Introduction
Payback offers the facility to email payslips to employees. There are a few different methods to send the emails.
Make sure that you are running at least version 2016.07 before emailing Payslips as we have updated the server options.
Set up the Mail Server
The first thing to do is set up the Mail Server you wish to use to email your payslips. To do this, click Admin on the menu at the left of the screen, then the Options Icon and select the Preferences tab. There is a choice of four different servers:
- MS Outlook
- Payback.ie SMTP server
- Payback alternative server
- Your Own SMTP server
We recommend using your own SMTP mail server, like SendGrid. This will allow you to track Payslips and ensure that they are all being delivered to your employees.
Mail Server Settings
We recommend using your own SMTP server (option 4 in the figure opposite). If you use SendGrid hosted email delivery service, you will be able to ensure that your employees have received their payslips and that they haven't been reported as spam, or bounced by their mailserver etc, by using the SendGrid portal. Other hosted email delivery service include Amazon SES, CritSend, MailGun, PostageApp, Postmark and others. Here's how to set up SendGrid - the other listed services should be similar:
Step 1
Set up a SendGrid account from here:
https://app.sendgrid.com/signup
Step 2
Enter the following values in Payback:
SMTP Server: smtp.sendgrid.net
Port: 2525
User ID: <The User ID you used when setting up your SendGrid Account>
Password: <The Password you used when setting up your SendGrid Account>
Reply-to email address: <enter a valid email address>
Click 'Update' at the top of the screen when you've finished.
Other mail server options
If you are having difficulties setting up an alternative mailserver, you can also select option 3 - Payback Alternative Server. This also uses SendGrid, but the settings have been pre-loaded. All you have to do is supply a valid email address in the 'Apply-To Email Address' box and click 'Update'.
Option 2 is the Payback mailserver. We no longer recommend this option. The Payback mailserver gets an inordinate amount of spam. The result is that payslips emails frequently get bounced by recipient mailservers.
Option 1 is to use Microsoft Outlook. We are unable to support Microsoft Outlook. If Outlook is giving you problems (such as displaying a 'run time error', then please use the Payback Alternative Server option.
Employee email addresses
To enter the email addresses for the employees, go to the Employee screen and select the employee. Under the Contact tab is a Email text box. This is where this employee's payslips will be sent to. If you would like the emailed payslip to be password protected you can also enter a password. Click 'Update Employee' when you have finished.
Sending the Payslips
To send the payslips to your employees, click 'Reports' on the main menu and select the 'email payslips' report.
Click 'Send Email' at the top of the screen and the Email Payslips screen will appear. All the employees that have a processed payment for the selected pay date will appear in the list. Check that the Status column that there are no employees with a red Error status. This usually means that there is something wrong with their email address. You can fix this in the employee screen.
Click the 'Send' button to email the payslips.
(Note that payslips can also be emailed individually from the 'Payslip' tab in the Payroll screen for employees that have a processed payment.)
Damaged Payslips
Sometimes employees are unable to open damaged payslips
If every now and again an employee is unable to open a damaged payslip, please follow these instructions
- In Windows, create a new folder on your local C: drive called: C:\PaybackTemp
- Open Payback and click on where is says 'Support' on the menu at the top left of the screen.
- Click the Support Icon and select the 'Diagnostics' tab.
- Click the button that says 'Temp Location'
- Select the folder you created in step one, above (C:\PaybackTemp)
- Click the OK button.
- Try emailing payslips.
Notes
- We are unable to support third party products, such as Microsoft Outlook and mail servers. We have very limited control over recipient mail server actions.
- If the payslips are not being delivered to the employee, make sure that you have entered the employee's email address correctly in the the 'Employee screen'.
- Make sure that the employees' emails are ending up in their spam folders, or are being blocked as 'spam' by their ISP (some ISPs require 'human verification' before releasing suspected spam emails). You can easily check this if you have your own SendGrid mail server account.
- Check that all email address are correct! (in both the 'Employee' screen, and the 'Preferences / reply-to' box.)
- When using the 'Payback SMTP' or 'Payback Alternative Server' option, please make sure you've entered your own email address in the 'Reply-to email address' field in the Admin / Preferences screen. This is very important, as it is the address that any email bounce-backs will be sent to.
- If your emails are being blocked, please try changing the email subject and/or the email body in the email payslips screen. This may stop gmail from wrongly classifying the message as spam.
- If gmail still persists in blocking payslips, the last resort is if your employees have a different (non-gmail) address they could use.
- If you are using your own mail server and get error message: SMTP Error 500, please try changing the port to 2525
- SMTP Error 900: This usually means that your computer is having trouble accessing the mail server. If you have virus software or a firewall installed, try temporarily disabling it to see it that is causing the problem.
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