One click pensions to ease the complexity of automatic enrolment

IRIS Software offers one click pension integration with NEST

5th November 2015 – To complement the Government’s promise to cut £10bn worth of red tape by the end of this parliament, IRIS Software is today announcing new functionality, integrated with NEST, to provide one click pensions to ease the complexity of automatic enrolment.

Currently, businesses sending information to NEST need to log-in to upload files in the correct CSV format to the site. The new system, unveiled today, will see the file created, formatted and sent to NEST with one click, without having to log in to their NEST account This will save businesses an estimated hour per payroll run and accountants an estimated hour per client.

Mark Paraskeva, CEO of IRIS SME Division, says, “Automatic enrolment can be a very time consuming task when carried out manually, and nobody feels this strain more than small and micro-businesses. With 1.8 million businesses left to stage, it’s vital this process is made as simple and accessible as possible to ease the strain.

“This is why we’ve worked with NEST to provide this integrated functionality, meaning significant time savings can be felt by all business and accountants using this service. This time can then be spent adding value to the business and concentrate on what’s most important – business growth.”

NEST has around 2.5 million members and over 30,000 employers are using NEST to meet their auto enrolment duties, making it one of the largest auto enrolment providers in the UK.

Helen Dean, CEO of NEST, adds: “We’re delighted that payroll providers and software developers are working with NEST to integrate our web service functionality, which is designed to streamline the auto enrolment process for small employers. With 1.8 million employers still needing to put a workplace pension in place by 2017, this is a key development in the roll out of auto enrolment. IRIS is one of the first to deliver a solution using NEST web services, helping employers manage NEST from their payroll software.”

About IRIS Software Group

With 35 years’ experience, the IRIS Software Group provides business critical software and services to the UK accountancy and SME sectors. Almost 5,000 accountancy practices now use at least one cloud solution from the IRIS Cloud Suite to connect to a community of over 213,000 subscribing customers, including 112,000 small businesses who in turn communicate payslip and pension information to more than 101,000 employees.

IRIS offers the greatest range of specialist accountancy and payroll solutions – delivered as a choice of integrated on premise software and cloud-based applications – managed under the leading IRIS, PTP, Drummohr, KashFlow and Earnie product brands.

In accountancy, IRIS is the most trusted software provider in the UK today with 60 per cent of the top 50 practices as customers and 2.9 million tax returns successfully filed with HMRC each year.

As a leading provider of payroll and bookkeeping software IRIS serves SMEs, corporates, payroll bureaus and a number of industry sectors including 50 per cent of UK GP practices. More than 18 per cent of UK businesses pay their employees via IRIS payroll solutions. For more details visit iris.co.uk

Follow us on Twitter @irisaccountants @irispayroll @kashflow

Key facts about NEST and auto enrolment:

• Government workplace pension reforms mean most employers will have to automatically enrol workers into a workplace pension scheme that meets or exceeds certain standards. Employers will also need to make a minimum contribution for many of these workers.  
• NEST, set up as part of the reforms, is a high quality defined contribution workplace pension scheme available to all employers to use to meet their new duties.
• NEST has a public service obligation to accept any employer (whatever their size) who wants to use the scheme to meet their duties.
• NEST is designed around the needs of a new generation of pension savers, with clear communications, low charges and easy online tools and services. It is run as a trust-based scheme and the Trustee has a legal duty to act in its members’ interests.
• NEST puts members at the heart of its investment approach. NEST’s high quality default funds are managed to grow members’ money as much as possible while seeking to avoid the impact of extreme market movements. They also have a choice of other funds with the same low charge that they can switch to for free, including an Ethical, Sharia, Lower Growth and Higher Risk fund.