BrightPay – Fully Featured Automated Payroll Processing and Administration

BrightPay, at first glance, is deceptively simple. It’s clear and easy to use interface is expertly crafted to only reveal the underlying comprehensive set of payroll functionality, where and when you need it, on Windows or Mac OS X. But as the lists below exhibit, you can rest assured that it’s all there.

Tax, NICs and Student Loan

BrightPay calculates and displays PAYE, NIC, SLD and other applicable addition and deduction amounts as you type, both for the current pay period and year to date. Up to date PAYE, NIC and SLD rates and earnings bands. Supports all tax codes on cumulative or week/month 1 basis. Provision for the Scottish Variable Rate. Ability to withhold tax refunds when pay is zero. Supports all NIC tables (and helps you determine which NIC table an employee should be on given his/her age and employment situation). Supports directors’ NIC calculations on both the cumulative and alternate bases, including correct handling of mid-year NIC table changes. Ability to withhold employer NIC liability on an employee-by-employee basis. Turn on/off Student Loan deduction liability for an employee (and optionally enter SLD start and stop dates).

Payments

Weekly, fortnightly, 4-weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly payment schedules. Salary based payments. Target net pay / net to gross. Mid-period pay raise. Company-wide daily and hourly rates, normal or overtime (unlimited rates can be added). Employee-specific daily and hourly rates, normal or overtime (unlimited rates can be added). One-off daily and hourly rates. Daily payments (which can be automatically linked to the schedule of working and non-working days on employee calendar). Hourly payments. Pre-paid holiday pay. Add multiple notes to any payment record (which can optionally be shown on employee payslip). Assign any payment record to one or multiple departments (with weightings). Import payments and/or rates from a CSV file.

Additions and deductions

Add unlimited additions and/or deductions to any payslip. Company-wide addition and deduction types (unlimited types can be added). One-off addition and deduction types. Explicitly set additions as taxable, NIC-able and/or pension-able. Explicitly set deductions as before/after tax, before/after NIC and/or before/after pension. Add additions/deductions to a single pay period or have them automatically repeat each pay period (up to a certain date, or indefinitely). Assign any addition or deduction to one or multiple weighted departments. Report on specific addition/deduction types in analysis. Batch add additions and deductions to multiple payslips. Import additions and deductions from a CSV file.

Processing payroll

As employees are progressed through the pay period schedule, processed amounts become locked to prevent changes. Process employees individually or in batches. Different pay dates can be used for different employees in a single pay period. To correct payroll amounts, a previous pay period can be re-opened for one or multiple employees to allow changes to be made. Process payroll by department, payment method, directorship, alpha grouping, and more. “Payment After Leaving” payslips. Switch an employee from one payment schedule to another (e.g. from weekly to monthly) as many times throughout the payroll year as required. Pre-paid holiday. Data like tax code, NI table, department, standard hourly/daily rate, payment method etc. are tracked on a period-by-period basis and can be changed throughout the payroll year as and when required.

Payslips

Print payslips on blank paper (2 per A4, 1 per A5, 1 per A4). Print payslips on popular stationery (Sage, IRIS, etc.). Email payslips in one click (no server setup is required) with customisable subject and body (and mail merge support). The payslip gets included as PDF attachment (optionally password protected). Export payslips to individual PDF files (optionally password protected) with customisable file name. Tailor your payslips to show/hide employer logo, period number, tax week number, tax month number, employer address, employee address, annual leave remaining, payment method, notes, and more. Print, email or export payslips by department, payment method, directorship, alpha grouping, and more.

Paying employees

Set up employees to be paid by credit transfer, cheque or cash. Set up multiple employer bank accounts. Credit transfer payments summary. Create bank import files. Supports multiple bank import file formats, including BACS, Bank of Ireland, Bank of Scotland, Barclays, Co-operative Bank, CreDec PDC, Danske Bank, First Trust Bank, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS Bankline, Santander, SEB. Supports RTI BACS sub-reference where required. Cheque payments summary. Cash payments summary. Choose the denominations and BrightPay will automatically calculate the cash make-up.

Real Time Information (RTI)

Full HMRC Recognition for Full Payment Submission (FPS), Employer Payment Summary (EPS), NINO Verification Request (NVR) and Earlier Year Update (EYU). Full Payment Submissions are automatically created as you process payroll (one for each unique period type / payment date). Additional Full Payment Submissions can be manually created and sent as and when required. The values for additional FPS data items can be manually set for any employee in any pay period (e.g. ‘Contracted hours per week’, ‘Irregular payment pattern’, ‘Flexibly accessing pension rights’, etc.) Late reporting reasons. All EPS data items are supported. One or more EYUs (for one or multiple employees) can be sent from the 20th April after the relevant tax year. All EYU values are calculated automatically. Until an RTI submission is sent, it will be automatically updated with any changes made to employer, employee or payment details. Multiple RTI submissions can be sent simultaneously. The information in each RTI submission is shown in a user-friendly, printable format. All HMRC communications are logged. Any submission errors are shown in a clear, user-friendly format.

Managing employees

Add unlimited employees (except for Free Licence customers who are limited to a maximum of three). Record all relevant personal and employment data for employees. Assign employees to one or multiple departments (with optional weightings). Import employees from a CSV file (with flexible CSV column to data mapping). Export employee data to CSV (with choice of which data to export). Starters and leavers. Directors. View, print or email one or multiple payslips for any employee. View/print P11. View/print P45. View, print or email P60 certificate for one or multiple employees. Payslip action audit log.

Employee calendar

Employee calendar responsively resizes to best fit screen size. Click any day (or click and drag a series of days) to view details or set leave. Set schedule of working and non-working days (by either generally selecting which days of the week should be working days, as well as specifically denoting any given day as working or non-working. Set annual leave (full or part days, by the day or by the hour). Set unpaid leave (full or part days). Set absence (full or part days). Set strike (full or part days). Set sick days. SSP periods of incapacity to work, SSP waiting days and SSP qualifying days are automatically determined. Add parenting leave directly on calendar, including Keep in Touch days, Return to Work days and Shared Parenting Leave in Touch days. Shows bank holidays for employer’s region (i.e. England/Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland) Add notes to any day on the calendar.

Statutory Pay

Determination of eligibility for and calculation of Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). Determination of eligibility for and calculation of Statutory Maternity Pay (SMP), Statutory Adoption Pay (SAP), Statutory Paternity Pay (SPP) and Shared Parental Pay (ShPP). Ability to override calculation of Average Weekly Earnings (AWE) when determining Statutory pay amounts. Comprehensive validation of Parenting Leave settings to help avoid any mistakes. Add unlimited blocks of Shared Parenting Leave. Keep in Touch (KIT) days, Return to Work days and Shared Parental Leave in Touch (SPLIT) days. Correct handling of sick days after a mother returns to work but is still within the Maternity Pay Period (MPP).

Annual leave

Align the leave year with the tax year, or choose a custom leave year (for all employees, or on an employee-by-employee basis) Calculate annual leave using a set number of days per year. Calculate annual leave by number of working days per week. Calculate annual leave accruement by number of hours worked (set hours per day or irregular hours, with or without overtime). Carry over annual leave from previous year. Quickly view, print or export the annual leave entitlement up to any date for one or multiple employees. View annual leave step-by-step calculation. Show annual leave days (or hours) remaining on employee payslips. Automatic Enrolment pension schemes Interoperability with auto enrolment qualifying pensions schemes by NEST, The People’s Pension, NOW: Pensions, Aegon, Aviva, Creative Auto Enrolment, Legal & General, Royal London, Scottish Widows, SIMPLY! Auto Enrolment Solutions, Standard Life, Trust Pensions, Welplan, Workers Pension Trust and more. NEST API included Staging Assessment Postponement Enrolment, opt-ins and joins. Out-outs and refunds. Cessation. Communications – print, email and export statutory letter for postponement, enrolment, and right to opt-in/join. Produces enrolment and contributions CSV files for supported pension scheme providers. Performs pre-staging assessment to establish projected cost of AE and also determines if pension scheme registration is required

Traditional pension schemes

Contracted-In Salary Related Schemes (CISR). Contracted-out Salary Related Schemes (COSR). Free Standing AVC Schemes Group Personal Pensions (GPP) Personal Pensions (PP). Stakeholder Schemes. Fixed amount or percentage based employer and employee contributions. Default contributions. Additional Voluntary Contributions (AVCs) Earnings bands. Report on scheme contributions and deductions in analysis.

Attachment Orders

Add unlimited attachment orders for any employee. Child Support Deduction from Earnings order. Civil Judgement Debt Attachment of Earnings order. Council Tax Attachment of Earnings order. Direct Earnings Attachment (fixed amount or percentage, 2013 or 2015 rates). Magistrates Court Attachment of Earnings order. Maintenance Attachment of Earnings order. Northern Ireland Attachment of Earnings order. Scottish Current Maintenance Arrestment (CMA). Scottish Earnings Arrestment (EA). Priority attachment orders. Admin charge. Amount shortfall and carry-forward (where relevant).

Payroll analysis

Flexible report builder. Reports on pay periods, tax weeks, tax months, or the entire tax year. Report on a single period or span multiple periods. Report on employee totals, department totals, or both together. Include total, average, minimum and/or maximum summary values. Ability to ignore ‘zero’ payslips. Ability to roll up pre-pay. Choose which employees to include in a report. Choose from over 100 data items to include in a report. All payroll data is available. Report on the amounts for specific rates, additions, deductions, pension schemes and savings schemes that you set up. Several built-in one-click reports. Save your own reports to use each pay period. Print and export reports.

HMRC payments

Track HMRC payments on a monthly or quarterly schedule. Supports the Employment Allowance Claim. Small Employers Relief. Track Statutory pay recovered and NIC compensation. Track amounts received from HMRC to refund tax. Track amounts received from HMRC to pay Statutory pay. Track CIS deductions suffered. Track amounts due and paid. Any shortfalls are carried over. P30 Employer’s Payslip. P32 Employer Payment Record.

End of year

Print P60 certificates on HMRC stationery or blank A4 paper (HMRC approved design). Email P60 certificates. Include final submission indicator on Employer Payment Summary (EPS) submission. Send unlimited correction Full Payment Submissions (FPS) up until 19th April. Send unlimited correction Earlier Year Update (EYU) submissions after 19th April.

Employer setup

Add employer logo (which can optionally be included on payslips). Record all relevant employer data. Set the options for a typical employee, which is used by default when adding new employees. Add unlimited departments. Add unlimited company-wide hourly dates. Add unlimited company-wide daily dates. Add unlimited company-wide addition types. Add unlimited company-wide deduction types. Add unlimited savings schemes, which can be set up to use percentage based or fixed amount employee and employer contributions. Add unlimited employer bank accounts. Start at beginning of tax year, start in middle of tax year, or continue partway in the tax year from migrated payroll records. HMRC Basic PAYE Tools data can be imported automatically

File handling

All the payroll data for an employer is contained in a single file for simple backup and transfer. Sensitive data is encrypted in the employer file. Employer files can be optionally password protected. Unlimited time-stamped snapshots of an employer file can be taken and restored as required. Multiple employer files can be opened in BrightPay at the same time (they open in separate windows). By using a cloud file sync service like Dropbox, Box, OneDrive or Google Drive, BrightPay essentially becomes a cloud application. Recently opened files are tracked and openable from the start-up window with a single click.

Installation, upgrading and licensing

BrightPay installation is quick and simple – it is available for Windows and Mac OS X. HMRC Basic PAYE Tools data can be imported automatically Software updates are automatically checked for on launch, and the option is given as to whether to update now or later. Software updates can also be checked manually. The Free licence allows for up to a maximum of three employees (for unlimited employers). The Standard licence allows for unlimited employees for a single employer (other employers are limited to up to three employees, as in the Free licence). The Bureau licence allows for unlimited employers each with unlimited employees. A licence key can be used for up to five activated installations.

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