Security & compliance

Your payroll data, locked down

PayAdjust is built from the ground up to protect sensitive employee data. Encryption at rest, isolation by design, and full GDPR compliance — not bolted on as an afterthought.

HMRC PAYE Compliant
AES-256 Encrypted
MFA Required
UK Data Residency
GDPR Compliant
How we protect your data

Security built into every layer

Encryption at Rest

National Insurance numbers, bank details, dates of birth, and addresses are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before they hit the database. Even with direct database access, the data is unreadable without the encryption key.

Row-Level Security

Every database query is scoped to your organisation using Postgres row-level security policies. One business can never access another's records — enforced at the database layer, not just the application.

Mandatory MFA

Every user — admin and employee — must set up two-factor authentication using an authenticator app. There's no option to skip it. Recovery codes are provided during setup.

Role-Based Access

Three roles — owner, admin, and employee — each with precise permissions. Employees see only their own data. Admins manage payroll. Owners control billing and organisation settings.

Immutable Audit Trail

Every action is logged: who did what, when, and from where. Audit entries cannot be edited or deleted. Filter by date, actor, category, or action type. Export for compliance reviews.

UK Data Residency

Your primary database is hosted in the UK (London region). Payroll data stays in the UK. All connections use TLS encryption in transit.

GDPR compliance

Full data rights, built in

For Employers

  • PayAdjust acts as Data Processor on your behalf
  • Subject Access Request exports
  • Right to erasure with 6-year statutory retention compliance
  • Data restriction flags for post-erasure records
  • Organisation deletion with 7-day grace period
  • Full audit trail export for compliance reviews

For Employees

  • Export all personal data in one click from the portal
  • View exactly what data is held about you
  • Request erasure of non-statutory data
  • Manage notification preferences per category
  • Update personal details and bank information directly
  • Download payslips, P60s, and P45s at any time
Transparency

Sub-processors we use

We only share data with services essential to running PayAdjust. Here's exactly who processes what.

ProviderPurposeData Location
SupabaseDatabase & authenticationUK (London)
VercelHosting & edge functionsUK / EU
StripeSubscription billingEU
ResendTransactional emailEU
OpenAIAI pension advisorEU

Payroll calculations are performed entirely within PayAdjust. No payroll data is sent to third-party calculation engines. The AI pension advisor uses OpenAI with no training on your data — conversations are not stored by OpenAI.

Technical details

Under the hood

Encryption at restAES-256-GCM for NI numbers, bank details, dates of birth, and addresses
Encryption in transitTLS 1.2+ on all connections
AuthenticationEmail + password with mandatory TOTP-based MFA (Google Authenticator, Authy, Microsoft Authenticator)
Session managementToken-based sessions with secure cookie storage
Database isolationPostgres row-level security (RLS) policies scoped to organisation ID
Access controlRole-based (owner, admin, employee) with least-privilege defaults
Audit loggingImmutable append-only log with actor, action, category, IP address, and user agent
Password recoveryEmail-verified password reset with token expiry
Email verificationConfirmation sent to both old and new address on email change
Data deletion7-day grace period on organisation deletion with full impact assessment
HostingVercel (edge network) + Supabase (UK London region)
MonitoringAutomated error tracking and uptime monitoring
FAQs

Security questions

Secure payroll, from day one

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