Weird Fish

Adams Morey made the decision to use EARNIE payroll software, from IRIS Software Group, after careful consideration of its current software and in context with a significant T&A project due to be undertaken in 2013/14. This combined with a major change to legislation – the introduction of Real Time Information (RTI) had led to a review of the options available in the market place.

RTI is viewed as the biggest change to payroll since PAYE was introduced in 1944 and is mandatory for almost all UK employers from 6 April 2013. Adams Morey turned to Isys Systems, a Time and Attendance software provider, who suggested looking at EARNIE payroll software.

Adams Morey has been a major supplier of DAF trucks to businesses across the country since 1973 and has since grown to a company employing over 300 people, across multiple locations, with a turnover of £60 million. 

Shaun Moody, IT Manager at Adams Morey commented: “With the prospect of RTI submission looming we were grateful to Isys Systems for recommending EARNIE software to us; from a company they had a long working relationship with (IRIS).  Intelligent Time (Time & Attendance software) from Isys systems is soon to be installed at our 10 dealerships and will fully integrate with EARNIE software. 

This, and the fact that EARNIE software is RTI compliant, running on a SQL platform, will give us the opportunity to develop a more integrated solution for our business.”IRIS, who supply EARNIE payroll software, have over 30 years’ experience providing payroll software and solutions to over 30,000 small to medium companies across the UK. IRIS has been participating in HMRC’s pilot scheme for RTI since it began and has used the knowledge gained from this to develop a complete RTI solution, to ensure no business is left behind when the new legislation is implemented. 

The Weird Fish brand was born in Cheltenham in 1993.  They produce and sell a range of men’s, women’s and children’s clothing and accessories with the brand ethos of staying young at heart, escaping the day to day and having the freedom to Live Life Your Way.  There are 7 dedicated Weird Fish shops as well as licenced shops and a range of concessions.

Weird Fish have used EARNIE since October 2007, originally purchasing the EARNIE Business package for up to 100 employees.  Jon Goodwin, Financial Controller, at Weird Fish chose the EARNIE package because of the ease-of-use of the system:  

“We previously used Sage Payroll but found this much too complicated.  Processing the payroll took between two and three hours using Sage and just one hour using EARNIE so we saw significant benefits straightaway.  Transferring the data from Sage into EARNIE was very easy and we were up and running straight-away”

Jon and his team processes payroll for a mixture of salaried and hourly paid staff and finds entering the data extremely straightforward:

“We currently key data into EARNIE which is very easy-to-do. EARNIE is very flexible so even if there are last minute changes the payroll can be run and re-run as many times as necessary and additional payments can be entered. The Spreadsheet Import Module will be the next module we start to use.  We already use the HR Manager and P11D modules which work very well.  The links between systems mean we can transfer information easily and don’t have to spend time re-keying data.”

Weird Fish have expanded over recent years and Jon has upgraded his payroll system from EARNIE Business to EARNIE Executive:

“EARNIE is ideal for growing businesses as you can move to the next version of the software when you are ready for it.  The upgrade path was very smooth – it was simply a matter of entering a new PIN so none of my existing data was affected.”

As with many companies, Weird Fish have a variety of Payment & Deduction requirements such as Bonuses, a Cycle to Work Scheme and Attachments of Earnings.  EARNIE allows payments and deductions to be configured in a variety of ways such as before or after Tax and NI:

“If we unsure how a payment or deduction should be configured we ring the support team and they are very knowledgeable and helpful.  They help with how items should be set-up so both the employee and HMRC receive the correct amount”.

Overall Jon and his team find EARNIE an easy-to-use system which handles all Weird Fish’s payroll requirements:

“I wouldn’t hesitate in recommending EARNIE to other companies.  It is very user friendly and has lots of useful features such as getting tax codes directly from HMRC which works very smoothly.  We also use the e-mail payslips facility which means employee requests for copy payslips has disappeared”.