Aylish Morrissey & Co currently use Bright’s payroll solution, BrightPay, to process payroll for their clients, having transitioned from Surf Payroll at the beginning of 2023. This case study dives into their experience about making the switch to BrightPay.
Aylish Morrissey and her practice, Aylish Morrissey & Co, are a small but dynamic accounting practice, offering personalised services to their clients, including payroll management and accounts production. Aylish Morrissey & Co currently use Bright’s payroll solution, BrightPay, to process payroll for their clients, having transitioned from Surf Payroll at the beginning of 2023.
In this case study, we dive into the benefits that Aylish Morrissey & Co have seen since the switch, their experience while migrating, and how they’re finding BrightPay for their payroll needs.
More about Aylish Morrissey & Co and their payroll services
From a payroll-specific point of view, Aylish’s clientele primarily consists of small companies, each with their own unique payroll needs. From straightforward salary calculations to more intricate setups involving government schemes, Aylish handles it all with precision for her 12 clients. She even manages the payroll for a bustling restaurant with around 50 staff, showcasing her ability to tackle larger payrolls.
Surf Payroll to BrightPay: Why the switch?
Aylish Morrissey & Co started using Surf Payroll at the beginning of 2022, before moving to BrightPay the following year. Originally using Sage, they opted to make the move to Surf Payroll, in search of a cloud-based payroll option. While stating Surf Payroll helped her meet her clients’ needs, Aylish noted restrictive reporting capabilities and a lack of features as key reasons why she began searching for another payroll software to move to, ultimately making the switch to BrightPay at the beginning of the 2023 tax year.
Speaking on this, Aylish said:
‘While I found Surf Payroll to be efficient, its reporting capabilities were quite restrictive, lacking features like historical data viewing and customisable report creation. When BrightPay emerged as an alternative, despite not being fully cloud-based, its compatibility across multiple devices, like laptops and PCs, appealed to me, leading me to explore its potential as a payroll solution.’
Aylish also mentioned word-of-mouth recommendations, a positive experience with other Bright solutions, BrightPay’s reporting capabilities and its ability to handle pension schemes as key reasons for choosing BrightPay as her firm’s payroll solution.
Migrating from Surf Payroll to BrightPay
Moving from any software to another can be a daunting task, particularly when considering the years’ worth of data invested in the current system. The process of migrating this data to a new platform can deter people from making the switch, even if they recognise the benefits awaiting them post-transition.
Aylish complimented our support team’s dedication to our customers:
‘The support team was brilliant. I could just ring them up, and they’ll sort my issue. They really are great. And this doesn’t just go for BrightPay, I’m also a user of BrightBooks, BrightAccountsProduction and BrightManager, and these support lines are just as good.’
Aylish also spoke positively about the resources available to simplify the transition:
‘I made use of many of the support systems available, like the support line and webinars. One particular webinar comes to mind which provided a demonstration of BrightPay, how to get set up and included a questions and answers session. Attending this session made the migration system much easier.’
Aylish Morrissey & Co’s BrightPay experience
When asked about her experience with BrightPay, Aylish stated that she is happy she made the move and is delighted with the software’s ability to meet the needs of her clients. Aylish even mentioned how she is an advocate of Bright’s software, pointing others toward BrightPay:
‘I’m happy that I switched to BrightPay, and since making the transition, I’ve recommended the software to others. A client of mine had their own payroll software, using the Sage in the cloud, but they’ve now converted to BrightPay after hearing about my experience. They’re now very happy and have since adopted more of the Bright software.’
Aylish also spoke about her favourite, time-saving features:
‘My favourite features would be the ability to import a CSV file. I use this especially for the employee weekly hours and it saves me a lot of time. Plus, the reporting and the way it brings in the different field columns to just get the information.’
It’s time to make the switch from Surf Payroll to BrightPay
According to Aylish, since she’s made the move from Surf Payroll to BrightPay, she’s delighted with the extra time she’s saved:
‘Absolutely, it does, I’ve saved more time than before with BrightPay, and the main reason I’ve noticed is because with Surf Payroll I always had to go into each employee, whereas with BrightPay I can copy it all over each week and finalise all payslips and that’s it, done.’
After reading this case study, you may be interested in learning more about BrightPay’s features. To save you some time, here’s all the extra features BrightPay has in comparison to Surf Payroll:
Payroll product features:
- Import pay records for employees via a csv file
- Unlimited companywide piece rates
- Batch add notes to multiple employees
- Build and customise your own reports
- Pay employees using Modulr
- Journal integration with Sage, Quickbooks and AccountsIQ with advanced mapping and custom options
- People can create their own journals using the generic journal option
- Calendar and calendar report for employer
- Record leave for employees including custom leave options
- Offer a free licence for one employer with one employee for one tax year only
- Ten activations with each licence – (10 users)
- Bureau statistics report
- Payslip action audit log
Connect – Cloud extension
- Portal for bureaus and their clients and employer
- View employees and their personal details
- View payroll documents such as payslips
- Run, view and export reports
Employee self-service portal/Employee mobile app
- Employees can view their payroll documents such as payslips
- View any HR documents that their employer uploaded
- View their annual leave entitlement
- Request leave
- Request change of personal details
