Pay by Bank is a fast, safe and easy way to pay employees directly from a bank account registered in BrightPay. Salary or wage payments for employees can be created from BrightPay and authorised using Multi Factor Authentication, eliminating the need to create bank files and the manual workload associated with making payments to employees.

Once your bank account is successfully registered to the employer in BrightPay, a payment run can be created to pay employees.

Under the Pay menu you will see the option to start Salary/Wage payments to your employees. Select Create New Pay Run to start.

Employees whose payment method has been set to credit transfer will now be displayed for review.

a) Pay from Account – select the account you wish to make payment from using the Change option in the top right‑hand corner.

b) Payment Date – select the payment date required.

c) Payee – review the list of payees for payment and de‑select any who you wish to exclude from the payment run.

d) Sort Code & Account Number – ensure the correct bank details are entered for each applicable employee.

Please note: Bank details which have been entered on the employee's record will be displayed by default.

e) Reference – enter a reference for the payment, if desired.

Please note: The reference has to be entered on the employee's record and this will be displayed by default.

In addition, payment references must consist of at least 6 alphanumeric characters that are not all the same. The total number of characters must be less than 18. No spaces are allowed.

f) Amount – the payment amount for each employee will reflect the employee's take‑home pay on their payslip for the pay period being paid.

Please note: In the event you wish to amend an employee's payment amount to be paid through the Pay by Bank utility (e.g. where an employee has been given an advance payment), simply amend the amount accordingly. It is important to note that this will not change any payslip amounts, simply the amount being submitted via Pay by Bank.

Payments can be scheduled in advance if required. On the Pay by Bank screen select the bank account you wish to pay from, the required payment date and the employees you wish to pay. Agree the terms and conditions and select Schedule for the payment to be scheduled and processed on the date selected.

If making the payment straight away, enter today’s date and select Continue.

Sharing a Pay by Bank payment with someone else

In some cases, the person setting up the pay run may not be the same person who will authorise the payment with the bank. To support this, Pay by Bank allows you to generate a secure, shareable link so that someone else can complete the authorisation.

1. Generating the sharable link

When you enter the Pay by Bank payment flow, you will see a new Share with someone else button.

• Click Share with someone else to open a modal.

• In this modal, choose to generate a shareable payment authorisation link which you can pass on to another person (for example, a colleague who is responsible for banking).

• Once a shared link is generated, the 24‑hour pay run timer is restarted, giving the invitee time to review and authorise the payment.
• The link can be shared with anyone, including people who are not logged into Bright.

Please note: We don’t display any sensitive information within our payment flow. Users will only see granular payment details once they’ve successfully logged into their bank.

You should generate and share the link once you are satisfied with the pay run details (payees, amounts, dates, etc.) and are ready for someone else to authorise the payment.

2. Opening and using the shared link

When someone opens the shared link:

• They will first see an introductory screen explaining what the link is and what to expect when making the payment.

   

   

  

• They then progress through the standard Pay by Bank payment flow and authorise the payment with their bank as usual:
  • Review and confirm the payment details.
  • Log in to their banking app or online banking to authorise the payment using multi‑factor authentication.
  • Once authorisation is complete, the payment request is processed as normal.

This shared‑link flow does not change how payments are processed; it simply allows a different person to complete the authorisation securely, without needing direct access to BrightPay.

The payment run has been created. Select Continue to bring you to the authorisation step of this process.

Scan the QR Code using your mobile device where you can log in and authorise the payment. You can also log in to the banking site where you can authorise the payment to your employees in BrightPay.

Log into your banking app to authorise. Once the authorisation is processed the connection is complete; close the window on your mobile device and go back into BrightPay.

Important - The banks that require Trusted Beneficiaries to be set up before making a payment are specifically NatWest Business, RBS Business, and Ulster Business (all part of the NatWest Group, hence the similar behaviour).

For all of these banks, a pre‑warning screen is shown before the first payment, and customers also receive an email as soon as they connect a bank account.