Bright Reviews 

Had difficulty accessing Brightpay Cloud. In minutes Ciaran had me up and running. I have lots of practical experience of using computers but sometimes terminologies phase me. Ciaran very capably guided me through the actions required.

Customer service is super slow and they don't ever understand what the issue is.
There are a lot of features which you manually have to turn on and off and its not as ahead tech-wise as other products out there.

I cannot agree with the below, we bought Bright pay a few months back. We received no introduction to their system, queries are answered only if they are easy, any difficult questions don't get answered or it takes them ages to come back to us and already twice the answer turned out to be wrong. The system randomly changes entries (that is what it looks like to me) but I guess it is something we do wrong, but no one bothers to answer my queries. Requested a call back never got one. Send a complaint to their complaint department and again no reaction in 17 days!!! Sor far system is not fit for purpose as we have to double and triple check everything the support mediocre at best and their complaints team is not existing...VERY unsatisfied customer so far

Ciaran logged into the system and sorted out the problem straight away. Really helpful and friendly - thank you.

What a brilliant support technician i got today, sorted me out straight away no problem and also showed me where I could get my ROS cert and how to manage it and save it if needed which I never knew. Thank you Ciaran really appreciated your help.

the software has many issues and doesnt work as efficiently as other accounting and tax software out there.

they overpromise and under deliver.

their software stopped working and i could not access my clients records for weeks. the returns were late and i had to pay fine to HMRC. the promised to refund....and guess what.. i am still waiting.... i cancelled and moved to another provider.

Ciaran was very helpful and got my problem solved whilst on the phone

when you can get through to support theyre great, however the software is now so poorly thought out Im looking elsewhere and would have no hesitation in recommending anyone i like to do the same.
Now so clunky its a waste of space on the computer!

I signed up for BrightPay just about a year ago, when Xero (my then- and current provider) was threatening to raise the cost of it's payroll offering to an unrealistic level. I paid for a year in advance, but as Xero changed its mind about the increase I never actually submitted a single pay run through Bright. Foolishly I didn't cancel straight away. Last week I received an invoice for another year of Bright charges, I contacted them immediately to request cancellation and had hoped that as they could easily see I had never used the service that they would do so without further charges. Sadly, four days later they took another year's payment anyway.
I can't comment on the quality of their offering, as I have never used it, but their attitude to my simple mistake was extremely poor. If you're considering using them I would think twice about whether such unscrupulous people fit with how you like to think of your own business ethics.

Ciaran was great to deal with and my query was resolved in a couple of minutes

Having used Brightpay desktop for years, I am not at all impressed with the Cloud version. As an accountant, my clients are not very impressed with the new portals and do not find them user friendly. Nowhere near as good as the desktop version

To transfer new clients (also using Brightpay Cloud) you cannot transfer over a complete file like you could on the desktop version.

Only an employee csv file of YTD figures comes across plus the employee details. The new accountant has to set up the employer from scratch including all the user details. Also if the employees use the calendar for leave etc, NO entries come across!!!!! They all have to be reinput manually

Absolutely shocking... A massive step backwards in this day and age.

I absoutely would no longer recommend. A shame as Brightpay Deasktop was a brilliant piece of software. Now too expensive and gone seriously downhill. A real disappointment. Let’s hope Bright take note of the negative reviews from long standing accountants

Have to give one star, unfortunately
Really disappointing, I have used their desktop software for years with no problems. But having been forced to move on to the cloud software I have had nothing but trouble, its clunky and not as good as the desktop. But the real problem is the charging. I only run 2 payrolls with a total of 7 employees so it really shouldn't be hard to calculate. I have received 3 invoices and all are incorrect, I am being charged for inactive employees when it states quite clearly on their website that you only get charged once they become active.
In the end I cancelled my direct debit, its bad enough that the costs have increased so much for what is now a second rate service, but I am not paying for their sales staff incompetence and inability to add up.

Will lose your password credentials then try to gaslight you into thinking it's you that's forgotten your password. Also regularly bugs out doesn't work properly. Customer support is unsurprisingly a bot that has no idea what your going on about. The company I work for uses them but I personally wouldn't trust them to open a tin of beans that was already open.

Excellent and quick help from Maria with a small issue (that was my doing). Highly recommend.

We have been BrightPay customers for over six years, and unfortunately the product has gone from being one of the best payroll solutions on the market to one that we can no longer recommend.

The original desktop version was outstanding. It was reliable, fast and, in our experience, a genuine 10/10 product. It enabled us to run a busy payroll bureau with confidence, knowing that the software would be available whenever we needed it.

Since being forced onto the cloud platform, our experience has deteriorated significantly. The cost has increased dramatically while the level of service has declined. As a payroll bureau, reliability is absolutely critical. Payroll has statutory deadlines, and clients rightly expect their employees to be paid on time.

Unfortunately, the cloud version has experienced repeated periods of downtime, preventing us from processing time-sensitive payrolls when required. This has resulted in unnecessary delays, additional work for our staff, and complaints from clients who expect a dependable payroll service.

In our opinion, the Azure-hosted platform simply is not robust enough for a business-critical application such as payroll. A payroll system should be available whenever users need it, particularly during peak processing periods, and our experience has been that this has not consistently been the case.

What is particularly disappointing is that this move to the cloud was effectively forced upon customers. We were extremely happy with the desktop product and saw no operational benefit from being required to migrate. Instead, we have been left paying substantially more for a product that, in our experience, performs less reliably than its predecessor.

As a payroll bureau, we can no longer justify continuing with the platform. We will be leaving BrightPay at the end of our current contract and moving to an alternative provider.

Based on our experience over the past six years, we would not recommend BrightPay Cloud to any payroll bureau that depends on reliability, uptime and consistent performance. It is a great shame, because the desktop version set the standard for payroll software. The cloud version, however, has been a significant step backwards.

The staff are always so helps and put you at ease if you are having a problem. Ciaran went above and beyond to help me with my issue. Great company to work with

Excellent response to my query today by Ciaran and solved my problem without any questions.
Happy Client!

Since moving to cloud the quality of the software has dropped, they have not delivered on promises of a smooth switchover for our clients with documents missing, features missing or not working, and support repsonse times are much slower. Not to mention we are now paying 25% more.

EDIT: Some issues now resolved, but these should not have been present in the first place and were not understood when making the switch to cloud.