Migrate your Bright data
UK-focused payroll and HR platform for construction and CIS contractors. Bright handles RTI submissions, leave management, and timesheets under a single umbrella.
In its favor
Why people choose Bright
The signal that keeps Bright on the shortlist. Sourced from G2, Capterra, and customer scoping calls.
CIS module included at no extra cost in all licences — BrightPay (the most commonly referenced 'Bright' UK payroll product) bundles full Construction Industry Scheme handling rather than charging it as an add-on, which is rare in UK payroll software.
RTI submissions and HMRC compliance built in — payslips, RTI events, and statutory obligations are part of the core workflow rather than a separately purchased compliance module.
Payroll-journal API integrations with Xero, Sage One, QuickBooks Online and other accounting packages let users push journals directly from BrightPay without re-keying.
Direct Smart Pension API integration handles workplace pension submissions inside the payroll workflow, useful for SMEs juggling auto-enrolment obligations.
Tiered per-employee/per-tax-year pricing scales predictably from 3 employees (£79) to unlimited (£289) without per-month surprises.
Reporting flexibility is limited compared to enterprise payroll systems — customers needing custom analytics often bridge to external BI tools.
Document storage and viewer functionality lacks the polish of dedicated document management platforms, an annoyance for HR-heavy users.
UK-only focus means companies expanding internationally have to migrate to multi-country payroll providers like Deel, Remote, or ADP iHCM.
Bureau pricing scales aggressively (e.g., £329 for 10 employers, £549 for 25 employers per tax year), pushing larger payroll bureaus toward subscription-based alternatives.
Cloud transition is still in progress — historically a desktop-installed Windows product, customers wanting fully cloud-native payroll without local install evaluate alternatives during the transition window.
Reasons to switch
Why people leave Bright
The recurring reasons buyers give for replacing Bright. Presented as facts, not knocks.
Platform scorecard
Strengths, weaknesses, and where Bright fits
Grades across six dimensions, plus a SWOT-style view of where the platform shines and where it falls short.
SWOT — strengths, weaknesses, and use-case fit
Strengths
Weaknesses
Where it works
Where it struggles
Pricing tiers
Bright pricing overview
BrightPay (the UK payroll product commonly referenced as 'Bright') prices per-employee per-tax-year on standard licences: £79 (3 employees), £139 (10), £209 (25), and £289 (unlimited). Payroll bureau pricing scales by number of employers: £329 for 10 employers and £549 for 25 employers per tax year. The CIS module is included at no extra cost on all licences. BrightPay Connect (cloud add-on) is billed monthly based on the number of active employees that month. Note that 'Bright' is ambiguous — the catalog URL bright.com is a separate event rentals company, so customers should confirm which Bright product is in scope during discovery.
Standard 3 employees
Tier 1 of 6
£79 per tax year
What's included
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What gets migrated
Bright object support
Object-by-object support for Bright migrations. Per-pair details surface during scoping.
Employees
Fully supportedEmployee records are the primary exportable object in Bright. We pull all standard fields including start date, department, employment status, and leave entitlement balances. Custom employee properties are mapped individually and flagged if they have no direct equivalent in the destination system.
Payslips
Fully supportedPayslip history is tied to pay periods and employee identifiers. We preserve gross pay, deductions, net pay, and RTI submission status for each payslip. Historical payslips are exported in chronological order to maintain audit continuity.
CIS Subcontractor Records
Mapping requiredCIS verification status and deduction rates are stored as employee-level flags. The destination system's handling of CIS-specific fields varies, so we map these to a dedicated custom property group rather than relying on a native equivalent.
Leave Requests
Fully supportedLeave requests include approval status, leave type, start and end dates, and the responding manager. We export full leave history and pending requests separately so the destination can handle each in the appropriate workflow.
Timesheets
Mapping requiredTimesheet formats vary significantly between Bright accounts depending on whether the customer uses the built-in clock-in module or manual entry. We normalise entries by employee, date, and hours worked and map shift notes as comment fields.
Documents
Not in this platformBright stores documents attached to employees but does not expose a public bulk document export endpoint. We export document metadata (name, type, upload date, linked employee) but customers must download physical files directly from Bright's document viewer.
Company Settings
Fully supportedOrganisation-level settings including PAYE references, accounting period configuration, and bank details are exported as configuration records and applied as a baseline setup on the destination platform.
| Object | Support | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Employees | Fully supported | Employee records are the primary exportable object in Bright. We pull all standard fields including start date, department, employment status, and leave entitlement balances. Custom employee properties are mapped individually and flagged if they have no direct equivalent in the destination system. |
| Payslips | Fully supported | Payslip history is tied to pay periods and employee identifiers. We preserve gross pay, deductions, net pay, and RTI submission status for each payslip. Historical payslips are exported in chronological order to maintain audit continuity. |
| CIS Subcontractor Records | Mapping required | CIS verification status and deduction rates are stored as employee-level flags. The destination system's handling of CIS-specific fields varies, so we map these to a dedicated custom property group rather than relying on a native equivalent. |
| Leave Requests | Fully supported | Leave requests include approval status, leave type, start and end dates, and the responding manager. We export full leave history and pending requests separately so the destination can handle each in the appropriate workflow. |
| Timesheets | Mapping required | Timesheet formats vary significantly between Bright accounts depending on whether the customer uses the built-in clock-in module or manual entry. We normalise entries by employee, date, and hours worked and map shift notes as comment fields. |
| Documents | Not in this platform | Bright stores documents attached to employees but does not expose a public bulk document export endpoint. We export document metadata (name, type, upload date, linked employee) but customers must download physical files directly from Bright's document viewer. |
| Company Settings | Fully supported | Organisation-level settings including PAYE references, accounting period configuration, and bank details are exported as configuration records and applied as a baseline setup on the destination platform. |
Gotchas
What to watch for in Bright migrations
Issues we've hit on past Bright migrations, tagged by severity. FlitStack AI handles every one — surfacing them up front because buyer engineering teams want to know.
CIS deduction rates are employee-specific and must transfer as discrete fields
No bulk document export API forces manual file downloads
Leave entitlement balances require separate export alongside the request history
| Severity | Issue |
|---|---|
| Medium | CIS deduction rates are employee-specific and must transfer as discrete fields |
| High | No bulk document export API forces manual file downloads |
| Low | Leave entitlement balances require separate export alongside the request history |
Leaving Bright?
Where Bright customers move next
12 destinations Bright can migrate to.
How a Bright migration works
Four steps, Bright-specific
Connect
Vendor-published API integrations are pre-built per-partner (Xero, Sage One, QuickBooks Online, Smart Pension); no general public REST developer API documented for custom integrations into Bright. Scopes limited to read-only on the data we move.
Map
We translate Bright-specific structures (custom fields, objects, value lists) to the destination's model.
Sample
Test with a 50–200 record subset to validate Bright quirks before production.
Migrate
Full migration with Bright rate-limit handling. Rollback available throughout.
FAQ
Bright migration FAQ
Answers to the questions buyers ask most during Bright migration scoping. Not seeing yours? Book a call.
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Migrate Bright.
Without the rebuild.
Free scoping call with a migration engineer. Tell us about your Bright setup and destination — written quote back within a business day.