Release Summary
The new year is almost upon us! Before the end of 2022, we wanted to give another massive update to ensure we give all our customers an incredible start to 2023. The following list includes some of the key changes:
- Updates to the COLA (Cost of Living Adjustment) Modal
- Rehauled the User Interface, particularly that of the Employee Details and Company Settings
- Added new icons when adding multi-day sick leave to highlight sickness benefits and half-pay/unpaid applications
- Introduced new advanced settings for overtime and allowances, particularly for our AccuPay™ (Time & Attendance) users
We believe that Payroll & HR Software should be as compliant as possible. Although it is still the user's responsibility to know local employment laws and practices, Buddy will continue doing its utmost to ensure you remain compliant, such as requiring you to apply COLA before allowing you to do payroll for 2023, and informing you when a sick leave will be half-pay, prior to payroll.
To be compliant does not mean that the software needs to be rigid. In our design, we are introducing advanced settings, particularly related to our AccuPay™ functionality. This is due to the different needs of timesheet handling in different industries. You will be able to do payroll your way, the right way.
This update is only the beginning of what we have in store. More features will be coming next year, so stay tuned! Below find the changes released within this update.
Changes to User Interface and General Experience
Buddy, since its inception, has always been about delivering the best experience to our users. We have made several changes to the user interface to distinguish some buttons clearer and also implement changes to improve the user experience by facilitating the workflow.
General User Interface
- Update: Changed all icons to a newer set which is more visually clear
- Update: Softened the edges of buttons across Buddy
- Update: Updated the formatting of some Currency values to include commas for larger values (e.g. €23,000 instead of €23000). This has been updated in the People and Grades module for now, but we will keep on introducing this format in other areas.
- Update: The Company Settings and Employee Details pages are now more responsive for smaller screen sizes
- New: When clicking back or forward from your browser or mouse, Buddy will now navigate through previous tabs of the Employee Page or Company Settings.
- Update: Changed the colouring of the Upload Company Logo button
- Update: Changed the alignment of several items to make them more aesthetically pleasing and consistent
- Update: Reformatted the Employee Details and the Company Settings to be visually segregated into different blocks and organised slightly different
- New: Added a screen to show No Grades when a user has no Grades created yet.
- New: Added functional filtering for the Payroll History page so that users can filter by Pay Schedule or Year
UI Changes to Employee Details
- Update: In the Salary Details, we will now automatically hide any unused allowances and overtime. Instead, we changed the way you can Add new allowances and overtime to be an improved experience.
- For overtime rates, we will also be showing the rate type (Paid or TOIL), the rate multiplier and the effective rate
- Update: The Add New Employee pop-up has been updated to use the same appearance and block as the Employee Details for a consistent user experience.
- New: Deputy (a third-party integrated software) users will now be able to connect Deputy profiles from the Add New Profile screen
- New: The final page after completing all details will now show you options to Invite or View employee
- Update: Added more input validation to the following inputs:
- Previous Earnings section
- Salary Amount
- Weekly Hours
- Hours Worked in Q4
- Allowances
- Overtime Rates
- New: Added a red symbol in the People list when employees have no Tax Rate saved
- We have previously added validation to ensure any new employees have Tax Rates. If employees will not be taxed, we recommend marking the proper tax rate regardless.
- New: Users will no longer be allowed to invite employee if there is no personal email address saved
- Update: Removed the text Add New Department from the Role Details as this moved to the Company Settings page.
- New: Added a grade lock in the salary details to signify that the values are reflected based on the grade. This can be unlocked to do manual changes on an employee outside of grade.
- New: Employees can also have allowances added outside of the grade, but will still be considered as part of the grade.
UI Changes to Settings
- Update: Moved the Work Location settings from the Work Locations tab into the Settings page
- New: Added new settings icon in Work Locations, Timesheets, and Leave to directly take you to the relevant settings page
- Update: Moved the Add Leave Application button to be only visible in the Leave Applications tab.
- Update: Renamed "Maxed Daily Leave Hours" leave option to "Default Daily Leave Hours"
- New: Added input validation for the Default Daily Leave Hours option
Change of Year
As the year is changing, we have now disabled the options for the 2022 COLA and Carryover in preparation for the 2023 changes.
Cost of Living Adjustment
The Cost of Living Adjustment in Malta is obligatory by law. For this reason, Buddy will not allow non-adjusted payrolls to be computed from 2023.
The COLA for 2023 can start being applied from Saturday 17th December. For instructions on how to apply COLA, check out our article (with video): Adding the Annual Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA).
- New: Payroll for 2023 cannot be started prior to applying COLA for 2023
- New: Buddy will now allow companies to apply COLA prior to 1st January if their first payroll starts before. For instance, a company whose first payroll starts on 26th December will be able to apply COLA as of that date.
- Update: We made some minor enhancements to the flow of applying COLA, but it will predominantly remain similar to next year
- New: Hovering over the suggested COLA amount will explain the computation
Leave Balances and Carryover
Very minor changes have been made to the carryforward system from last year. The option will appear after 1st January: Carrying Over Leave into a New Year.
General Changes
Advanced Overtime and Allowance Settings
When it comes to overtime and allowances, although many follow a standardised ruleset, there is ample room for these to be customised based on the needs of the industry or organisation. Some of these settings can be useful for all companies, whereas other settings are specifically designed for AccuPay™ (Time & Attendance) users.
- Update: Changed "Overtime" to "Overtime & Special Rates"
- New: Introduced 5 new Overtime Settings. Special rates may need different settings, and we are now increasing the customizability of each overtime rate.
- Overtime can now be marked as not taxable at overtime rates (particularly when it is a special rate).
- Customisable settings on whether the triggered overtime should be included or deducted from the basic pay
- For an explanation of each setting, please take a look at the Advanced Overtime Settings in the Time and Attendance Rules guide.
- New: Introduced a new advanced setting for allowances
- Allowances can now be set as fixed. Fixed salary allowances will no longer be deducted pro-rata when an employee is on unpaid leave (e.g. phone allowance).
- Hotfix: immediately resolved an issue that caused users to load a white page in payroll when previous allowances did not have this setting.
- New: Additional Auto-Create Public Holiday Leave settings
- Default Public Holiday Hours: when an employee has no set days, Buddy used an 8-hour default. We are now allowing each company to set its own default hours (e.g. 6.67 hours).
- Added an option to exclude the leave entry if the employee already has a timesheet or leave entry on that Public Holiday
Employee Details
- Fix: If the termination date is set as the same day as the engagement date, the termination date can now be edited.
Payroll
- Fix: Updated the calculation of the Tax Rate after marriage to use the correct rate. This has minimal impact on most employees if any.
Timesheets
- New: Deleted timesheets can now be restored.
- Fix: Timesheets that were imported without break can now be edited.
- Fix: Timesheets can now be edited on the Safari browser.
Leave
- New: When applying for Sick Leave, administrators will now see icons that will show whether the day is on full pay, half-pay, unpaid or whether the sick benefit will be applied.
- Fix: Leave applications for future years (e.g. 2023) will no longer be limited based on the current year's balance
- Update: Limited multi-day leave applications to not cross multiple years.
- Update: When leave applications cross multiple payroll periods, now the non-paid portion will still be able to be edited
- Fix: Fixed an issue with uploading and downloading attachments as an admin
- Update: Added validation to various inputs
- Update: Hours requested will now be defaulted based on the average day of the employee
- Update: Leave already paid can now be re-saved to upload attachments
- Update: Leave can now be edited on the Safari browser
Company Settings
- New: When pressing update, you will be notified that the save has been successful
- Update: Any saved changes will now appear immediately, without having to reload the webpage.
Reports
- Fix: Some part-timers were being shown as Full-time in the Payroll Report; we have now resolved this.
Tax Forms
- Update: Should the name of the Director not fit in Tax Forms, such as the FS7, Buddy will now automatically re-size this to a smaller font to fit
- Fix: Fixed the "Portal Access" toggle in the FS3s so that users can now make the FS3s visible to the employee portal
MFA Status
- New: Last month, we have added MFA Status to the employee profile page. This will allow admin users to reset the MFA code for employees who no longer have access to their authenticator app: Reset An Employee's Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Code