BrightPay Payroll Integration

The TimeKeeper + BrightPay integration enables users to send each employee’s hours directly to BrightPay (Cloud). This eliminates manual data entry, reduces errors, and helps ensure staff are paid correctly for all hours worked, including overtime. 

How do I access the integration?

Once enabled, you’ll see the “BrightPay (Cloud)” tab on the integrations page in the TimeKeeper web portal (Account > Integrations > BrightPay (Cloud) tab).

https://app.timekeeper.co.uk/integrations

How do I connect TimeKeeper to my BrightPay account?

Connecting TimeKeeper to your BrightPay account

When you visit the BrightPay integration page, you’ll see the following:

Click the “Connect to BrightPay” button to begin.

You’ll be redirected to the BrightID website to authorise the connection between the two systems.

Please note that TimeKeeper never has access to your BrightPay login details.

Once you’ve successfully logged in to BrightID, you’ll be redirected back to the TimeKeeper website to finalise the connection.

Choosing the employer you want to connect

The final step is to select the employer you’d like to connect from the dropdown menu.

In the example below, Employer A is being linked to this account.

Once selected, click the “Confirm BrightPay company to link to TimeKeeper” button.

Once confirmed, you should see the following on screen.

TimeKeeper and BrightPay are now connected!

The connection should renew automatically, but if you ever need to disconnect the integration, switch the user, or change the linked employer, you can use the options under “Connection Management”.

Sending Timesheet Data from TimeKeeper to BrightPay

Now for the exciting part! To send hours from TimeKeeper to BrightPay, simply click the “Export Timesheet Hours to BrightPay” button on the integration page, or go to Reports and select “Export to BrightPay (Cloud)” under the Payroll Integrations header.

This opens a wizard that guides you through a four-step process. Steps 1 to 3 are typically one-time actions.

Step 1. BrightPay Connection Status

This step is to confirm you’re connected to the correct BrightPay employer and user before proceeding.

Step 2. Check BrightPay Employee Mappings

This step ensures the correct TimeKeeper employees are matched to their BrightPay counterparts. Only matched employees’ timesheets will be sent to BrightPay.

TimeKeeper will automatically map employees to those in BrightPay, so most matches should already be set. If a match can’t be found or you wish to change one, simply use the dropdown on the right to override the mapping between the two systems.

❌ You can also undo a mapping by clicking the ‘×’ icon on the dropdown if you want to exclude a mapped employee from being sent.

When you’re ready to proceed, click the “Next Step” button.

Step 3. Override BrightPay Hourly Rate Mappings (Optional)

This step is optional and can be skipped. It lets you override your TimeKeeper rate mappings with those in BrightPay.

By default, Regular Hours should map to “Standard Rate”. You don’t need to map the others, but you can if you want to specify exact mappings.

When you’re ready to proceed, click the “Next Step” button.

Map Leave Hours to Hourly Rate

You can map Paid Leave Hours to a separate hourly rate within BrightPay. This enables you to separate out Leave Hrs into another payslip line item. The default is Leave Hours if sent will be added onto regular hours.

Note: you need to click “Include Paid Leave Time in Timesheet Export to BrightPay” for this to flow through.

Step 4. Export to BrightPay

This is the step you’ll use regularly. Simply select the dates for the timesheets you want to calculate, along with the payroll date you wish to send them to.

In this example, I’m exporting timesheets from 27th April to 2nd May and sending them to the 2nd May payroll period in BrightPay. Here, TimeKeeper shows it’s ready to export the timesheets for “Michael Scott”. If there were more employees, they’d be listed from the previous step.

Include Paid Leave Time in Timesheet Export to BrightPay

If you track leave in TimeKeeper for timesheet purposes, you can enable this setting to include any paid leave in the timesheet. For example, if Michael was on paid leave for 8 hours on a Friday, those 8 hours would be added to his timesheet.

If you prefer to keep leave hours separate, simply leave this option unchecked.

Below is a screenshot of BrightPay Cloud, showing Michael Scott with 0 hours on his current payslip. Now, let’s send some hours!

📆 The Payroll Date indicates the payroll period you’re sending this data to. For example, here, the fortnightly payroll period on BrightPay ends on 2nd May.

Once you click the “Export to BrightPay” button, you’ll be asked to confirm you want to proceed. TimeKeeper will then calculate timesheets for all employees, breaking down regular and overtime hours, and attempt to send this to BrightPay. Below, you’ll see it successfully sent 20 regular hours and 16 hours 46 minutes of overtime.

That’s it! Now if you refresh BrightPay, you should see those hours present for Michael.

Whether you have 1 or 100 employees, the process repeats for each one. If an employee’s export fails, an error message will appear for that employee, but the sync will continue for the others.

All being well, it’s just a matter of selecting the timesheet date range, the payroll date, and clicking “Export”.

Common Errors

Not Current Payslip on BrightPay

Currently, you can only send data to the employee’s current payslip. In this example, the payroll date chosen falls outside the employee’s payroll period.

Check out our BrightPay Integration FAQs.

Updated on: 17/08/2025