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The ideal payroll software for today’s digital accountant: Patrick Cracroft-Brennan at Bambury & Co

29th Oct 2021
Brought to you by
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The payroll solution that provides all you need for Auto Enrolment.

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Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

For today’s modern sole practitioner accountant, having the right software tools to drive your digital practice is essential – and this applies equally to your choice of payroll software. To offer the service that clients expect, you need easy-to-use interfaces for clients and their staff, access to payroll information in the cloud and payroll features that quickly get the job done.

We spoke to Patrick Cracroft-Brennan at Bambury & Co to hear how BrightPay has enhanced his payroll offering with software automation, employer dashboards and accounts integration.

 

Q. Tell me a little about Bambury & Co and your payroll services.

We’re a small practice, with me as the proprietor, so using the right software is very important for keeping things efficient. At the moment we have 16 payrolls that we provide and I’m able to run those all by myself, using BrightPay as our sole payroll platform. 

As a generalist accountant, my clients expect me to provide extensive outsourced payroll services these days, and that’s something I’m more than happy to offer.

Q. When did you start using BrightPay for your payroll services?

I moved to BrightPay around three years ago, having used Payroll Manager by MoneySoft for seven years prior to this. Payroll Manager got the job done, but it was a standalone application and didn’t fit with my desire to be a cloud-based practice. I’m a dyed-in-the-wool Xero fan for the accounts, so I wanted a payroll software that had that online element, where I could access the payroll information from anywhere in the world. And by using BrightPay’s cloud add-on product, BrightPay Connect, I am able to do just that. So, even if I’m on holiday, I can still log in to BrightPay Connect and do everything I need to do.

It was BrightPay Connect that drew me in, in the first instance. Having the ability to offer clients an online client dashboard and an employee self-service app was exactly what I needed. Having these online features has been essential to the way we work, especially the self-service element. When using the previous system, I had to physically email payslips to each client. Since switching to BrightPay, my clients now love the fact that everything is automated. I press a button and the payslips are there for employees to view or download – without all the hassle.

Q. How much time do you think you’ve saved using BrightPay?

With BrightPay as my software, I can get through my payroll run in about two or three days, whereas before it was taking maybe four or five days. As a sole practitioner, time is very valuable, so saving that extra time is a real bonus for me. With so many tasks being automated, I have more time to do other things for clients, whether that’s more client meetings, deeper advisory services or just widening what I can offer to each client. 

Q. Do you service a mix of different sized clients?

Some client payrolls are for two or three people, and some are for whole teams of 30 people. Clients’ staff really like to use the employee self-service elements of BrightPay Connect, like being able to download their payslips, or booking holidays. That’s a real time-saver for me, and reduces the admin for the client too.

All these clients have workplace pensions in place too, and the pensions reporting and employee contributions all work seamlessly in BrightPay. Previously, I would have been spending half a day doing the pensions side of things and now it’s just a click of a button.

Q. Did the pandemic cause any issues for your payroll services?

Over the pandemic, I was probably one of the few people that thoroughly enjoyed lockdown. It was quiet and peaceful and there was more time to get things done. It was also the spur to close my bricks-and-mortar office and to go completely cloud-based, actually. 

Using BrightPay Connect allowed me and my clients to access the payroll information, review the payroll and get everything finalised. Clients being able to enter their own payroll data from the employer dashboard was such a game-changer, and there’s never been any pushback from clients re them doing some input work. 

Q. Are you a fully paperless practice now?

I’m a paperless practice now, so there are no physical elements to the payroll run and no printing or postage etc. All the client’s payslips, P45s and P60s are there in BrightPay Connect. That keeps everything paperless and adds to my sustainability credentials too.

I’ve been cloud-based and paperless for around two years now, and had made the move pre-pandemic, fortunately. The pandemic has been a tough time for some people but it’s really forced us to learn things like Zoom, Teams and Xero etc. and to get used to online access and remote working as a normal concept. I run the whole practice online now, and I wouldn’t go back. It’s allowed me to build a great practice, with the software keeping things productive.

 

Has BrightPay met your expectations as a payroll platform?

I’m perfectly happy with BrightPay now. I’ve been using payroll software for so long that many of them seem the same to me. But BrightPay stood out from the crowd. It does the job well, it has that cloud element with BrightPay Connect and it has some great integrations.

There’s not much I’d change about BrightPay. It manages everything brilliantly, BrightPay Connect gives us that cloud access and back-up, and the software slots nicely into our systems.

BrightPay is a payroll software that makes managing payroll quick and easy, making your payroll fast, effective and straightforward.

Book a demo today to find out how BrightPay takes the hassle out of payroll.