Release Summary
Buddy's making waves! This update will prove to you that Buddy's launch in the UK market is beneficial to our Malta-based customers! Today's update brings new payslip enhancements and advanced cross-collaboration tools:
- Optional employer contributions (enabled by default) and 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
- 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 Enhancements
Buddy is now introducing two new options for payslip enhancements and exposing an existing calculation option for an opt-out feature
- New: Two new payroll enhancement items
- New: "Show Employer Contributions on Payslip" options, which is defaulted for all companies, will now show employer SSC and Maternity contributions as an item for transparency.
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New: "Show the hourly rate on payslip allowances" will show the hourly basic rate in the same line as the Basic Pay. This is an opt-in feature.
- 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.
Collaborative Advisor and 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.
- This allows clients to approve or reject payroll when receiving a summary.
- 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.
- Client Reviews Payroll
- 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. Do note that this payroll-review process is only available to Partnered accounts.
Note that some users currently linked to advisors may not be able to access payroll due to the introduction of these new settings. If you believe you've been impacted, please contact our support team so they can direct you accordingly.
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 send 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 an update or any system notifications.
- Organisation 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!
User Interface Enhancements
- Updated: Updated the Run Payroll user experience:
- Improved visibility of the current pay period
- Upload Allowance option now opens into a new modal
- By default, Buddy will now default not to duplicate allowances 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: Minor UI adjustments to other elements, like overtime and allowances.