick leave taken, request annual leave, view and change their contact information, access payslips and other payroll and employment-related documents. Clients can even give managers access to approve leave for their department and restrict access the other sensitive payroll information such as employee salaries. It’s payroll software with integrated cloud automation that’s about so much more than just pay.
Book a BrightPay Connect demo today to see just how much time cloud automation and integration can save you.
Jul 2019
23
Using intelligent automation to streamline your payroll processing
There’s a part in Joseph Heller’s classic novel Catch-22 where the character asks a military officer: “What do you do when it rains?" The captain answers the question frankly. "I get wet.” The captain’s resignation and simple acceptance echo the accountant’s attitude to admin. What else is there to do when processing payroll? Same as getting wet in the rain, payroll processing comes assigned with a burdensome bureaucracy.
Or does it? There are a lot of boxes to be ticked in the accounting profession. There are laws, statutes, regulations, each adding another bit of work to your already busy schedule. Indeed, the profession will never be without its share of bureaucracy and admin. But payroll doesn’t have to mean legwork and elbow grease. By using intelligent automation and the right system, you can cut out many of the repetitive (and plain tedious aspects) of payroll processing. Repetition becomes a thing of the past, too.
With BrightPay, you only need to set up payroll documentation and reports once. After that, you save them on the BrightPay desktop application for future use. It couldn’t be simpler. These documents and reports will also be automatically synced to BrightPay Connect and will be available to log in and view from anywhere. This includes payslips, periodic reporting, P60s, and P45s.
But perhaps for payroll bureaus the most critical way you can reduce the admin burden is by devolving it, so it’s not all on you. Using the password protected self-service portal, your clients and their employees can login online to view their payroll data. For routine tasks, clients can help themselves. The more mundane aspects of payroll processing hum along in the background while you focus on the important stuff. All while maintaining complete control over the entire process.
So what do you do when it rains? You don’t have to get wet - and if you’re a payroll bureau, there’s a more straightforward, smarter way ahead. Admin doesn’t need to be a by-word for payroll, with BrightPay it can be a profitable, low touch service.
Book a demo today to find out how BrightPay can streamline your payroll processing.
May 2019
31
New User Management Interface for Connect
Our new User Management feature for BrightPay Connect makes it more seamless and quicker for users to be set up or amended. It offers the option to select permissions for multiple employers at one time for a standard user. There is also a new permission to allow standard users to connect and synchronise employers from BrightPay to Connect and a new feature to mark an employer as confidential.
Types of Users for Connect
- An administrator has full control over a BrightPay Connect account, with the ability to edit account settings, add other users, redeem purchase codes, connect employers and manage all employer and employee information and processes.
- A standard user typically has access to just one employer in your BrightPay Connect account, although they can be granted access to multiple employers if required. A standard user can view employer (and associated employees) information with various levels of restrictions and permissions.
User Permissions & Confidential Employers
As before, standard users can be set up so that they are restricted by department, so that they can only see information pertaining to employees that are associated with a particular department. They can also be restricted from accessing certain information, such as the ability to:
- View financial information including payslips and reports
- View employees marked as confidential
- View employee documents
- NEW: Connect and synchronise employer data
- Approve employee self-service requests
You now also have the option to grant a standard user access to all current employers, along with any new employers linked to the Connect account. Simply select ‘Grant Full Access to all Employers’ and select the permissions you wish to be applied to the user, including the new permission to Connect and Sync employer data.
If required, an employer in Connect can be marked as confidential under the settings tab on the employer’s dashboard and only administrators on the Connect account will be able to view this employer. Standard users can only access confidential employers if they are given permission to do so.
Inviting your client as a user
If the employer details are entered in the ‘Client Details’ tab in the employer section in BrightPay, the employer can be added as a standard user by the bureau very quickly and easily. On the employer’s dashboard in Connect, you will see the option to ‘Invite your Client’. Selecting this populates the client’s information for a new standard user and you can then choose the permissions for the client.
May 2019
27
The hidden benefits of an employee self-service system
The ability for employees to view and edit their own data is one of the most important advancements of HR in recent years. Providing employees with remote access to view personal information held is also a best practice recommendation of the GDPR. It's obviously true that employees have a lot to gain from a self-service system, such as BrightPay Connect.
But what about HR personnel, managers and everyone else involved in the payroll and HR process? They benefit too! For administrators, it's a way of delegating the workload that would otherwise be handled solely by them. Implementing an employee self-service system is a way to re-distribute various tasks and bring them to the employee’s level.
On the surface, an employee self-service system seems designed simply to relieve a bit of pressure on your HR department. It cuts out the tedious administrative work involved in everyday tasks such as:
- Printing or emailing payslips
- Responding to payslip requests
- Responding to leave balance enquiries
- Managing annual leave requests
- Updating employee contact details
But the benefits to the business go much deeper than that. Some employee self-service systems also have the following benefits:
- Reduce errors - Entry errors and other mistakes may be avoided by allowing employees to enter their own personal information. By eliminating the need for double entry and allowing employees to evaluate their own information, the chances of inaccurate information may be greatly decreased.
- Reduce sick days - Some businesses have noticed a reduction in sick days since implementing employee self-service systems. As sick days are much more visible on screen to both employees and their managers, this likely acts as an incentive to keep sick days to a minimum.
- Cut costs - The administrative cost of processing leave or printing out payslips should not be underestimated.
- Reduce paper - The ability for employees to access payslips and other documents online can be a time and money saver. By replacing paper documents, you are also reducing your impact on the environment.
- Keep staff up-to-date - An employee self-service system can allow you to notify employees of policy changes or company-wide announcements. Employees don’t need to access their email to view changes - they can simply log in to their self-service employee app wherever they are to stay abreast of any legislative or company-wide changes that may affect them. The employer can then track which employees have viewed the notice, resource or document.
When implemented successfully, a company may see immediate increases in productivity and efficiency. Managers and HR personnel will save labour hours and frustration on a daily basis, and instead, have more time to concentrate on more important tasks.
Book a demo today to find out how BrightPay Connect can transform your business.
Apr 2019
11
Why employees love self-service apps (& you should too!)
As a concept, self-service is nothing new. From paying at the supermarket self-service checkouts to online banking, consumers don’t want to have to wait for something if they know they can get it themselves. It’s no different in the workplace.
An employee self-service is the ultimate tool whereby employees can login from anywhere to view their employment and pay related information. With a self-service system, employees can download payslips, request annual leave, look at policies and HR documents and update personal information - all without once contacting HR personnel.
Benefits for Employees
- Instant Payslips - The employee can login to the employee self-service portal to view and download their most recent payslip, along with all of their historic payslips. Gone are the days of emailing HR chasing lost or past payslips when needed, for example when applying for a mortgage.
- Annual Leave - Employees can submit leave requests instantly through the employee self-service portal. Once the leave is approved, employees will be notified and the approved leave will automatically appear on the employee’s calendar. Employees can also view their leave balance and leave history through their portal.
- HR Documents - Access everything in one central place - a single online login gives the employee instant online access to other employment related documents such as employment contracts or company handbooks and policies.
- Personal Data - With the self-service portal, the employee can view their personal payroll information that the employer has on file. The employee can also amend or update various personal data, including their postal address, contact number, emergency details etc.
- 24/7 Access - Employees can login to the employee self-service through any web browser at any time - meaning they don’t have to be at their desks to use it. They can login from home or anywhere else with an internet connection. Better yet, employees can access their employee self-service directly from their phones using the BrightPay employee app.
Knock-on Effect for Employers
Today’s employees are accustomed to having information readily available. An employee portal can help fulfil that expectation with the added benefit of creating workflow efficiencies. The employee self-service portal eliminates the burden of sending payslips, updating personal information, approving annual leave requests and answering leave balance enquiries for the payroll department. Managers and HR personnel will save administrative hours and frustration on a daily basis when no longer faced with working through these monotonous and time-consuming tasks.
The former way of managing employee data is fast becoming outdated. What was once considered normal in the past is no longer considered normal anymore. Today, the new normal is to implement an employee self-service system whereby workflows are streamlined, with added benefits for both employees and employers.
Book a demo today to find out how BrightPay Connect can transform your business.
