Low cost payroll software for company directors

What do you recommend?

Didn't find your answer?

I love Brightpay, but it's expensive for the average company director only payroll. I'm trying to keep to just 10 companies on Brightpay this year, as costs whack up for just a few more after that. 

So I've been having a look at Mypaye. It's miles better than HMRC tools, but doesn't seem to be able to print out rti reports.Costs per company are very reasonable.

I'd pay a bit more for payroll where I could save rti reports. What would you recommend?
 

Replies (37)

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By mikeyban
08th May 2020 20:16

Moneysoft.. excellent product ...

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By paulhammett
08th May 2020 20:40

Agree about Moneysoft but it’s not cloud-based if that’s important to you.

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By Cheshire
09th May 2020 08:13

Moneysoft every time. Cheap as chips, might look dated (like VT), but great bit of kit. Easy to use, but if you get stuck loads of folk on here who can help.

Know someone who has just migrated from Basic Tools and now wondering why they put up with that rubbish (his words) fir so long.

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Replying to Cheshire:
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By legerman
09th May 2020 11:02

Cheshire wrote:

Moneysoft every time. Cheap as chips, might look dated (like VT), but great bit of kit. Easy to use, but if you get stuck loads of folk on here who can help.

Know someone who has just migrated from Basic Tools and now wondering why they put up with that rubbish (his words) fir so long.

Agree with the honorable lady, Moneysoft is the bees knees and about £170 a year, with up to 100 companies, so no need to restrict to 10.

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By clark.hall
09th May 2020 12:09

I think you’re on the right track. MyPAYE or Payroo online will be your free solution. But I’ve gotta say, in your position and for an extra £150 I’d upgrade my BrightPay.

Otherwise you might be able to use Xero payroll for clients signed up and reduce BP numbers that way.

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Replying to clark.hall:
Pile of Stones
By Beach Accountancy
14th May 2020 09:51

Payroo is no longer free. However 1 2 Cloud Payroll (from the same people) still is.

Products are identical...

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By Moonbeam
09th May 2020 14:52

Thank you all! I need the Connect option for Brightpay, so need to stay with them. That rules out Moneysoft. I'm still mulling over whether to pay the extra £150 - I've got a week or so before I need to make my decision.
I'll have a look at Payroo next.

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Replying to Moonbeam:
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By waldron
09th May 2020 18:02

I believe that payroo started charging for one man payrolls during 18/19

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Replying to Moonbeam:
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By legerman
12th May 2020 14:30

[quote=Moonbeam]

Thank you all! I need the Connect option for Brightpay, so need to stay with them. That rules out Moneysoft. I'm still mulling over whether to pay the extra £150 - I've got a week or so before I need to make my decision.
I'll have a look at Payroo next.

[/quote

Paydashboard coupled with Moneysoft would have given you a similar outcome, but you have to download the xml file into Paydashboard first. Glad you got sorted in the end.

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Replying to Moonbeam:
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By NYB
14th May 2020 10:35

Like you I'm a Brightpay advocate. They are always upfront and dont sneak in little extras. You mention £150 - 10 clents - £15 each. You must be able to recoop it somehow. You are familiar with it and therefore work can be done quickly as opposed to changing mid year and then fnding the new isnt up to scratch.

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By Moonbeam
09th May 2020 16:17

I've now signed up for Keypay, which is much better than mypaye.

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Replying to Moonbeam:
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By Wanderer
09th May 2020 16:29

So you asked for recommendations then promptly ignored every one of them then?

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Replying to Wanderer:
By Moonbeam
09th May 2020 17:08

I said at the start that I needed to keep my Brightpay 10 companies. I've already run April payroll and had to pay for those companies. So it wouldn't have made economic sense to use Moneysoft for the few director only payrolls I have.
I think only one responder understood my situation, and that's no doubt because I didn't explain myself well enough.

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Replying to Moonbeam:
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By Cheshire
11th May 2020 12:56

You said at the start that you were ''trying to keep to just 10 companies on Brightpay this year''

So Im afraid I took from that, that you were not taking on more payroll clients due to their inceased costs. But had decided you wanted more payroll clients so were looking for a complete alternative. We couldnt know that you had just renewed (my software renewal is much later in the year, just happens to be when I started in business) but now I understand that you have, then a different plan is required.

You could bite the bullet and pay for eg Moneysoft now and move all the existing payroll across and just view the funds you have paid as dead money.

Or pay Brightpay the extra, process all your payroll on there, but look to take out eg Moneysoft, a month before your next renewal date and do the transition then. (same financial outcome as above obviously).

Or trying to find a free one, althoug Ive never really seen any with glowing reports. On the Mypaye one you mentioned not being able to print out RTI reports - not sure which reports you mean as its not a software I know, but can you not just use 'print' to pdf or print screen? I use that a lot.

Other consideration is how long of your time (is money) it takes to research all....likely costing you more than you will save.

Or consider small hike in price to cover?

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Replying to Moonbeam:
ALISK
By atleastisoundknowledgable...
10th May 2020 08:34

Moonbeam wrote:

I've now signed up for Keypay, which is much better than mypaye.

Key pay @£2pppcm x 10 1-man companies =£20pcm =£220 left of 20/21.

Moneysoft = £144 for 12 months.

Moonbeam wrote:

So it wouldn't have made economic sense to use Moneysoft for the few director only payrolls I have.

?

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Replying to atleastisoundknowledgable...:
By Moonbeam
10th May 2020 14:40

I've currently got 5 1 man companies and payroll is run on a quarterly basis for them. So that's 5x2x4=£40
EDIT
I've misunderstood Keypay pricing. As it's per month rather than per payroll this is probably going to make it too expensive.

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Replying to Moonbeam:
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By jjswjjsw
10th May 2020 16:15

My understanding of Keypay was it was per month/payslip so if nobody got paid there was no charge so you'd only pay 1 month in 3 for your quarterly payrolls.

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By MrDSGrace
10th May 2020 02:06

Have you looked into Capium? It’s what I use and it is free

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Replying to MrDSGrace:
By Moonbeam
10th May 2020 14:35

Thank you. I shall have a look. None of these options are going to be 100% OK!!

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By meadowsaw227
11th May 2020 12:07

FFS if it only an extra £150 just update your Brightpay .

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Replying to meadowsaw227:
By Moonbeam
11th May 2020 14:15

Yes, I'm rapidly coming to the same conclusion!

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Replying to Moonbeam:
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By MrDSGrace
11th May 2020 14:24

Did you look at Capium? I've got around 10 companies on there, a couple with more than one employee or director and it's completely free. The only annoying thing with the free version is you cannot do batch RTI, so schedule every company then send the RTI all at once. You have to process them all individually, but other than that it does everything I need it to do. I used to use Brightpay and liked it but moved when they started charging.

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Replying to MrDSGrace:
By Moonbeam
11th May 2020 16:04

I've looked at Capium twice now and each time I see that there is a charge for bureaux. I'm assuming you maybe set up as one company at a time and that's how you get it free, as Capium think you're the company rather than the agent.
I'd prefer to pay something and be the agent.

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Replying to Moonbeam:
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By MrDSGrace
11th May 2020 17:06

I just took another look thinking that maybe they had changed their pricing for new customers and it still says payroll up to 3 employees is free. I have my account under my login and then all my clients are set up within there and the HMRC login details for submissions are my own and their is a tick box for agent.
Maybe have a trial and see how you get on?

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Replying to Moonbeam:
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By agillies
14th May 2020 15:56

Cost for 10 with Brightpay is £249 so £2.07 per month per client

I price it at mid point cost per month to see the average cost per client
5 would be £249 £4.15 pcm
17 £399 = £1.95
25+ £499 £2.00

Do the others provide updates the same or better, such as furlough pay split

Factor in your time to learn new software its not worth changing for such small amounts. Real question is are you happy with what you have just now

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By Moonbeam
11th May 2020 16:09

Keypay have told me they have just set up director only payrolls, (Called Directorpays) at a cost of £1 per payroll per person +vat, which wasn't obvious to me when I looked at their website the other day. The whole cost for a one director quarterly payroll for the year would be £4+VAT. That looks a lot more attractive than I thought it would be. I will run a dummy payroll and report back. I've proved you can print EPS's from their website, even if they're a bit rough and ready.

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By JD
14th May 2020 11:17

I think I would suggest staying with Brighpay or If I had to move, it would be Nomisma or the like as both have batch/auto processing functions, which make director only clients a breeze.

To be fair I do not know if Moneysoft so cannot comment, but the time saving by batch processing all director only client in one go would for me take the lead above the £150 extra cost consideration.

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By NeilSeekings
14th May 2020 09:37

Hi Moonbeam,

I hope im not too late to help because MyPAYE does have RTi report and we also have automation for payrolls not just director payrolls allowing you to set up the 8 steps to complete payroll and then just let it run, including running the payroll, sending client reports, sending payslips, auto enrollment assessment and posting and posting journal to accounting product and posting RTi. Joining our Partner program which is free will also afford you pricing which could cost as little as 30p per employee.

Happy to demonstrate if its not too late.

Kind Regards
Neil Seekings
Sales Director
MyPAYE LTD

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By John Wheeley
14th May 2020 10:10

Moneysoft Payroll Manager, all of the RTI reports are saved and can be printed out at any time.

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By fanciefella
14th May 2020 10:11

Moneysoft Payroll Manager.

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By ChrisEOwen
14th May 2020 12:55

Hi I believe that 12 cloud payroll is free for employers with less than 10 employees Check it out.

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By PChapman
14th May 2020 13:20

Take a look at 12Pay
Very afordable if you don't need the whistles and bells of Moneysoft or Brightpay

Saying that, as my practice expands, I will be evaluating Brightpay for next year, based on recomendations here.
(In my opinion the interface on Moneysoft is horrid, although it does seem to provide grown up tools)

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By psimonparsons
14th May 2020 13:45

For a micro payroll I would check out QTac solutions.

I’m intrigued when you say keep RTI reports. RTI is an exchange mechanism of data, it has no reports. The payroll result are the basis of RTI exchange of change. So your payroll reconciliations will match HMRC records unless there are misallocations and duplications in the exchange process (and there a couple of million of those each year historically). No software solution has sight of those as HMRC do not share the data.

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Replying to psimonparsons:
By Moonbeam
14th May 2020 14:23

Maybe you're being a bit pendantic. Or perhaps you genuinely don't know that rti reports can be printed out by most grown up software

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By North East Accountant
14th May 2020 15:16

Another vote for Moneysoft Payroll manager.

We moved from Sage payroll professional and saved a fortune.

To access remotely leave PC on in office and use teamviewer or the like to access work pc.

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JCACE
By jcace
14th May 2020 19:53

I would look at how you can make BrightPay work for you. You're familiar with it, it gives you everything you need, including the Connect facility, it does batch processing etc (I don't need to rattle through all the great features BP has to offer, as I'm sure you'll be aware of them already) and it will mean no moving data partway through a tax year. Is recouping the additional cost feasible by increasing your payroll fees by a (relatively) tiny amount? I wouldn't be looking to ditch what is a great product, but looking at what else I could change to make it more cost effective. A small additional charge? increase the number of payrolls? I'm sure there will be others too :)

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Sarah Douglas - HouseTree Business Ltd
By sarah douglas
14th May 2020 20:03

A vote for My PAYE Ltd, the software is excellent and prints off RTI Reports. It is nothing like HMRC tools it is a full cloud software with lots of functions.

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