Release Notes: Payslip Enhancements & Collaboration Tools (12th April 2024)

Release Summary

Buddy's making waves! Ahead of our team's appearance in DAS (Digital Accounting Show), Buddy is launching updates focusing on payslip enhancements and advanced cross-collaboration tools:

• Employer contributions and optional basic hourly rates in payslips
• A new Advisor-Client payroll approval process
• Stay updated with Tiered Notifications (at organisation, advisory and user levels)
• A Magic Link to easily copy and send URLs to collaborators and colleagues
• Annualised National Insurance options for Directors
• Other User Experience enhancements

Please find detailed information and two videos on our new features in the section below, including the options enabled in this update.

Release Notes

Payslip and Calculation Changes

Buddy is introducing three payslip and calculation enhancements; and introduced a few other changes

• New: Two new payslip enhancement items
  • New: Employer contributions will now be visible in payslips

  • New: "Show the hourly rate on payslip pay items" option will include the hourly basic rate in the same line as the Basic Pay. This can be selected in the company settings.

• New: Users can now opt out of the automatic rounding in Payroll inputs:
  • By opting out and input of a decimal ending .33 will no longer be rounded to 1/3rd (i.e. 0.3333333), and similarly, 0.67 would no longer be rounded to 2/3rds (i.e. 0.666667)
  • This rounding was already in effect, but can now be opted out of.
• Update: Reworded a few payslip items to ensure clarity for commonly used UK Terms (e.g. "Tax" instead of PAYE) 
• Update: For tax (and P32) calculations, the period's Pay Date will be used as a reference
• Update: National Insurance Rates have been updated following the latest announcements from Jeremy Hunt.

Advisor / Client Approval Process

Cross-collaboration between payroll bureaus and clients has reached a new peak. Watch the potential of a payroll process done in collaboration:

• New: Three new Advisor options for the client-advisor approval process have been introduced
  
  • Client Reviews Payroll
    • This allows clients to approve or reject payroll when receiving a summary.
      A payroll report is downloadable to allow the client to check.
  • Client Enters Payroll Data
    • Client can insert payroll data directly, such as overtime hours, before sending to the Advisor with any comments
  • Admins can Process Payroll
    • This gives any admin (with the respective permissions) to perform all payroll aspects without requiring the advisor to conclude. This is useful when adding team members with access to limited companies.
• New: This introduces three new views and statuses for payrolls of advisors:
  • Awaiting Approval Screen
  • Approved Payroll Screen
  • Rejected Payroll Screen

For the full details, we suggest looking at the video linked above. Although the video shows a test company based in Malta, UK Advisors and clients go through the same flow.

In-App Tiered Notifications

• New: Notifications have now been introduced at three levels:
  • Organisation notifications
    • These are company-specific notifications, such as when an advisor sends a payroll for approval
  • Advisor notifications
    • These are advisor-level notifications, such as when a client approves or rejects a payroll
  • User notifications (My Inbox)
    • These are updates or notifications sent to all users. Buddy's team will primarily create these notifications, such as informing users of updates or system notifications.
• New: Get New Notifications
  • Clicking Get New Notifications will re-check for any new notifications
• New: Notification read status
  • For the time being, notifications cannot be archived by users. After being viewed, the notification will still be visible, but it will no longer count as a new notification

Cross-Collaboration Tool: The Magic Link

The magic link is a cross-collaboration tool that copies an advanced URL of the current page.

Paste and send this link to your colleagues, collaborators, or Buddy's support team so they can quickly switch to that same page.

If you send a link to which another user does not have permission, they will be redirected to the People page of the company they are already accessing.

Don't worry; it's all secure!

FPS Details

Added more data collected for HMRC submission purposes.

• Updated: Company settings will ask for further details about Principal which will be used for HMRC submissions
• New: Advisors now have additional settings in their Advisor Details, allowing them to add agent and bureau references for when submitting FPS for clients. 

Pension Data

The pension data structure has been updated to be directly linked to Salary Data. This also allowed for other enhancements around the auto-enrolment process.

• Updated: Pension data will now be directly applicable based on the Salary effective data
• Updated: Improved the auto-enrolment process to refer to salary effective dates. When opted-out, re-enrolment will not be prompted again until the 3rd work anniversary.

Compliance and Reporting

Buddy recently rehauled the reporting page; following that, our team continues to work on essential reports and elements.

• Added the P30 Report
• Implemented elements of CIS Deductions to the P30 and P32
• Added Compensated Statutory Pay to the P30 and P32

Directors' NI Calculation Methods

Directors' NI can be set up to use an annualised calculation, instead of a monthly one. This will make it more flexible and easy to use the most beneficial rate.

• New: Added a Directors' NI Calculation Method option to switch between Annual and Alternative
  
  • Annual (AN) method will compare all taxable income to date to the annual threshold
  • Alternative (AL) method will compare the taxable income to the monthly threshold
    
    

User Experience Enhancements

• Updated: The UI for Tax Office Number and PAYE Reference are now merged into one line for ease of use.
• Updated: Updated the Run Payroll user experience:
  • Improved visibility of the current pay period
  • Upload Pay Items option now opens into a new modal
    • By default, Buddy will now default not to duplicate pay items unless manually selected
  • The Run Payroll button has been improved to better link to creating or redirecting to the latest active pay periods without requiring web page refreshes.
• Updated: Payroll import templates have been updated to reflect the new Director NI options and Pension changes