Apr 2018
30
What is BrightPay Connect?
BrightPay Connect is an optional add-on cloud and HR product for BrightPay Payroll. Connect will allow you to sync your BrightPay Payroll employer data to a web based online portal providing the following powerful features:
Secure Online Automated Backup - Users can backup and restore payroll information on your computer to and from the cloud. BrightPay Connect will synchronise any changes you make to your payroll or employee information back to BrightPay Payroll. Your historical backups and data files are accessible and can be restored at any time.
Online Self-Service Portal - The online portal allows payroll bureaus, employers and employees to log in and access their payroll data. Employees can view and access their payroll information. Employers can view their company’s payroll information, a company annual leave calendar, approve employee requests, access reports and Revenue payment details. Payroll bureaus can access an online overview of all of the client's payroll information.
Employee Self-Service - Employees can access their own payroll information by logging into their personal self service portal. The self service allows online access to a personal leave calendar, view remaining holiday days, view sick leave taken, request annual leave, view and change contact information, access payslips and other payroll employment related documents.
Online Payslips - Employee’s payslips are stored securely on BrightPay Connect allowing for easy access on the go for employees. Payslips can be set up by the user to be automatically uploaded onto BrightPay Connect for employees, eliminating the need to manually email them from BrightPay Payroll. Employees can view and download their current and historical payslips at any time.
Employer Online Dashboard - Employers will have access to an overview of their payroll, a company annual leave calendar for all employees, payroll reports, employee information and more. Employers can authorise or approve employee requests such as a change of address or annual leave requests. BrightPay Connect automatically synchronises these changes which are updated on BrightPay Payroll. Even invite your accountant to instantly access your payroll data 24/7. Watch the BrightPay Connect Employer Video here.
Payroll Bureau Dashboard - Bureaus will have online access to an overview of their payroll clients payroll information. Invite clients to their own online dashboard which can be branded with your bureau’s logo. Watch the BrightPay Connect Payroll Bureau Video here.
Annual Leave Calendar - Employees can request holidays through their employee portal. A notification email will be sent to the employer informing them of the employee's request. Employers can then either authorise or reject the annual leave request. Approved leave is recorded and synchronised back to BrightPay Payroll on the desktop.
Payroll Documents & Reports - BrightPay Payroll has the ability to build and save employer reports. Saved reports that have been set up in BrightPay Payroll will then be automatically available on BrightPay Connect. Through the online dashboard, employers can access and view these reports at any time, along with a record of Revenue payments and amounts due.
Data Protection & Security - BrightPay Connect is built using a compartmentalised design structure that maximises security. Each user will have their own login details and password. BrightPay Connect utilises the Microsoft Azure platform to give our customers reliability, scalability, data redundancy, geo-replication and timely security updates out of the box.
HR Solution - BrightPay Connect acts as a HR management package and is an integrated solution that can accelerate HR processes across your organisation. Run your HR operations with ease by managing and simplifying your workforce management. BrightPay Connect covers all of your core HR needs, including employee management and leave management.
- Employee Management: By law you are required to keep and provide certain information about your employees. BrightPay Connect records and stores your employee data, leave & absenteeism and key HR documents in one secure online location. This also allows users to access an overview of employees for employee performance and development purposes.
- Document Upload: Users can store and manage sensitive employee documents securely in the cloud. BrightPay Connect allows you to upload employee documents such as company newsletters, employment contracts and handbooks, appraisal documents, company pension information and even disciplinary correspondence. Users can also see a notification of when employees view HR or company documents.
- Training Management: Using the document upload feature, users can store qualifications and certs for each employee. These documents will be available to both the employer and the employee. Company training documents can also be uploaded and easily distributed to all employees online.
- Manage Staff Leave: BrightPay Connect takes the burden out of managing staff leave by streamlining the process. Users can easily reduce the processing time of leave requests. Employee leave that is approved or recorded by an employer in BrightPay Connect is then automatically synced back to BrightPay Payroll. Employers can approve employee leave requests in minutes which allows you to monitor staff leave to ensure you have adequate cover at all times.
Additional Users - Adding new users to BrightPay Connect is easy. Employers can grant access for additional users to view the company payroll data, authorise annual leave requests, process payroll and more. Employers can invite their accountant to their BrightPay Connect account. There is no limit to the amount of additional users that can be set up. There are two types of users:
- 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 all employer (and associated employees) information and process employee self-service requests.
User Access - Users may wish to give senior employees, supervisors or management access to certain functions on BrightPay Connect. Employees can be set up with restricted access to the high level payroll information but can be given varying degrees of access to approve employee leave requests, change employee contact details, view financial information including payslips and payroll reports, view employee HR documents and view high level employees such as directors.
Processing Payroll - BrightPay Connect will not have the ability to process payroll. This function will be only be available through the BrightPay Payroll desktop application.
GDPR Ready - BrightPay Connect is tailored to help you overcome the challenge that GDPR presents. The cloud functionality will improve your payroll processing with simple email distribution, keep employee records up- to- date, safe document upload, easy leave management and keep a secure backup of your payroll records.
For a single employer, BrightPay Connect costs €59 + VAT per year. This price includes cloud backup, employer dashboard and the employee self service portal for all employees. For bureau customers who have multiple payroll clients, we offer bulk discounts for several BrightPay Connect licences.
Thesaurus Payroll Software | BrightPay Payroll Software
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Apr 2018
24
How long you should retain employee data under GDPR
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force on 25th May 2018, legislation with new rules and guidelines on how to protect and process personal data. Employee personal data held may include: name, address, phone number, email address, emergency contact details, PPS number, bank account details etc.
The GDPR requires that when retaining and processing personal data there must be lawful reasoning for doing so. In terms of processing employee data employers are likely to rely on a number of lawful reasons, mainly: to fulfill contractual obligations, legal obligations or other legitimate interests. Under data protection legislation employee data should be kept for no longer than is necessary, for the purpose that it was retained. However, when deciding how long to retain personal data employers should be guided by employment legislation.
So how long should I retain employee data?
- Written Terms of Employment – 1 year
Employers must retain a copy of this employee statement throughout the employee’s employment and for one year after termination at a minimum. - Payroll details and Payslips – 6 years
Records, calculations and documents relating to the value of benefits for employees must be kept for 6 years in the event of an audit by Revenue. The WRC may also inspect these in an audit and seek evidence that employees are supplied with payslips. - Hours of Work – 3 years
Details of days and hours worked each week, annual leave and public holidays taken and payment received for same. Rest break records and/or records of notification of employees being fully informed about rest break entitlement and procedures if rest break is unable to be taken. - Maternity and Adoptive Leave Records – none
While there is no set period of the retention of data on maternity leave or adoptive leave records, claims can be made within 6 months of employers being informed of an issue giving rise to a dispute or extended to 12 months in exceptional circumstances. - Parental Leave – 8 years
Records of Parental Leave, including the period of employment of each employee and the dates and times of the leave taken, must be retained for 8 years.
A more detailed list of Employee Record Keeping Requirements can be viewed here.
Where legislation gives no guidance on record keeping requirements, employers should carefully predetermine, and include in any employee privacy notice, how long and the grounds they will use for retaining that data. For example; an employer may decide to retain all performance review records for the entire duration of an employee’s employment to monitor employee performance.
Whatever the reasoning behind retaining employee data – whether it be legal or other business reasons, employers need to ensure they have a clear policy outlining their reasoning, that this is easily accessible to employees and that the policy is consistently applied.
Free GDPR Webinars
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) comes into effect on 25 May 2018 with the aim of protecting all EU citizens from privacy and data breaches in an increasingly data driven world. This webinar will explain everything payroll bureaus need to know about GDPR. This webinar is free to attend but places are limited.
Payroll Bureau Webinar | Employer Webinar
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Apr 2018
19
Real time reporting to become part of payroll processing
In less than a year the current PAYE system is going to change remarkably with the introduction of real time reporting known as PAYE Modernisation. The current payroll system hasn’t been modified since it was first introduced in the 60’s.
The main objective of PAYE Modernisation is to enable clear communication between Revenue and those who are processing payroll. This change will affect most, if not all businesses across Ireland.
Some of the common questions people have asked about PAYE Modernisation are:
- What do I have to do differently for PAYE Modernisation?
PAYE Modernisation will mean that people processing payroll will now how to submit a file to Revenue every pay period as opposed to the current annual ‘P’ forms. Payroll Software will make this a hassle free process, ensuring employers can easily comply with PAYE Modernisation.
- Will PAYE Modernisation be complicated?
PAYE Modernisation will likely cause a significant burden to employers, particularly small employers that do not currently utilise payroll software. BrightPay and Thesaurus Software will be fully equipped to make PAYE Modernisation a seamless process for payroll processors. Our developers have already implemented a similar real time reporting process for our UK payroll software.
- What will PAYE Modernisation cost my business?
As reports will need to be submitted to Revenue every pay period a lot of businesses will be relying on payroll software to do this for them. If you do not have payroll software in place, now is the time to think about purchasing. Luckily, low cost payroll software, like BrightPay and Thesaurus payroll will seamlessly handle PAYE Modernisation.
- Will PAYE Modernisation take up a lot of my time?
For companies still processing payroll manually, PAYE Modernisation will likely impose a significant time burden. For employers utilising payroll software like BrightPay and Thesaurus Software, administrative tasks will be significantly simplified. PAYE Modernisation reports required by Revenue can be sent easily from within the software. Also, the introduction of PAYE Modernisation has meant the elimination of the time consuming annual ‘P’ forms.
Free PAYE Modernisation Webinars
If there is something you’re still unsure of relating to PAYE Modernisation, we have teamed up with Revenue to bring you free online training webinars. These webinars are designed for employers and payroll bureaus to discuss what PAYE Modernisation will mean for your business and to help you prepare for the transition to the new system. You can sign up to our newsletter to get an invitation to our next PAYE Modernisation webinar.
Thesaurus & BrightPay Newsletter
GDPR is changing how we communicate with you. After May 2018, we will not be able to email you about webinar events, special offers, legislation changes, other group products and payroll related news without you subscribing to our newsletter. You will be able to unsubscribe at anytime. Don’t miss out - sign up to our newsletter today!
Thesaurus Payroll Software | BrightPay Payroll Software
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Apr 2018
12
A Roadmap for Pensions Reform
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 pensions 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 ‘auto 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 costs €149 + VAT per tax year for a single employer licence, and also includes free phone and email support. Before the introduction of auto enrolment, payroll administrators will be faced with even more changes to the payroll process with the introduction of PAYE Modernisation in January 2019. BrightPay will be able to seamlessly cater for both PAYE Modernisation and Auto Enrolment without any additional costs to the software.
Thesaurus Payroll Software | BrightPay Payroll Software
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Apr 2018
10
How will GDPR affect your employee processing?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force on 25th May 2018 changing the way we process data forever. The aim of the GDPR is to put greater protection on the way personal data is being processed for all EU citizens. Personal data can be anything from a name, an email address, PPS number, bank details etc so as you can imagine employers process a huge amount of personal data on a daily basis. So how will the GDPR affect employers in terms of processing employee data?
Consent
Data in the employment context, will include information obtained from an employee during the recruitment process (regardless of whether or not they eventually got the job), it will also include the information you hold on current employees and previous employees. All this information may be saved in hard copy personnel files, held on HR systems or it could be information contained in emails or information obtained through employee monitoring.
Under GDPR your employee’s will have increased rights around their data. These rights will include:
- The Right to Access. It’s not a new concept that employees will be able to request access to the data you hold on them. However, there is a new recommendation that where possible employers should provide their employees with access to a secure self-service login where they can view data stored on them. This backs-up the whole concept of transparency and ease of access to data, which underpins the new Regulations.
- The Right to Rectification. Individuals are entitled to have personal data rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete. This is an existing right and the onus is on the employer to ensure that your employee records are kept up-to-date. To help ensure you maintain up-to-date records, employers should make it easier for employees to update their data.
- The Right to be informed. Employers must be very transparent with employees about what data you hold, why and how long it is held for. Up until now it has been the common practice for many employers to include a standard clause in the employment contract regarding the processing of HR Data, under GDPR that will no longer be sufficient. Employers need to be reviewing their Employee Data Protection Policies and possibly writing new Employee Privacy Policies that go into detail on the processing of employee data.
Employee Self Service
Under the GDPR legislation, where possible employers should be able to provide self-service remote access to a secure system which would allow employees view and manage their personal data online 24/7. Furthermore, the cloud functionality will improve your payroll processing with simple email distribution, safe document upload, easy leave management and improved communication with your employees. By introducing a self-service option, you will be taking steps to be GDPR ready.
Thesaurus Payroll Software | BrightPay Payroll Software
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Apr 2018
5
PAYE Modernisation - An Introduction
From January 2019 businesses across Ireland will be required to start complying with PAYE Modernisation. Employers will be required to submit records electronically to Revenue each time a payroll is run (whether it’s weekly, monthly or quarterly), instead of annually. Revenue have reported that PAYE Modernisation will serve a number of purposes and ultimately benefit all employers.
Some of the key benefits employers include:
- Seamless integration into payroll.
- Minimize employer cost to comply.
- Abolition of P30s, P45s, P60s and end of year returns.
- Right tax paid on current due dates.
- Time saving.
It is vital that employers are prepared in order to ensure that the transition in January 2019 is as smooth as possible and to avoid any potential penalties from Revenue.
Our payroll software will help ensure you are fully prepared to make your first submission in January 2019. To get an overview of how PAYE Modernisation will look like on your payroll, book an online demo today.
Free PAYE Modernisation Webinar
PAYE Modernisation is a new system that is being introduced where all employers must comply and implement the new PAYE changes. From the 1st January 2019, your payroll will need to be processed in real time, where employers will calculate and report their employee's pay and deductions as they are being paid. This PAYE reform aims to make it easier for employers to pay the correct amount of income tax, PRSI, USC and local property tax and send these figures directly through to Revenue.
- PAYE Modernisation - Understand how your payroll processing will change
- Guest Speaker: Sandra Clarke (BCC Accountants)
- Guest Speaker: Sinead Sweeney (Revenue)
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