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 320,000 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.
Oct 2019
3
One year later... Can PAYE Modernisation be considered a triumph?
Join BrightPay’s Paul Byrne as he takes you through the PAYE Modernisation journey so far, and decides whether or not PAYE Modernisation has been a success. During the webinar, Paul will also review some of the most common mistakes employers have made to date and what employers should expect in 2020.
As part of this webinar, we’ll take a closer look at BrightPay Connect and how important it is to backup your payroll data for PAYE Modernisation. Ian Jenkinson will take you on a whistle-stop tour revealing the hidden benefits of our self-service employee app and explain how BrightPay Connect’s cloud platforms can improve your payroll processes.
We are delighted to be joined by our guest speaker Sinead Sweeney, who is the PAYE Modernisation Change Manager at Revenue. Sinead will discuss what has happened since PAYE Modernisation has gone live and what challenges businesses are facing.
The webinar is CPD accredited for accountants and payroll bureaus. The webinar is free to attend and takes place on 23rd October at 11.00 am for payroll bureaus and 24th October at 11.00 am for employers. Limited places available - book your place now to avoid disappointment.
Can’t make it? Register for the webinar anyway and we will send you the on-demand recording when it’s ready.
More upcoming webinars
BrightPay is hosting a number of webinars over the coming months. More upcoming webinars include:
Aug 2019
19
Upcoming Webinars - Brought to you by BrightPay
PAYE Modernisation Webinars | Guest Speaker: Revenue
BrightPay has teamed up with Revenue where we will look back on PAYE Modernisation in 2019 and decide if the new real time payroll reporting system has been a success. The PAYE Modernisation webinar series features four webinars for employers and four webinars for payroll bureaus and accountants, starting with PAYE Modernisation: One year on - was it a success? which takes place at the end of September.
Payroll & Cloud Platforms
Cloud technology is here and it can easily compliment any SME workplace. This webinar busts the myth that employee related technology is only for the big employer. During our webinar on the 2nd of October - Payroll and cloud platforms: What employers need to know (and why employees love it) - we take a look at exactly how you can manage your employee administration with cloud technology. Huge cost and time savings can be made by using the right technology.
Employment Law Webinars
Business Owners and Managers are all too aware of the ongoing challenges and constant changes in the area of Employment Law and HR Best Practice. This webinar will offer the opportunity to keep abreast of change and plan for the future, including terms and conditions of employment, gender pay reporting, parental leave and WRC 2019 targets. Join us on the 12th of September for 2019 HR & Employment Law Landscape to make sure you’re kept up-to-date with employment law.
Don’t miss out!
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Jul 2019
11
Auto Enrolment: More payroll changes on the way for Ireland
The government has announced major changes to the pensions system in Ireland, including State, private and public service pensions, which aims to address Ireland’s significant retirement savings gap.
The Taoiseach confirmed that the Government's key goals are to "create a fairer and simpler contributory pension system where a person's pension outcome reflects their social insurance contributions, and in parallel, create a new and necessary culture of personal retirement saving in Ireland".
From 2020, a new State pension system will come into place based on a ‘total contributions approach’ (TCA) where a person’s lifetime contribution will more closely match the benefit they receive. Under TCA, a person's contributory pension will be proportionate to the contributions they make, with fair regard for periods of child rearing, full time caring, and periods in receipt of social protection payments.
Although the State pension will be reformed and will remain at the core of the pension system in Ireland, a new retirement savings system is still needed to supplement the State pension.
Minister Regina Doherty said: “It is increasingly evident that most Irish workers are not saving enough, or indeed at all, for their retirement years. Many people will be faced with a serious reduction in their living standards when they retire – a fall in income they clearly do not want.”
This new 'Automatic Enrolment' retirement savings system will be introduced from 2022 to support and encourage personal savings provision. It is intended that employee savings in this scheme will be supported by employer and State contributions.
Under this system, workers will be ‘automatically enrolled’ into a workplace pension scheme with the option to opt-out, should they choose to do so. However, looking at the international experience of similar systems, for example in the UK, once enrolled, workers tend to remain in the scheme.
Automatic enrolment is a natural extension of the payroll process, making more sense for employers to process the majority of these duties within their payroll software. At BrightPay, we have experienced the rollout of auto enrolment in the UK first hand, where we introduced auto enrolment features which enabled users to automate and simplify the entire process.
BrightPay Payroll Software will be able to seamlessly cater for Auto Enrolment without any additional costs to the software, and also includes free phone and email support.
Jun 2019
25
PAYE Modernisation: The good, the bad and the ugly
Latest Revenue figures for PAYE Modernisation show that 161,000 employers have successfully submitted over 2 million payroll submissions in respect of over 2.6 million employees.
Although the new system has proved very successful overall, the first four months of the new real time payroll reporting system also faced some recurring issues with payroll submissions. Here are the 10 most common errors seen by Revenue:
- Employers mistakenly sending the payroll data to Revenue more than once.
- Employers incorrectly creating duplicate employments for the same employee.
- Payroll submissions, or parts of payroll submissions, failing the validation process.
- Employers ceasing employment for employees in error by incorrectly including cessation dates in payroll submissions.
- Employers failing to apply the most up-to-date Revenue Payroll Notification (RPN) when running payroll.
- Employees being taxed on the emergency tax basis where an RPN is available.
- Incorrect operation of emergency tax e.g. employee reported with emergency tax, but no tax deducted by the employer.
- ‘Gross Pay’ shown as less than ‘Pay for Income Tax’ and/or ‘Pay for USC’.
- No USC deducted where the employee is not USC exempt, and similarly, USC deducted where the employee is USC exempt.
- Employers paying their tax liability twice in error e.g. by setting up both a ROS Debit Instruction and Variable Direct Debit for the same payment period.
Where errors arise, employers should immediately rectify them to ensure that they are not included in future payrolls. Early action also reduces the possibility of a Revenue intervention. Revenue will continue to assist any employer who is experiencing genuine difficulty in complying with the new PAYE requirements. However, it is important to remember that employers who fail to engage with Revenue or who persistently breach the PAYE Regulations are liable to a €4,000 penalty per offence.
It is in every employer’s interest to ensure that the data submitted to Revenue is accurate and in line with the employee’s payslip record, especially now that employees have access to their pay and tax details through their myAccount. Any discrepancies between payroll details on an employee’s payslip and those reported to Revenue could result in employees seeking clarification from their employer.
Jun 2019
5
BrightPay Customer Update: June 2019
PAYE Modernisation Update: Payroll and tax details now available to employees in myAccount
With real time reporting now in place for employers, Revenue has turned their focus to the benefits of this new system for employees. Since the 15th of May, all employees can now view their payroll details, as reported by their employer, through myAccount. Employers should be aware that employees can now view any discrepancies between payroll details on an employee’s payslip and those reported to Revenue.
Read more | Revenue help guide
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 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, but what about HR personnel, managers and everyone else involved in the payroll and HR process? They benefit too!
The importance of backing up your payroll data
Disasters happen. It’s all part of being in business: Fire, flood, theft, you name it. If you own premises or an office, it might happen to you. While an act of God can’t always be helped, you can be prepared too. Of course, you’ll have insurance; but what about your priceless payroll data? For a payroll bureau or business, these payroll files underpin the vital task of paying employees.
From the support desk: Can BrightPay be accessed from multiple users on different machines?
BrightPay employer data files can be stored on a shared network drive or cloud drive to be accessed by multiple PCs. The BrightPay software application must be installed on each individual PC you wish to use to access the shared location. A single BrightPay licence allows for up to five installations.
More FAQs | Online Documentation | Video Tutorials
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.
GDPR: 1 Year On
It’s been one year since the introduction of the GDPR, and employers and accountants are reviewing their systems, processes and procedures on an ongoing basis to ensure they are doing their best to avoid hefty non-compliance penalties. Find out how BrightPay Connect can help you overcome some of the key challenges GDPR presents when processing payroll.
