BrightPay

BrightPay is one of the most decorated payroll products in the United Kingdom, repeatedly voted payroll software of the year by the profession it serves. It handles the full UK cycle: PAYE calculated against current HMRC rules, Real Time Information submissions filed directly, automatic enrolment for workplace pensions with the major providers supported, statutory pay for sickness and parental leave, and polished payslips delivered through an employee portal.

Its relevance to South Africa is the outsourcing industry. Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban host a substantial back office sector running bookkeeping and payroll for UK accounting firms, and BrightPay is one of the standard tools of that trade. A bureau licence processes unlimited client payrolls from one installation, and the cloud platform adds client portals, employee apps and automatic backups that make serving a UK client book from another hemisphere practical. To be unambiguous: this is UK and Irish payroll legislation only. It calculates nothing for SARS, and an SA employer paying SA staff needs a local product instead.

Pricing has historically been famously fair, with desktop licences from 79 pounds per tax year for the smallest employers up to 289 pounds for unlimited employees, and bureau pricing for practices. From the 2026/27 tax year BrightPay is cloud only, priced through a calculator based on employers and employees under management, so bureaus get a quote matched to their book. A free trial runs the full product, and the support team's reputation is a genuine part of the product's appeal.