When processing payroll, there can be a lot of time-consuming tasks to take care of so that your employees are paid accurately and on time. For example, ensuring that annual leave is managed properly. For many employers, managing annual leave can involve a lot of back-and-forth email communication. With no proper system in place, it can mean that employees have to wait longer than they’d like for their annual leave request to be approved. This can leave everyone involved frustrated, and employees can become unhappy. 

BrightPay’s cloud-extension, BrightPay Connect, includes an employee self-service smartphone and tablet app. The app incorporates an annual leave management system that streamlines the annual leave process for payroll processors, employers and employees. 

Through the app’s calendar, employees can easily view all their past and scheduled leave. They can also see how much leave they have remaining, so they no longer need to contact HR or their employer for this information. Employees can also request leave in just a few taps within the app. The employer, or person assigned to take care of a particular employee's annual leave requests, will then be notified on their own online portal of the leave request. Once the request has been approved or denied, the employee will be notified.  

Using BrightPay Connect to manage employees’ annual leave also means there is less chance of payroll errors, as any approved annual leave will automatically sync to the payroll software. 

Employees also have the option of accessing the employee portal through an internet browser, where they can: 

• Access to all new and past payslips instantly 
• Have access to HR and employment related documents 
• Request edits to the information the employer has on file for them 
  

How can employees access BrightPay Connect’s annual leave system? 

1. When you are connecting to BrightPay Connect for the first time  

When you open up BrightPay’s payroll software, click on the cloud icon in the top right-hand corner. You will be requested to log into your BrightPay Connect account. From here, click ‘Connect Employer to Cloud’ which will bring you to the next page where you can set-up employee access to BrightPay Connect.  

Once you have read all the information, and chosen the appropriate settings, you will be prompted to choose which employees you wish to have access to the self-service app. You can then enter the email addresses they will use to log in, and when ready, click the “finish” button to complete the process. 

1. Connecting employees to BrightPay Connect after the initial set-up 

Open BrightPay and click the cloud icon in the top right-hand corner of the window. From here, enter your BrightPay Connect login details and sign in. Next, still in the payroll software, click ‘Employee Self-Service Options’. Under the 'Employee Access’ tab, select the employees who you wish to grant access to BrightPay Connect, and enter their email addresses. Follow the next steps, make any required changes and press ‘Save’. All that’s left to do is synchronise your data back up to BrightPay Connect for the changes to take effect. 

1.  Send Invitation emails to your employees 

Once you have set up the employees you wish to have access to the self-services app, you can send out invitation emails to them to notify them. To do this, you must log into your BrightPay Connect account and click on the ‘Employees’ tab. Here, you will see the list of employees who have been given access to BrightPay Connect. In the top right-hand corner, you will see a green button labeled “Send Invitation Emails”. Once clicked, from the next screen, you can select each employee you wish to send a personalised invitation email to. The email will give employees an overview of BrightPay Connect and instructions on how to download the app and log into their account.  

Furthermore, you can customise which features of the self-service portal your employees have access to. To do this you must log into BrightPay’s payroll software and click on the cloud icon up the top right-hand corner of your screen. Choose the “Employee Self Service Options” button and make any changes that you wish.