Nov 2022
14
5 Tips to Improve your Accountancy Practice
As an accountancy practice owner, improving efficiency and increasing revenue are your main goals. However, this can be quite a difficult task as there are daily hurdles you may face which can hamper performance.
In the day to day running of your business, you may have to juggle many tasks such as processing payroll, bookkeeping, preparing financial statements and taxation services, keeping on top of it all can be difficult. In this article, we look at payroll and how the process can be streamlined for accountants, allowing you more time to spend on other tasks.
1. Say goodbye to manual data entry
Traditionally, you would manually enter clients’ payroll data into your payroll software, each pay period. This can be a very tedious and time-consuming task, which is also prone to human error. Thanks to award winning payroll software, BrightPay, and it’s cloud extension, BrightPay Connect, you can say goodbye to manual data entry, and say hello to a more automated payroll workflow. Through BrightPay Connect’s online dashboard, clients can view a summary of their payroll information before the payroll is finalised. This allows your clients to check for any possible errors or send you information on any changes that should be made to the payroll for that period. This can all be done directly through BrightPay Connect’s online portal; improving your payroll accuracy and reducing the chance of payroll errors occurring.
2. Automatic cloud backup
In an era where cyberattacks and data breaches are on the increase, backing up and securing your data has never been more important. According to a 2022 survey by Censuswide, 95% of Irish SME’s were hit by cyberattacks in the past year. In light of this, it’s important that every Irish accounting firm has measures in place to protect their clients’ data. Payroll software, BrightPay, has a cloud extension, BrightPay Connect, which can help solve this problem.
With BrightPay Connect, you no longer need to worry about manually backing up your payroll data. BrightPay Connect will automatically back up your payroll data to the cloud every 15 minutes and once again whenever you close out of a payroll file. This ensures that your clients’ payroll data is safe and secure. BrightPay Connect uses one of the world's most trusted cloud servers, Microsoft Azure, to store data. Backups can be restored at any time, through BrightPay Connect’s online dashboard.
3. Employer dashboard
Reducing your workload and saving time for other tasks is a goal for most accountants. With BrightPay Connect’s, online employer dashboard, accountants can work more efficiently by sharing payslips with their clients automatically through the portal, once payslips have been finalised. This process removes the manual workload and saves you time each pay period. Additionally, through the employer dashboard, clients can run their own payroll reports, meaning they won’t have to come to you when they need that information.
4. Integration with accounting software
Reducing the time you spend on time-consuming tasks such as transferring data from one system to another is vital. There can be a lot of time wasted on the double entry of payroll figures, when you should only really have to enter this information once.
It’s important that you use payroll and bookkeeping software that communicates with one another to remove the workload that comes with manually entering data. BrightPay’s integration with accounting software, Surf Accounts, is a great example of this. By connecting BrightPay to Surf Accounts, you can automatically send your payroll journals to the general ledger in Surf Accounts. This reduces errors by eliminating the need to reenter employee payroll data into your accounting software.
5. Pay your clients faster
Ensuring your clients’ employees are paid on time every week or month is one of the most important aspects of your payroll services. If there are delays in employees getting their wages, you will have unhappy clients with unhappy employees. This could damage your practice’s reputation, and you could potentially lose valuable clients.
Traditionally, it would take 1-3 business days for payments to be processed when paying employees by credit transfer. However, thanks to BrightPay’s integration with payment platform, Modulr, this process can be sped up dramatically. Modulr’s easy-to-use service allows you to make same-day payments to employees, when processed before 2.00 pm, cutting time spent manually processing payments and keeping both you, your clients and your clients’ employees happy.
BrightPay and BrightPay Connect users have a wide variety of tools at their disposal to help improve their payroll services. Not only will these features help save you time, but they can open up an opportunity to offer new services to clients and a new stream of revenue for your practice.
Why not book a free demo of BrightPay Connect today and discover how you can improve your accountancy practice and not be left behind.
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9
How an employee-app can help you manage HR responsibilities
As an employer, juggling all of your tasks can be quite difficult. Duties such as managing your employees and processing payroll can leave you feeling stressed. Without a HR department, these tasks can be very time consuming.
If hiring HR staff isn’t possible, the next best thing is an online employer dashboard and an employee self-service app that can help you manage your HR tasks, all from one place. Payroll software, BrightPay, has a cloud-extension called BrightPay Connect, which is an easy-to-use software that can act as an alternative to a HR department in your business.
Annual leave management
When employees want to book annual leave, often they have to request it by filling out a document, sending the request by email, or they may ask for the time off in person. Before dealing with the request, the employer may need to check what other employees are on leave at that time, and the employee could be left waiting for days or weeks to hear if their request had been granted. As well as this, with face-to-face requests, if not dealt with straight away, it’s easy for them to slip your mind. Processes like these can be inefficient and lead to employees being dissatisfied.
With BrightPay Connect, your employees have access to an online dashboard and a self-service app, where they can request time off from their laptop, tablet or smartphone, in just a few clicks. Once approved, the leave request will flow directly into the payroll software, eliminating the need for you to make any changes to your employees’ payroll information. This feature can help you manage and organise your employees’ leave more efficiently.
From the employer dashboard, you can view a companywide calendar where you can keep track of all types of employees’ leave, be that annual leave, sick leave, maternity leave or other types of leave.
Manage payslip distribution
In the digital world, distributing your employees’ payslips by paper or even email is now a thing of the past. Using these methods of distributing employees’ payslips can put your employees’ information at risk of a security breach. For example, paper payslips can easily fall into the wrong hands, or an email can be sent to the wrong email address. When you use BrightPay Connect, payslips are automatically shared with employees through a secure online portal. Employees will receive a push notification on their smartphone device when a new payslip becomes available, or they can log into BrightPay Connect through an internet browser to view their payslips. Additionally, BrightPay Connect keeps a history of your employees’ payslips which they can view or download at any time. This is convenient for both parties as it means employees won’t need to come to you to request copies of past payslips if they needed them for a loan or mortgage application, for example.
Manage and store important company handbooks
Do you find it difficult to get your employees to read important company updates or HR documents? BrightPay Connect enables you to send important updates to your employees via the employee self-service app, in a few clicks. You can share personal documents with individual employees such as a contract of employment, or you can share documents with multiple employees at the same time, such as a staff handbook or company policies. Through your own dashboard, you can see who has and hasn’t opened these documents, which makes it easy for you to track who has read them.
BrightPay Connect is a powerful cloud-extension that enables you to operate your business with ease. The online employer dashboard and the employee self-service app enables you to manage your employees’ leave requests, easily distribute your employees’ payslips and share documents with employees. As well as these HR benefits, through BrightPay Connect’s online dashboard, you have online access to your payroll data. BrightPay Connect automatically backs up your payroll data to the cloud every 15 minutes or each time you close out of the software.
If you are interested in learning more about BrightPay Connect, why not book a free 15-minute demo of the cloud software today and see how it can improve your business.
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BrightPay Customer Update: July 2022
Welcome to BrightPay's July update. Our most important news this month include:
-
Living wage to replace minimum wage in Ireland by 2026
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Maximise efficiency and reduce errors when making payments
-
The future is Bright: An introduction to Surf Accounts and Surf AP
-
5 Benefits AccountancyManager can bring to your business
Free Webinar: The secret to streamlining your payroll and payments process [bureau]
Discover in our upcoming webinar, how to make same-day payments to clients’ employees, when processed before 2 pm, directly from your payroll software. Our integration with payments platform, Modulr, offers faster, easier and more secure payments for your practice.
Free webinar: The importance of accounting systems and payroll systems working together [employers]
Say goodbye to manually entering payroll journal data into your accounting software. In our upcoming webinar, discover how BrightPay’s integration with Surf Accounts allows you to send payroll journals seamlessly to the general ledger in Surf Accounts - it couldn’t be any easier!
Be cyber-safe with BrightPay Connect [bureau]
How often do you back-up your clients’ payroll data? It's vital that you secure your payroll data regularly. In the event of a cyber-attack, you could lose your clients’ sensitive payroll information. Learn how you can keep your data safe with our cloud extension, BrightPay Connect.
How to edit your financial statements as you go [bureau]
Surf Accounts Production has been designed to allow you to edit financial statements 'on the fly,' while keeping you fully confident in your compliance. For more information, book an online demo with a product expert.
How to retain employees in 2022 [employers]
High employee turnover rates have become an issue for employers in 2022. Learn how an online employer portal and an employee app can be used to improve employee retention through autonomy, improved communication, and streamlined HR processes.
Integrate your payroll with Surf Accounts [employers]
BrightPay’s latest integration with Surf Accounts, allows users to send payroll journals directly into their accounting software. This will save you time, reduce errors, and improve your overall productivity. Register for our upcoming webinar on the 12th of July to see the software in action.
Living wage to replace minimum wage in Ireland by 2026
It was announced in June that the National Minimum Wage will be replaced by a living wage in 2026. The minimum wage rate will increase between now and 2026, closing the gap between the minimum and the new living wage.
Jun 2022
2
Maximise efficiency and reduce errors when making payments
Automating your workflow in 2022 is the key to a successful business. The process of manually entering data is long gone, as automating tasks allows you to save time and reduce the number of repetitive tasks you manage.
BrightPay Payroll Software is now integrated with payment platform, Modulr, to provide a faster, easier and more reliable way to pay employees. The integration has created a more seamless way of paying your employees, saving you time for other tasks.
The importance of automating your payroll
Traditionally, employee payments are a time-consuming task that can cause major headaches for employers, when not done correctly. It can turn into an arduous process, especially when errors are made. As well as the time delays, when employees haven't been paid correctly or on time, it can damage employee morale. Errors that can occur when paying employees include:
- Double entry or incorrect input of figures
- Duplication of figures
- Forgetting to add overtime, statutory leave pay etc.
At BrightPay, we want to make our customers' payroll journey as easy as possible. BrightPay’s integration with payment platform, Modulr, has taken away the manual data entry workload associated with making payments to employees, and eliminates the need to create bank files.
What is Modulr?
Modulr is a payment platform integrated into your payroll software and is a faster, easier and more reliable way to pay employees. Modulr offers a safe and reliable way of paying your employees as it has built in multi-factor authentication, meaning you must confirm your identity through an app on your mobile.
The integration allows employees to be paid on the same day when payments have been authorised on a business day before 2pm. This helps reduce payment errors as it gives you the opportunity to make any last-minute changes to the payroll, such as adding overtime pay.
How to pay employees using Modulr
- Once you’ve finalised your employees' payslips through BrightPay, simply click the “Pay” tab and on the drop-down menu click the “Modulr” button.
- On the next screen, simply click “continue”.
- When asked, enter your Modulr username and password and click “Sign in to Modulr”. If you do not have a Modulr account set up, you can simply sign up here.
- Once you’re signed into Modulr, you will be asked to authenticate your account using authentication app, Authy. For this to be successful, you will need to have the Authy app installed on your mobile device.
- Once prompted, follow the instructions on your screen.
- When you are signed into the Authy app, a match attempt will be made to your Modulr account using your employer registration number entered into your BrightPay employer file. Once both accounts have synchronized, your customer name will be displayed. If you’ve been given more than one customer name, simply click the one that is most applicable to you.
- If your employee's payment method has been set to credit transfer, it will be displayed for review and will be asked to put in the following details:
- Pay from account – select the account you wish to make payment from
- Payment date – choose your payment date
- Payee – review the list of payees, and de-select any who are not included in this pay period
- IBAN – Make sure the correct bank details are logged
- Reference – enter a reference if you wish
- Amount – this reflects the payment amount for each of your employees
- When ready, click “continue”.
- A summary of your payment request will be displayed on screen for review. When ready to submit your payment request, simply click “Send to Modulr”. One last request will be sent to your mobile device via the Authy authentication app.
- Once successful, confirmation of your payment request will be displayed via Modulr for final approval.
Although there are several steps to get your Modulr account set up and activated, once set up, it is an efficient way to pay your employees. As mentioned, employees can be paid on the same day, when payments have been processed on a business day before 2 pm. Otherwise, they will be paid on the next business day. Thanks to the integration, you can maximise efficiency while allowing you to process your employees payments with ease. Book a free demo of BrightPay today to learn more.
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- 5 benefits AccountancyManager can bring to your business
- The future is Bright: An introduction to Surf Accounts and Surf Accounts Production
- BrightPay Customer Update: June 2022
