How Oscar is changing new starter onboarding for payroll professionals

Have you spent a Monday morning trying to decipher a handwritten P45? What about chasing a new starter’s NI number for the third time? New starter onboarding is one of the most repetitive, error-prone, and time-consuming tasks in payroll.

Oscar is BrightPay’s answer to that problem. It’s an AI-powered employee onboarding assistant built directly into BrightPay Cloud, and it’s already changing how many practices operate.

What Oscar actually does

Oscar automates the entire new starter data collection process. When a client needs to onboard a new employee, the practice (or the client themselves) initiates an onboarding request from within BrightPay. Oscar then takes over by starting a conversation with the new starter via WhatsApp and collecting what they need for their payroll setup.

That means full name, address, date of birth, NI number, bank details, etc. are all handled by Oscar without any manual input on your end.

The conversation is designed to take under ten minutes.

Once Oscar gathers everything he needs, the information arrives in BrightPay ready for review. Nothing is added to the employee record until you (or your client) approves it. While AI does the work, human oversight remains at the centre of the process.

The numbers behind the change

A new starter onboarding that typically takes five to seven days can now be completed in under 24 hours. Your involvement drops to less than five minutes per new starter, and data is validated as it’s collected so it’s clean, complete, and ready for approval in BrightPay.

For a bureau managing 10 clients with an average of five new starters per month, that’s roughly 25-37 hours of admin you get back every month.

What are early adopters saying?

Oscar launched through an Early Adopter Programme with a select group of BrightPay users, and the feedback has been consistent.

Oscar has transformed the way we onboard new employees through BrightPay. What used to take a week or two — chasing employers for missing details, deciphering handwritten starter checklists, and re-entering information manually — now takes just 5–10 minutes. The process is clean, accurate, and instant. No more scratty bits of paper, no more delays, no more duplication of work. Oscar has dramatically improved our turnaround time and overall efficiency. A fantastic enhancement to the BrightPay experience.

A second adopter puts it simply:

“Oscar has completely transformed our onboarding process and saved us a huge amount of time. Having it built directly into BrightPay makes everything so quick, easy, and efficient — a brilliant addition to payroll.”

To see what more people are saying about Oscar, check out our article on what early adopters are saying about Oscar: real feedback from the practices using it first.

Oscar can also be a new revenue stream

Oscar doesn’t just save time, it also opens an opportunity to create a new service.

Practices in our EAP are already charging clients for Oscar-assisted onboarding (typically £10-15 per new starter as a standalone fee, or bundling it into a managed onboarding retainer). At an average of £12 per starter, a bureau with 10 clients averaging at five new starters per month could potentially generate £600 per month in additional revenue.

We can’t talk about AI without mentioning how employee data is handled. Oscar is GDPR compliant, so all information collected is processed securely and stored within BrightPay’s existing cloud infrastructure. No data sits in isolation outside of BrightPay.

Want to help shape what Oscar becomes?

If you’re an existing BrightPay user, try out Oscar today. If you’re thinking about moving to BrightPay, check out a quick demo of Oscar in more detail here.

Transform Your New Starter Onboarding Today

This content may have been developed with the assistance of AI tools. Content is reviewed by a member of the Bright team before publication. Guidance on legislation can be obtained from your industry body.