What’s new in BrightPay: Latest Irish payroll updates 2025

BrightPay’s latest updates deliver seamless payroll compliance and enhanced efficiency for Irish businesses navigating 2025 payroll changes.

Managing payroll doesn’t need to be a tedious chore. If you’re wondering what’s new in BrightPay, you’re in the right place. BrightPay’s latest release introduces features designed to make payroll processing easier, more secure, and strikingly efficient for Irish businesses. In this post, we’ll explore what’s new in BrightPay, focusing on updates that help you stay Revenue-compliant with PAYE Modernisation and navigate recent legislative changes such as minimum wage and PRSI updates.

If you’re still wrestling with clunky spreadsheets or outdated software, this update is worth your attention.

Today, we’ll walk through what’s new in BrightPay, how it helps you stay Revenue-compliant with PAYE Modernisation, and why it matters given Ireland’s recent legislative changes like minimum wage and PRSI updates. Ready to see what’s new in BrightPay? Let’s dive in.

Maximise your efficiency with enhanced employee visibility and planning

One of the pain points in payroll and HR is managing employee leave without causing headaches for managers and colleagues alike. BrightPay’s newest features take some of this stress off your plate.

Employee leave visibility for the portal

You can now enable an option that lets employees view their colleagues’ leave calendars within the BrightPay portal. This subtle but impactful improvement reduces scheduling conflicts by giving teams transparency over annual leave. While some may worry about privacy, this feature is optional, allowing you to balance transparency with discretion as you see fit.

Planner enhancements: A bird’s-eye view of leave

The Planner view now displays annual leave for all employees simultaneously, simplifying team scheduling and avoiding clashes. Having this visibility in one place means less last-minute scrambling and more efficient resource management, particularly helpful for growing SMEs and payroll bureaus handling multiple clients.

Search smarter with the global employee filter

If your work spans multiple employers or clients, BrightPay’s new global employee filter is a game changer. This new payroll section search lets you instantly locate any employee across all employers you manage. No more tedious hopping between accounts or endless clicks; everything is accessible via a single search bar. Considering the growing complexity Irish payroll professionals face, this feature is a real timesaver.

Explore the full list of BrightPay’s latest payroll features

BrightPay’s update delivers a powerhouse of new features designed for real-world Irish payroll challenges:

• Increased employee capacity: Process payroll for up to 300 employees per employer, suitable for expanding businesses.

• Next pay date highlighting: Quickly identify upcoming and overdue pay runs on the employer dashboard, reducing the risk of missing pay dates.

• Password-protected PDFs: Improve security by adding passwords to downloaded payroll documents and payslips, helping maintain GDPR compliance with sensitive data.

• Piece rate overrides: Flexibility to override default piece payment rates at the payment level without complicated workarounds.

• Payslip last emailed date: Easily track when payslips were last sent to employees.

• Edit payments during batch processing: Make adjustments to credit transfers or Modulr payments within batch runs, improving accuracy and efficiency.

• Consistent employee ordering: Multi-employee documents now follow your preferred employee order settings, fostering consistency across paperwork.

• Bulk payslip actions: Email or download all payslips for a single employee in one go, streamlining workflows.

• Departmental manager updates: Assign employees to specific departmental managers who can approve leave or absence requests within their department, simplifying approvals.

All these features are available now, ready to make your payroll process smoother, more accurate, and more in line with modern workplace expectations.

Why these BrightPay updates matter for Irish payroll professionals

Payroll isn’t just about paying people on time: it’s a complex mix of accuracy, compliance, security, and making systems easier to use for everyone, from accountants to employees.

BrightPay’s latest update does more than just automate calculations:

• It dramatically reduces the time spent on manual checks, reducing error risk.

• It enables transparency balanced with privacy, a key concern under GDPR in Ireland.

• It ensures payroll documents remain secure with password protection.

• It supports Revenue compliance through seamless integration with PAYE Modernisation real-time reporting obligations.

Industry experts such as the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals (CIPP) stress the importance of technology that not only automates payroll but also improves accuracy and compliance to reduce risk and cost for Irish employers.

Staying compliant with Irish payroll legislative changes in 2025

Beyond features, BrightPay keeps you current with major Irish payroll legislative changes effective from 1 January 2025, including:

• PAYE Modernisation compliance: Meeting Revenue’s real-time reporting deadline by submitting Payroll Submission Requests (PSRs) and receiving Revenue Payroll Notifications (RPNs) instantly during each payroll run.

• Irish National Minimum Wage update: The hourly minimum wage for adults has increased from €12.70 to €13.50, impacting pay calculations across employers.

• PRSI changes: Thresholds for PRSI subclasses AL and A1 have been updated to reflect minimum wage changes, affecting employer and employee contributions.

• Universal Social Charge (USC) rate reductions: The 4% USC rate has been reduced to 3%, with exemption thresholds remaining at €13,000.

• Benefit in Kind (BIK) exemptions: The annual exemption amount for small benefits has increased from €1,000 to €1,500, with allowance for up to 5 benefits per year, valid until 2030.

• Automatic enrolment readiness: With pension auto-enrolment coming to Ireland in 2026, BrightPay Cloud offers full functionality to support employers in this transition.

These ongoing legislative updates confirm why having payroll software that updates automatically and integrates with Revenue systems is vital to stay compliant and avoid penalties.

What’s next? Getting the most out of BrightPay in Ireland

If you haven’t yet embraced BrightPay, this is an excellent time to explore how its Irish market-focused features reduce payroll complexity and risk.

For existing users, enabling the new enhancements and reviewing your payroll settings can immediately improve accuracy and efficiency while ensuring full compliance with Ireland’s latest payroll legislation.

How are you currently managing your PAYE Modernisation submissions? Are you leveraging payroll software that updates automatically with Irish law changes? Let us know, because getting this right saves time, money, and headaches.

Smoothing the path to payroll success in Ireland

BrightPay’s latest feature set tightly aligns with Irish payroll professionals’ needs: compliance with Revenue, automated legislative updates, improved visibility, and enhanced security. The result is a payroll experience that frees up your time, reduces errors, and helps keep your business on the right side of the law.

Staying compliant with PAYE Modernisation and 2025 legislative changes requires the right tools. BrightPay delivers that, making it a smart investment for payroll teams and accountants in Ireland.

Ready to revolutionise your payroll process and stay effortlessly compliant with Irish payroll law?

Book a BrightPay demo or start a free trial today and experience first-hand how these new features can transform your payroll operation.

Frequently asked questions (FAQs)

1. Is BrightPay fully compliant with Revenue’s PAYE Modernisation?
   Yes, BrightPay automates real-time payroll reporting via Payroll Submission Requests and handles Revenue Payroll Notifications to ensure seamless PAYE Modernisation compliance.

2. How does BrightPay support new minimum wage and PRSI changes for 2025?
   It updates tax and contribution thresholds automatically, including the new €13.50 minimum wage and adjusted PRSI subclasses AL and A1 thresholds.

3. Can I restrict employee visibility of leave calendars?
   Yes, employee leave calendar visibility is an optional feature customisable to your organisation’s privacy requirements.

4. Is password protection for payroll PDFs GDPR compliant?
   Password-protected PDFs are a strong additional security layer to protect sensitive payroll information and support GDPR compliance.

5. What is the maximum number of employees processed per employer in BrightPay?
   Currently capped at 300 employees, suitable for most SMEs and growing businesses.

6. Does BrightPay support bulk emailing and downloading of payslips?
   Yes, bulk actions drastically reduce administrative time for distributing payslips.

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.