September email to BrightPay customers

Dear BrightPay Customer

You may be aware that the way payroll is reported to Revenue is changing from next January. Please be assured that our 2019 software will fully cater for the new system and that we aim to make it as seamless as possible for you. It is our view that the vast majority of employers will find that the new system is faster and easier to use.

The are a number of things you need to be aware of or to check in advance of January.

1. ROS Digital Cert

The computer that you run your payroll from will need to have your ROS Digital Cert installed on it. If you are currently able to log into ROS from that computer, then you are fine. Otherwise you should copy the cert (P12 file) from the machine you use for ROS to the machine you use for your payroll. This is something you might want to do in advance of January. You can find help on this here.

2. Vista no longer supported

For the new system, Revenue will only accept transmissions using TLS 1.2 security. Effectively this means that the new system will not work with XP or Vista. If you are still running your payroll using Vista, you will need to install the 2019 payroll to a more modern computer.

Note: There is a roundabout way of getting some Vista machines compatible with TLS 1.2 but we will not be able to support Vista. Click here for more details if you want to continue using Vista.

3. Split Payrolls

If you run the payroll on different computers for different groups of employees e.g. Directors on one computer and other staff on the other, you should consider registering an additional employer number so that the payrolls will be truly separate.

In the new system, the digital cert attaching to an employer registration will have access to all the payroll information for that registration irrespective of employee grouping. This will also mean that tax credits and cut offs for all employees will be returned any time the request is made for any individual group of employees.

An employer can have as many employer registrations as they choose. Instructions on creating additional registrations can be found here.

4. List of Employees

If you have not already uploaded your list of employees to ROS, you should consider doing so now. This will help ensure that your employees are given the correct tax credits and cut offs at the start of 2019. The List of Employees option is available in the Revenue tab of BrightPay.

5. Pricing

Our prices remain unchanged for 2019. We will also have a free version of our BrightPay product for employers who have a single employee.

6. Support

To support the transition to the new system, we will have extended and Saturday opening hours. As the change to real time reporting is a once in a generation event, we are hoping that you can help us figure out what these opening hours should be. We would be grateful if you click here and complete a 1 minute survey, the results of which we will use to build our rosters.

Apart from our telephone and email support, we will have extensive on screen and on line support (including videos) to help you through any of the new features.

We have been working on this since the beginning of the year and although what happens under the hood is quite complex, your experience of our 2019 software should be seamless and straightforward. You will hopefully wonder what all the fuss was about!

7. Training

We continue to roll out webinars on PAYE Modernisation. You can book your place here or even watch a previous webinar here. We will be adding many more webinar slots between now and January. The closer we get to January, the more the webinars will take on a training mantra, with full demos being included.

We will keep you posted on these webinars either by email, newsletter or by messaging within the 2018 software.

8. Spread the word!

We would be really grateful if you could tell any other employers about our software, particularly if they are currently doing their payroll manually. In 2019, although it will still be possible to process and report payroll manually, it will be a long and tortuous process. In addition, the ROS screens used for inputting manually will not perform any calculations.

We have developed functionality within the 2019 software whereby these “manual” employers can be up and running in a matter of minutes.