Mobile app invoicing and PTO, detailed payroll reports, AI misclassification: May 2024 product release notes

This month at Remote, we've rolled out a series of exciting new features and updates designed to empower both employers and their teams. Whether you're managing global operations or organizing local workflows, our latest enhancements bring efficiency and clarity to your day-to-day activities.

Here’s a quick snapshot of what we’ve been up to:

• Big improvements to the Remote mobile app for employees and contractors

• Easier, faster, better invoicing for contractors, including automatic time-tracked calculations

• Improved PTO, AI misclassification advice, and fun ways to visualize with your direct reports

• Integration improvements with Xero, BambooHR, and a new integration with Workday

And that’s not all — we also acquired Easop to automate equity compensation compliance for companies worldwide. With Easop's technology, we'll invest in enhancing our global equity management capabilities, backed by our team's extensive legal, HR, and payroll expertise.

As we continue to build the ultimate global HR platform for modern, global businesses, we’re committed to building in partnership with thousands of Remote users around the world. As always, give us feedback over social media, get in touch with our friendly support team, or share your ideas with your Remote rep — we’d love to hear from you.

What’s new?

A pocket-sized HR command center for your team members and contractors

The Remote mobile app just got a major update — employees and contractors now have access to a sleuth of new improvements to help them manage their employment or contracting relationships on the go.

• An improved time-off overview now shows all the stats you need to understand the PTO you’ve taken, and how much you have remaining — to make those all-important vacation decisions.

• Public holidays are now automatically added to your time-off calendar, so you can plan to sit back and enjoy the time off, without life admin.

That’s not all!

Contractors can now submit invoices for your approval from the palm of their hand, in seconds.

It’s a simple process. Just create an invoice and add line items (or upload a PDF), before clicking submit. Contractors will also see their guaranteed payout amounts where applicable, so they know exactly what to expect in their bank account.

Your contractor team members can also follow the invoice through your approval and payment process in real time. And with 70% of payments received by contractors in seconds, your team can go from invoice submitted to payment received faster than ever before.

Download the mobile app from the Google Play Store or Apple App Store now.

Hourly contracting just got easier

Employers around the world use contractors on hourly rates to flex bandwidth as their needs demand.

Until recently, contractors in Remote have been able to track their time but had to manually calculate their hourly rate and hours worked to bill their customers.

With this new update, contractors can create an invoice calculated directly from their tracked time — saving minutes per invoice and ensuring accuracy.

Find out more about hourly invoicing in Remote.

At-a-glance payroll insights and detailed reports are now available

When did you last check your payroll runs in Remote?

Whether you use Remote to run payroll for your own employees or through Remote’s EOR entities, here are two new features to help you get the information you need at your fingertips:

• Instantly see payroll variances: spot payroll cost fluctuations instantly within the payroll detail screen. For each employee, you can see the variance compared to the previous payroll run, making it easy to identify changes and understand their impact.

• Get detailed payroll cost reports: access comprehensive reports for each payroll run. Our reports break down each employee's unique pay elements, allowing for a precise analysis of how payroll costs are calculated.

Find your most recent payroll runs now in Remote.

Integration improvements to consolidate your HR and finance stack

Customers that use Remote’s integrations are 19% more efficient — and this month’s improvements connect Remote to the tools and platforms you already use across your business.

• Xero: our recent integration is now improved, with added department breakdowns so you can map salary and cost line items to specific departments in your organization.

• BambooHR: we’re now beta-testing new functionality to pull time-off data from BambooHR into Remote for accurate payroll calculations for your direct employees.

We’re also excited to roll out a new integration for Workday, one of the leading HCM platforms for larger businesses. With the integration, you can sync your contractor and employee information between platforms, with real-time changes for reliable data.

Find out more about integrating Remote and Workday

New Remote Partner Marketplace for exclusive customer perks

The Remote Partner Marketplace is now available directly on the Remote platform, making it easy to explore ‌and redeem exclusive perks.

These perks are carefully selected to complement and enhance your business, with valuable solutions that help grow your business, improve employee engagement, and drive efficiency across your distributed teams.

Log into Remote and visit the Marketplace tab to explore a curated selection of offers.

Visualize your global team on a map

Remote customers are truly global, working with teams that span across borders. And we all know that a picture tells a thousand words.

Now, with a few clicks, you can see your global team using the Remote world map feature. This interactive tool highlights the countries where team members are based, allowing you to zoom in and out, hover over any country to see an exact headcount, and click to view a detailed list of team members in each location.

Check out your team’s map here in Remote! We’d love to see your screenshots on social media too.

AI-powered misclassification risk assessment

Our contractor agreements are designed with compliance in mind, but we’ve taken them a step further by alerting you if any details added may increase your misclassification risk.

With the help of AI, we will gently guide you through the process of drafting a Statement of Work with your contractors that provides compliance reassurance every step of the way.

Managers: Connect with your team with a new dashboard widget

Managers can now head over to their Remote dashboard to instantly see their direct reports, their location, and where available, their local time. No more timezone guesstimates!

Compliant and flexible carryover PTO admin

When you manage an employee with Remote, their earned time off must be correctly added and reflected. They also need the ability to use their time off in the right order. 

Well, we’ve got you covered!

In addition to adding an initial PTO balance to an employee’s profile, you can now include specific carryover days and set their expiration. These days will be used first when the employee books leave, reducing their risk of losing expired PTO.

Other improvements this month include:

• You can now get an at-a-glance view of your recurring contractor invoice schedules with detailed summaries, plus extra search and filter options to find invoices quickly.

• An easier way to assign team members to departments, directly from the Team and Onboarding page. This makes organizing your organization even easier.

• Customizable employee profiles, with the ability to create new text and numbers, and select fields for greater flexibility. Employers can make these available to employees to view, edit, and capture all of the information without manual intervention. Learn more about customizing profiles.

• The ability to upload your own privacy notice displayed to direct employees during onboarding. This tells employees how their data will be collected and used. Remote handles this for employees hired through one of our entities (i.e. Employer of Record), but when you hire a direct employee through your own entity, you are responsible for adding your company’s privacy notice

• Detailed time off explanations for your team, giving employees much more clarity around how much paid time off (PTO) they’re entitled to take, have already taken, and have requested. Learn more about the new explanations here.

• Updates to our list of data processors and our Privacy Policy as part of our commitment to transparency and data protection — including safeguards on our use of AI in Remote.

What’s coming next?

Here's what we're working on to make your experience with Remote even better:

• Improved salary benchmarking data, powered by Ravio

• Your team members will be able to track their time from their phones with the Remote mobile app

• Include premium benefit costs in the EOR employee cost calculator

• Upload expense policy documents for distribution to all employees

• A brand new ‘things to do’ page to help you keep on top of your HR tasks

Stay tuned for our next product update, and don’t hesitate to get in touch!