Dec 2019
16
Thesaurus Payroll Manager 2020 is now available for download
Click here to download Thesaurus Payroll Manager 2020
Please note, with our new licensing model there is only one download which covers both Standard and Bureau customers.
Thesaurus Payroll Manager offers a 60 day free trial from the date of installation. This free trial is fully featured with complete functionality. The software can be licensed at any time during the trial period.
We have prepared a help sheet to guide you through the set up.
2020 Thesaurus Payroll Manager caters for all relevant budget changes and includes improved PAYE Modernisation functionality.
Thesaurus Payroll Manager 2020 licenses can be purchased by clicking here.
Year End 2019
Under PAYE Modernisation, employers no longer file a return with Revenue at year end or provide a year end statement to employees.
To access frequently asked questions on year end, click here.
Thesaurus Connect 2020
Thesaurus Connect is an optional add-on that provides automated backup of your payroll data to the cloud and a powerful web-based self-service dashboard for employers and employees.
Connect is billed at the end of each calendar month based on your total number of active employees in that month. Payments for Connect are automatically taken using the payment details you set up in your Thesaurus Account. There is no contract.
Christmas 2019
The management and staff of Thesaurus Software Ltd would like to thank you for your valued custom in 2019 and to take this opportunity to wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperous New Year.
Our office will be closed on the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, it will re-open on the 27th of December; it will also be closed on the 1st of January.
Dec 2019
3
Time to Renew for 2020
So you want to renew your Thesaurus or BrightPay payroll software, but unsure of which licence to choose. Hopefully the information below will guide you:
Standard Licence
If in 2019, you purchased a Standard (one employer) licence, then your software will confirm which licence to order. But just as a reminder, here is the 2020 pricing structure:
- 1 - 10 employees = €159 plus VAT
- 11 - 25 employees = €239 plus VAT
- 26+ employees = €319 plus VAT
To pay by card, please click here. Remember, click on the “Add to Order” box and then choose the correct licence you wish to purchase by clicking on the little arrow.
If in 2019, you purchased Standard and Additional licence(s) (2 employers or more), and you process all employers on one computer or laptop, then you must buy a Bureau licence for 2020. Please ignore the order form in your 2019 payroll, it automatically reverts to a standard licence.
With the Additional licence now gone, please don’t buy 2 or more standard licences, it won’t work!
There is only one exception to the above, if the 2nd or 3rd (or both) employers have 2 or less employees, this is considered a “Micro Employer”. You’ll be happy to know Micro Employers are free once you purchase a Standard licence for your 1st company and the additional companies never go over 2 employees within the same tax year.
Bureau Licence
If in 2019, you purchased a Bureau (multiple employers) licence, then your software will confirm which licence to order. But just as a reminder, here is the 2020 pricing structure:
- 2 - 10 employers = €339 plus VAT
- 11 - 25 employers = €499 plus VAT
- 26+ employers = €659 plus VAT
Connect – Cloud back-up and employee self-service
All Connect licences will be registered through the 2020 software when released in mid-December. For further details on this new process and pricing structure, please click here.
Dec 2019
3
The evolution of the payroll bureau
If you are an accountant working in practice, you may know that I was once one of you, before I escaped to the leafy suburbs of IT.
While in practice, part of my income came from providing a payroll bureau service.
This came with its challenges as I was tied to it, it wasn't very profitable and not all of my payroll clients understood that I actually needed to have the employees' hours before I could do the payroll.
I would send them their payslips with a summary report, reminded them when to pay Revenue and, in return, they would grudgingly pay my fees.
That was twenty years ago. A lot has happened since then, the two main things being technology and PAYE Modernisation.
I wish that PAYE Modernisation had been around in my time. I could really have used it to convince some of my less conscientious clients to change their ways or else. The "or else" being the big stick of Revenue fines.
Technology has enabled a lot of things. The arrival of the smart phone, cloud services and increased internet speeds have been transformative.
In my practice days, I had one client who considered themselves at the forefront of technology. They would have been blown away seeing the way their employees could now receive their payslips on their smart phone and all the other cool things e.g. holiday requests, a document portal and so on. Mind you, if I was still practising and had that same client, I think that these are things they would expect.
That same client would also expect to be able to log on to their own portal and get whatever payroll information they wanted 24/7.
What we are starting to see now is that this type of client is becoming more of a thing. A large part of the driving force for this is their increasingly youthful workforce. Millennials grow up with a smart phone attached to them and they want as much of their life on it as possible.
Another feature that I wish had been around in my time is getting clients to effectively update their own payroll. What I mean by this is that instead of the various ways they would send the hours (word documents, emails, scraps of paper), they would now log in to their portal, update the hours and these would flow seamlessly in to the payroll. Plus everything would be logged and time stamped, so they couldn't blame me if an employee was overpaid or not paid at all.
All of the above would have certainly transformed my basic payroll service of 20 years ago and forged a client base less likely to defect to some new accountant trending on social media.
The clients would still be getting the same attention as always but the "value added" would be enormous. They get to look much more modern with their employees, which can help with attracting and retaining employees. They also gain access to a HR tool with which they can manage holidays, roll out documents and ensure that employee contact information is always current. The vast majority of small/micro employers have nothing like this.
In the UK, this value added payroll service is more common than it is here and I have asked accountants there what they charge. As you can imagine it varies quite a bit and will depend on the type and size of business, but I have heard rates as high as £10 per payslip for higher net worth clients with the average closer to £5.
This type of pricing would certainly have catapulted my small bureau service in to one of my more profitable activities as the cost of all this technology can be as little as 8c per employee per month.
Paul Byrne fca
Recommended reading:
Thesaurus Connect for Payroll Bureaus & Accountants
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.
Nov 2019
29
Thesaurus Customer Update: December 2019
Welcome to our December update where you will find out about the latest hot topics and events affecting payroll. Our most important news this month include:
- How will auto enrolment affect you in 2022?
- Thesaurus Connect monthly subscription pricing - How does it work?
- 2019 HR & Employment Law Landscape - What you need to know
Plans to auto-enrol workers in pension schemes by 2022
In 2022, all employers are likely to have certain auto enrolment mandatory duties to complete by law. As a nation, we are not saving enough for our retirement. Many are planning to rely solely on their state pension which could lead to a reduced standard of living. The Irish government aims to bring in an auto enrolment system where all employers will enrol their employees into a workplace pension scheme and contribute towards the employee pension pot.
PAYE Modernisation: One year on - was it a success?
Thesaurus Software has teamed up with Revenue for a series of free PAYE Modernisation webinars. In this webinar, we will look back on PAYE Modernisation in 2019 and decide if the new real time payroll reporting system has been a success. We’ll also deep dive into the evolution of cloud technology in payroll.
- Part 1: Discover the common mistakes employers make and learn what’s to come in 2020.
- Part 2: Learn how Thesaurus Connect’s cloud platforms can improve your payroll efficiency.
Watch this short video to see how your business can benefit from Thesaurus Connect
Thesaurus Connect is our cloud add-on that works alongside Thesaurus Payroll Manager. Securely store payroll information in the cloud and enable online access anywhere, anytime for you, your employees and your accountant. You will be up and running in seconds. Find out how Thesaurus Connect can improve your payroll processes with a free online demo.
Employee Gift Cards for Christmas - Purchase One4All Gift Vouchers on Thesaurus
Thesaurus Payroll Manager offers a facility where users can securely purchase one4all gift cards for their employees. Employers can give a gift card of up to €500 tax-free to employees. Gift cards arrive addressed to the employer in an unmarked envelope for extra security.
New BrightPay Connect Feature for Bureaus
This is what you must be offering as part of payroll (And why clients will LOVE it)
Client Payroll Entry (Exclusive to BrightPay Connect)
The Payroll Entry Request allows clients to easily and securely enter their employee’s hours, saving bureaus hours of administrative time. Additions and deductions that have been set up by the bureau in the payroll software can also be selected by the employer. All of the information included in the Payroll Entry Request (payments, additions, deductions and new starters) will seamlessly flow through to the bureau’s portal, ready for payroll processing.
Client Payroll Approval (Exclusive to BrightPay Connect)
BrightPay Connect’s Payroll Approval Request allows bureau users to securely send their clients a payroll summary before the payroll is finalised. Clients can review and authorise the payroll details for the pay period through their online employer dashboard. Ultimately, your client will be accountable for ensuring the payroll information is 100% correct before the payroll is finalised. Additionally, there is an audit trail of the requests being approved by the client.
Nov 2019
28
Auto enrolment is finally on its way
Today we’re living longer and healthier lives than ever before! This is fantastic! Right? Well… sorry to be Captain Buzzkill, but as a nation, with this increase in life expectancy our saving habits haven’t caught up. Put simply, we’re not saving enough for our retirement! It’s no good having all those extra years if you haven’t even got enough to go to bingo with the girls every weekend.
Many people are planning on relying solely on their State pension, but this would lead to a serious decline in the standard of living. Never fear, however, the Irish government is here. To combat this issue, the State is bringing in an automatic enrolment system where all employers will be required to enrol their employees into a workplace pension scheme and contribute towards the employee’s pension pot.
The government has spent the last few years ironing out all the details and, hallelujah... the day is nigh. A date has finally been announced by the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection, and from 2022 pension auto enrolment will be rolled out on a phased basis.
Under this new system, an employee will be automatically enrolled into a pension scheme. It will apply to all employees aged between 23 and 60, earning more than €20,000 a year and not already in a workplace pension scheme. To begin with, the employee contribution will equal 1% of their salary, increasing to 6% of their salary in their tenth year of employment.
For employees, the best bit is that your employer will be required to contribute the same percentage, so after 6 years, workers and employers will be saving a combined 12% of salary into a pension. The State will then add a further 2% contribution which makes a whopping total of 14% of salary with a cap of €75,000. That will be more than enough to buy two double books and a couple of cans of Sprite at the bingo on weekends!
So how automatic is automatic? Well, as an employee, it’s completely automated. That’s the beauty. However, if you’re an employer, then you’ll likely have certain mandatory auto enrolment duties to complete. Such as:
- Choosing a workplace pension scheme
- Calculating who needs to be enrolled in a pension scheme
- Informing employees about their rights
- Calculating contributions and showing them on a payslip
- Completing a declaration of compliance to inform the Irish government that you have complied with the law
Wow, that actually sounds like a lot of work I say as I wipe the sweat from my top lip. Not if you’re a Thesaurus Software customer! Thesaurus Payroll Manager is ahead of the auto enrolment curve and will automate all of these pesky auto enrolment tasks to ensure the transition is seamless. The best part is that they won’t charge you anything extra for any auto enrolment features.
Nov 2019
20
Important Pricing Update for Thesaurus Payroll Manager 2020
To ensure that our investment in technology keeps pace with Revenue’s changing landscape and to facilitate the increase in customer support resources, we are changing our pricing for 2020. This new pricing structure is designed to better match usage and support requirements with price.
Unlike many of our competitors, we’ve added hundreds of powerful features and enhancements and heavily invested in additional customer support staff, all so that you don’t have to worry. 99.9% of the time everything will run smoothly but if you ever have problems we will be there to help you. Payroll is way too important not to have a first-class backup service. We believe our pricing remains excellent value and continues to be very competitive when compared to the options from other providers.
Nov 2019
19
Can the Cloud help you attract new staff?
The Cloud is the current buzz-word in technology. Employers in the know are reaping the benefits from its capabilities, including helping them attract and retain new staff.
Why is this important? Becoming an employer of choice has never been more important, especially as we are at near full employment. A quick search of any of the main job boards will show an abundance of available jobs. It’s a jobseeker’s market. The challenge for employers therefore is to attract and retain the best candidates. One way to attract and retain employees is to offer them something new, something edgy… a strong, feature-rich, cloud employee self-service system could be it.
Today’s world has gone online, everyone has social media accounts, we are all familiar with buying many of our goods and services online. This is particularly true for millenials (generally defined as those born between 1984 and 1999) who are are fast becoming the largest sector of our workforce. Understanding how to tap into their fast-paced expectations is crucial for business success.
Businesses who do not compete in this space run risks of being overlooked by prospective employees, millennials in particular. This is where employers should consider a cloud, employee self-service system. Offering online access to their annual leave calendar, their personal details, their employers details, all their HR documents and all of their payslips on their smartphones via a dedicated employee app is the smartest, most cost effective way to show your employees you are in the same digital space that they are.
Book a demo today to find out how your business can benefit from cloud self-service systems.
Nov 2019
15
Parent's Leave is here
The Government’s newest way of enabling parents spend time with their new baby came into force on 1st November 2019. This is called Parent’s leave.
What you need to know:
- This leave is currently capped at 2 weeks. The leave must be used before the child turns 1. In cases of multiple births, this leave can only be claimed once.
- It can be taken as a continuous period of 2 weeks or in 2 separate 1 week blocks.
- Parent’s leave must be taken following the end of maternity leave (paid or unpaid) or paternity leave – there cannot be a break between these leave types.
- Six weeks' notice of the intended use should be given to the employer by the employee.
- Employers are allowed postpone parent's leave in situations where taking this leave would have an adverse effect on the business. However, it cannot be postponed for more than 12 weeks.
- Parents receive a statutory payment, currently set at €245 per week (once they have the necessary PRSI contributions).
There is no requirement for employers to pay employees while on parent's leave. It will be up to each employer to decide if they want to top-up this payment. The advice would be to be consistent with approaches taken on the other family leave types.
What employers need to do now:
Company policies should now be reviewed and updated to reflect these changes. This will help you prepare for staff requests for parent’s leave. Should you get an employee request for parent’s leave, make sure you keep your paperwork & record keeping in order.
Bright Contracts has been updated with this policy so you can have peace of mind in knowing you are fully compliant with the new legislation.
Nov 2019
12
Christmas & Connect…. How to get the most from your Connect this festive season!
- Plan in advance – we all know how crazy the festive period can be; leave requests, last minute plans and staff parties to name a few. Now is the time to start planning. Make sure your employees are using their Employee App to organise all their leave requests in one, easy to access place that you can access 24/7’.
- Get creative – Need to get the Christmas party menu choices sorted? Need to organise the Secret Santa? Use the document upload feature in Connect to take care all of it!
- Stay engaged – It’s very easy for your employees to become distracted by all the craziness of Christmas and become switched off right at the busiest time of year for your business. Use Connect to send out flyers, links to motivational websites, targets and goals and company updates to keep your staff engaged and on top of their game.
- Say Thank You – Did you know that you can buy One4All gift cards directly from your Thesaurus Payroll Manager? Use Connect to let your employees know that you appreciate their hard work and that a One4All gift card is on the way!
