IRIS Education Payroll and Pensions 

Let IRIS Education take the pain out of school payroll for you…

Your staff deserve to be paid accurately and on time. This shouldn’t be a challenge – but with constantly changing legislation, multiple roles, different pension schemes to manage, and duplicate data entry between HR and payroll systems, it can quickly become a major headache. We’re here to help, with our cloud-based school payroll and pension solutions, designed for independent schools to multi-academy trusts across the UK.

Whether you opt to run school payroll in-house or take advantage of our fully managed payroll service, we have you covered.

Payroll and pension products and services

Choose between running payroll in-house with Every Payroll By IRIS, or outsourcing payroll and pensions to Dataplan By IRIS, our fully managed service. Both integrate seamlessly with our HR Management platform, Every HR By IRIS.

Speak to an Education Payroll & Pensions advisor

Ready to take control of payroll and pensions for your school or trust? Fill out our quick form to speak with an advisor.

Key features

  • Specifically for schools and trusts

    Handle all education-specific nuances like multiple posts, teacher and local government pension scheme reporting, and back pay with ease in your payroll system, or outsource to education experts. Reduce errors and save time.

    We are experts, so you don’t have to be.

  • Link up with HR systems

    Our payroll solutions pull data seamlessly from your HR system, including Every HR By IRIS. Avoid duplicate data entry, save time and eliminate GDPR risks, and ensure your payroll information is 100% accurate.

    Employee detail changes in your HR system are always reflected in your payroll run.

  • Helps you work smarter

    Thorough reporting gives you complete oversight, allowing you to spot trends and drive efficiencies.

    With no infrastructure to maintain, our cloud-based solutions save you additional time and money.

    Spend less time running payroll and more time running your school or trust.

  • Staff member

    • Update employee details in the employee portal and be confident that pay will be correct
    • View payslips and pension contributions in the HR employee portal, without having to contact HR
  • Payroll Manager

    • Process data entered by the HR team and employees without manually entering data
    • Save time and ensuring accuracy
    • Stay in control of payroll by locking down the payroll system once payroll cut-off has been reached and storing data for the next payroll run
  • School or trust leader

    • View employee, absence and performance data in IRIS Central
    • Combine this HR data with payroll costs
    • Determine effectiveness of staffing structure and discover ways to drive efficiencies

    What is IRIS Central?

    Find Out More

Featured Guide 

Guide: In-house or outsource?

IRIS Education provides payroll software and services to over 1000 schools.

Download our guide to help you choose the right education payroll solution

Education payroll | Payroll and Pensions

Fully integrated HR and Payroll

We know the problem: Your employee records are stored in one place, but your school employees are paid based though a separate payroll system or provider.

The result: time-consuming, duplicate data entry with high potential for errors and, when you get it wrong, disgruntled employees. That’s why our HR and payroll solutions are fully integrated and API-drive, so you don’t have to lift a finger!

Here's how it works:

  1. HR system is the single source of truth

    Changes to employee details are made and approved within Every HR.

    e.g. Staff member goes on maternity leave and changes their bank account details.

  2. Payroll system takes HR changes

    Pay run opens and queued changes are pulled into payroll. Payroll run, payslips, BACS payment, FPS and pension reports generated. 

    Appropriate maternity pay, tax and pension contribution calculated. 

  3. HR system updated

    Payslip delivered to employee portal in Every HR.

    Staff member receives correct maternity pay into their new bank account.

A payroll solution that is right for you: In-house or outsourced?

We appreciate that the decision to run your payroll in-house or to outsource to a fully managed service provider is not a simple one. For example, you may have received payroll services through a local authority that is now ceasing its provision, and the natural thing to do would be to continue to outsource. But how do you know that bringing payroll in-house might not be more beneficial for you?

Often, the decision comes down to whether you feel you have the necessary expertise in-house and what your appetite is for fixed versus variable costs. But there are plenty of other things to think about…

  • In-house payroll

    Pros

    • Potentially more control and flexibility
    • Faster issue resolution
    • Lower per payslip cost

     

    Cons

    • In-house expertise required (including pensions knowledge) and requires continual training
    • Expert payroll manager is a significant fixed cost
    • Payroll manager is a potential single point-of-failure
  • Fully-managed payroll and pensions service

    Pros

    • No in-house expertise required (including pensions knowledge) – lower fixed costs
    • Eliminates single point-of-failure
    • Removes compliance burden

     

    Cons

    • Less flexibility
    • Potentially less control/visibility
    • Higher per payslip cost

Learn more about payroll and pensions for schools