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Buddy Release: Upgrading the Process Timesheets Functionality (Oct-Nov 2022)

Jeremy
  • Updated

Release Summary

As most of you know, Buddy was developed as an emerging need in the local market and has been designed based on feedback from real practice and needs. As we continue to grow, we continue to learn and come across more unique needs. This update introduces additional functionality to our Process Timesheets system to allow more companies to pay accurately using their unique combination of Time and Attendance rules.

This release also introduces other Quality of Life improvements, such as filtering options on the Payroll History page and new notifications while downloading a Leave Situation Report.

Below are the notes for all releases from late October up to mid-November.

Payroll & Timesheet Updates

Process Timesheets

Most updates for this system come from an emerging need: to calculate timesheets a month in arrears. With today's technology and integrations, it is fairly common for most employers to pay overtime within the month they were due; however, we understand that companies which are used to using outdated systems find it difficult to switch from paying overtime in arrears. This update helps such companies issue accurate pay, along with other improvements.

  • New: When using cut-off dates of previous months, Buddy will now calculate overtime and allowances at the original rates. For instance, if you are paying October Salary but paying for Overtime worked in September, then the overtime will be paid at September rates, even if the employee had a salary increase in October.
    This will be displayed as a "Mixed Salaries" instance, as in the example below.
    Mixed_Salaries.png
  • Auto-Create Public Holiday (Automated Leave Entries)
    • New: When using backdated cut-off dates, Buddy will now create Public Holidays applications for the dates within the cut-off period, even if they fall outside of the payroll period.
    • Update: Leave will also be created for employees without any working days selected
    • Update: The entries will no longer be created if the employee already has an existing timesheet or leave application on the day of a Public Holiday.
    • Update: When Unprocessing Timesheets, Buddy will now remove any created public holiday. These will be created again next time you Process Timesheets.
  • Auto-Pay Accrued Leave
    • Update: When timesheets are being processed per week and leave accrued is being automatically paid for casual employees, Buddy will now assign this vacation leave per week and include it in that week's basic hour
  • Time & Attendance Rule Engine
    • Update: Optimised how the rule engine factors in times after midnight on Public Holidays
      • If a timesheet on the day before the Public Holiday exceeds midnight, then the hours after midnight will be considered at Public Holiday rates
      • If a timesheet on Public Holiday exceeds midnight, then the hours after midnight will be considered at normal rates.
    • Fix: Fixed an instance that was calculated overtime at two different rates simultaneously. From our awareness, this only occurred for a new company based on their combination of settings and is unlikely to have impacted existing clients.
    • Update: Optimised rules such as "Larger than" and "Larger than or equal to" to be more consistent

Other Payroll Updates

  • Fix: Fixed an instance where payslips could not be saved if the leave cut-off period had no days overlapping with the payroll period.
  • Fix: For employees on non-resident tax, if their income falls under the first bracket, Buddy will now include this in the payslip as €0 rather than omitting it.
    • Do note that our team is currently investigating any prior cases in 2022 to determine if corrective action needs to be applied.
  • Update: We added a default for when the setting "Pays Minimum 10% NI" is missing. If this is left blank during the Employee Import, Buddy will assume that it is a "no" and will calculate payroll accordingly.

Leave Management

  • Leave Situation Report
    • Update: Added a consistent ping to the server to prevent timeout for larger companies. This means if the report would take more than 30 seconds to download, it will no longer stop downloading.
    • New UI: Added a blue notification on the top-right to notify that generation of the report may take a while.
    • Update: When requesting a Leave Situation Report, Buddy will now automatically set a default date as the end of the current month. The date can still be edited as required.
    • Fix: Resolved a fix where Leave Managers were unable to download the Leave Situation Report from their portal.
  • Leave Timeline
    • Fix: Leave applications after the 21st of December were not visible in the timeline. This is now resolved, and all applications should be visible.
    • Update: The Leave Timeline has been extended and now allows you to scroll into 2023

Payroll History

These are two minor changes to improve quality of life, particularly for those who have multiple Pay Schedules within their company

  • Payroll History
    • New: Added a Year filter - if you want to look at the payroll history and reports of a particular year, you will no longer need to scroll down.
    • New: Added a Pay Schedule filter - similar to the above, you can now filter by Pay Schedules (e.g. Monthly, Fortnightly) to view only relevant data

Payroll_History_Filters.png

  • Payslips Page
    • Update: The sorting has been updated to match the Payroll History. When a company has more than one pay schedule, Buddy will now sort these by the end date of the payroll period. 
    • New: We are now also including the name of the Pay Schedule before the dates. This will allow users to utilise the existing search function to filter by Pay Schedule.

Text_Filtering_Payslips.png

Tax Forms

  • Tax Forms
    • Fix: Clicking on October FS5 will now properly download October in all locations, rather than downloading the January FS5.
    • Fix: FS5 summary tables for years before 2022 have been regenerated and can be downloaded again. Some users will also find the FS3s visible, but our team is looking into this as we are aware not all FS3s are yet showing.

Other Changes

  • Update: Added Tax Status and Employee Pays Minimum NI to the Employee Data Report in the Reports section.
  • Import Payslip
    • Fix: Any income that is qualified for overtime income will automatically be excluded from the main taxable earnings.
    • Fix: If tax is imported at €0, we are now storing the taxable earnings amount to ensure that the totals in future payslips reflect the full amount.
  • Integrations
    • Fix: The button to connect to Deputy connect has been fixed as for a short period it was not re-directing to Deputy.
  • Support and Emailing
    • Some users may have noticed that they were listed as Undefined Undefined in our support profile or when receiving emails from our mailing list. Our team apologises for this incident and has now introduced improvements to our Single Sign-On Feature to resolve this. This issue will be monitored by our team in case further updates are required.
  • Billing
    • Fix: Fixed an instance in which a user was unable to save a credit card if the company was previously paid for by an advisor but now will be paid independently.
  • Employee Portal
    • New: For employees who require an MFA code to log in, our team has created a new guide that is being linked to within the log-in screen: Retrieving MFA Code for your Login
    • New: A login screen has been added. This will appear while all other settings and profiles are loading so that employees who have slower connections will be aware they are in the process of being logged in. Most employees will not notice this new screen if they have reliable connections.

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