The Cloud HR and Payroll Blog

UK National Minimum Wage: everything you need to know

13th Aug '24

Whether you’ve got a large multi-national business or you’re just starting up, understanding the UK National Minimum Wage is a must. But with rates regularly changing, it’s understandable if you’re struggling to keep up. However, getting the Minimum Wage wrong isn’t an option. Fear not! In this blog, we cover everything you need to know […]

by Anthony Wolny

Three benefits of a good Human Resource Management System (HRMS)

9th Jul '24

If it’s not broken, don’t fix it – a classic saying that so many of us use. However, this should not be applied to HR.  While the approach may at times work – a wobbly shelf just hanging on or a dated iPhone that has slowed but still runs.   Your people management, on the other […]

by Anthony Wolny

Absence management: what is the Bradford Factor?

4th Jul '24

Absences are an unavoidable part of workplace management. At one point or another, situations will arise – whether that’s sickness, emergencies or personal responsibilities – and your staff will need time off. As such, businesses need a good absence management framework to support employees and they must provide clear and consistent guidance. One way HR […]

by Anthony Wolny

A quick guide to calculating labour turnover

28th Feb '24

If your labour turnover rate is high, it’s a red flag that can indicate an unhappy workforce.  This means tracking your labour turnover rate can be essential to your business’ wellbeing.  But it doesn’t stop there. You need to understand the why behind your labour turnover rate; you must get effective feedback as well as […]

by Conrad Emmett

A Guide to Calculating Annual Leave Pro-Rata

30th Nov '23

All employees are entitled to annual leave. But how much? This blog explains everything you need to know about calculating annual leave pro rata for your employees.

by Duane Jackson

The Four-Day Working Week: How Does It Work?

26th Sep '23

A four-day workweek aims to give employees more work-life balance. With more companies adopting it in the UK, there are a few things you need to know.

by Duane Jackson

Five reasons to use IRIS Staffology

7th Jul '23

When it comes to cloud-powered HR, payroll and bureau software, making the right choice is everything. Many are making this decision right now – perhaps because they hear 4 in every 5 HR teams have saved money using cloud tech, and nearly 9 in 10 think such software delivers greater control. But, despite the hype, […]

by Duane Jackson

A Guide to Pilon (Pay in Lieu of Notice)

3rd Jul '23

Payment in Lieu of Notice is used when an employee’s contract is terminated for various reasons. This guide covers everything you need to know about PILON.

by Duane Jackson

How to Calculate Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)

15th May '23

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) or Period of Incapacity for Work (PIW) offers employees continuity of pay during sick leave absences. Employers often have the tough task of accurately calculating and paying exact amounts to ensure they are covered too. Dependent on a range of criteria, circumstances and time taken, sick pay can also look different […]

by Duane Jackson

An Employer’s Guide to Managing Confidentiality with Sickness at Work

9th May '23

Since data protection laws and equality legislation came into play, employee confidentiality has never been so important for employers. Whilst every business is fully aware that medical disclosures should be treated with respect and compassion, many organisations are also making adjustments for their workers in response. Not only does this look attractive to new hires, […]

by Duane Jackson

Staffology Payroll: how past meets future in powerful cloud software

25th Apr '23

Fran Williams, Senior Product Director at IRIS, is on a mission. He and his team are taking the company’s four decades of payroll success and channelling it into the latest apps and services. This is no small task! When Fran joined IRIS, he was given oversight of 25 different software and service lines, ranging from […]

by Duane Jackson

Casual Worker Holiday Pay: How to Calculate It

24th Apr '23

Calculating holiday pay for casual workers can be a varied task, especially when weekly or monthly hours are not contracted. Compared to full-time employees, casual workers will have a flexible working schedule, with hours worked differentiating from week to week. So, how do you keep a track of their holiday pay? Tracking Casual Worker Holidays […]

by Duane Jackson

How Staffology‘s creator shifted the software landscape

30th Mar '23

If you walk through any IRIS office, you soon spot those taking their first step on the career ladder, complemented by a host of entrepreneurs, innovators and creatives. The latter bring decades of market-tested innovation and industry insight – some were even personalities in their own right before becoming part of IRIS. Duane Jackson is […]

by Duane Jackson

What Should Be in Your Staff Handbook in 2023

29th Mar '23

A staff handbook should define an employer’s policies and procedures, what is expected of their employees, and what they expect of their employer. Staff handbooks are not a legal requirement in the UK, but they can be efficient tools. Companies may write staff handbooks when they have scaled in size and want their policies and […]

by Duane Jackson

Could Off-Payroll Working Rules Be Changing from April 2023?

20th Mar '23

There are possible changes to off-payroll working rules that could be enforced from April 2023. IR35, often referred to as off-payroll working, has significantly evolved since 2017. From reforms to boost the contractor economy to shocking government U-turns, it can be hard to keep track of the changes when it comes to off-payroll working. Follow […]

by Duane Jackson

Time Off in Lieu (TOIL) Guide for Employers

28th Feb '23

Time Off in Lieu can be tricky to manage and confusing to keep on top of. Read what it is and how Staffology HR can simplify TOIL in our latest blog.

by Duane Jackson

What Could a Carer’s Leave Bill Mean for Employers?

16th Feb '23

Employers could be faced with new legislation that entitles their employees to care leave. At any point during a career, personal time may be needed to provide care for a dependent or family member. Currently, this agreement or arrangement is up to the employer’s discretion. Included as part of the Conservative Party Manifesto since 2019, […]

by Duane Jackson

Menstrual Leave: Could We See a UK Law?

21st Dec '22

In May 2022, Spain announced they were looking to introduce a government-level menstrual leave policy. They are the first Western economy to ever do so, but could we see a similar law adopted in the UK?

by Duane Jackson

Pensions and Climate Change – How Employers Could be Impacted

15th Dec '22

Pension funds in the UK are in the trillions. With government regulations constantly updating to ensure this money is invested in the Paris Agreement-aligned green investment strategies, read more on how pensions and climate change are working together.

by Duane Jackson

Workcations: What do they mean for HR?

1st Sep '22

Historically, we’ve been advised to keep work and play separate, but a new employee trend is completely revolutionising this mindset. People across the country are packing their bags and travelling to new temporary locations for months at a time, all while continuing with their jobs remotely – this is now known as a ‘workcation’. In […]

by Duane Jackson

What Are the Benefits of HR Software?

29th Jul '22

HR software unlocks employee performance and boosts visibility into what matters for your company: the people who work there. Learn what the benefits of a HR software are today.

by Duane Jackson

Salary Sacrifice Pension Schemes for Employees receiving SMP

6th Jul '22

If an employee is on a salary sacrifice scheme and receives SMP, they do not have any pension deducted.The employer’s deduction covers the amount you usually take from the employee. So before SMP started, the employee’s pension deduction was 5%, with an employer’s deduction of 3%. Therefore, whilst on SMP, the whole 8% would be […]

by Anna Stephens

Understanding GDPR and Payroll: Everything You Need to Know

29th Jun '22

The very nature of payroll requires key professionals within a business to collect and process accurate and reliable data about its employees. Payroll data is, then, at the centre of what you do. But when it comes to General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), what are the rules affecting payroll data, and how can you ensure its compliance?

by Duane Jackson

What is CIS Payroll and Who Does It Apply To?

15th Jun '22

A CIS payroll service ensures that you can compliantly issue monthly payments to subcontractors, including tax and NI deductions. Find more info on CIS here.

by Duane Jackson

How Does Payroll Work?

8th Jun '22

Understand how payroll works and what employee information is needed for payroll. Get all the information you need with Staffology’s easy to read guide.

by Duane Jackson

Guide to Pension Re-Enrolment

27th May '22

Workplace pension re-enrolment is a legal obligation for all employers. Find out everything you need to know about re-enrolment, including deadlines.

by Duane Jackson

A History of the Payroll System

18th May '22

This guide covers the history of the payroll system, which offers an overview of everything that’s been involved in this important process so far.Modern payroll systems have come a long way from the historical payroll records that have been discovered and, like all digitized functions, they will keep evolving as time goes on.

by Duane Jackson

Recent Staffology Enhancements

25th Apr '22

We have recently introduced a range of fantastic enhancements to Staffology Payroll. They include: Warnings We have introduced the concept of warnings when opening a pay run to help avoid potential issues with payments or FPS submissions. Warnings currently include: Missing Bank details for employees with payment method set to credit (go to Employee > Pay […]

by Matt Routledge

What is Umbrella Payroll?

18th Apr '22

Understand what umbrella payroll is, including the difference between umbrella and PAYE companies. Find out if this option is right for you.

by Duane Jackson

HR: what is position management?  

11th Apr '22

How are you managing your workforce?  For many HR professionals, when their business increases in size, various time-drains and challenges arise around determining accurate roles and responsibilities.   But with HR software, you can use position management to make handling a dynamic workforce much easier and less time-consuming.    What is position management?   Essentially, position management creates […]

by Anthony Wolny

Year-end Process

31st Mar '22

Many of you have already closed your tax year 2021/2022 and have moved into the tax year for 2022/2023. If you are still to do this, here’s a preview of what to expect. Once all your pay runs are complete, Start Monthly* Pay Run on the Payroll tab changes to Start Year End Process. * This will display your relevant […]

by Anna Stephens

Staffology API Mailing List

30th Mar '22

We have created a mailing list specifically to keep API users up to date on any changes that may impact them. If you would like us to keep you up to date with changes that may affect systems you have configured with the API, then please provide your details via the following link: API Mailing […]

by Anna Stephens

Calculating Holiday Pay for Variable Hours Employees – A Guide

24th Mar '22

Calculating Holiday Pay for Variable Hours Employees The importance of accurately calculating holiday pay is a payroll responsibility and one that impacts both a business and its employees. All staff expect statutory holiday pay as it is a standard entitlement in the UK. At its most basic level, holiday pay is the allowance a worker […]

by Duane Jackson

Pay Codes & Importing from CSV

17th Mar '22

Hi, As we end the 2021/2022 tax year and begin the next one, here is some information on additional features recently added to the software. Pay Codes To Pay Under Settings > Pay Codes, when creating or editing a deduction, our recent release introduces a new To Pay field that enables you to set who to pay whenever […]

by Anna Stephens

Year-end Processing & Legislation Updates

4th Mar '22

The software is up to date with all the latest legislative changes for the 2022/2023 tax year, and you can now begin your year-end processing.   The legislative changes include: The introduction of the new Freeports Upper Secondary Threshold (FUST) and Veteran Upper Secondary Threshold (VUST)   Increased National Minimum/Living Wage Rates  The Health and Social […]

by Anna Stephens

Payslip Customisation & Updates

3rd Mar '22

Here’s an update on some changes we have recently made to Staffology Payroll. We continue to update the software with the legislative changes for the 2022/2023 tax year. The final stages of testing are being worked through in readiness for release. Payslip Customisation We have added the following two new options to Settings > Payslip […]

by Anna Stephens

The Benefits of Automated Payroll Systems

22nd Feb '22

Modern payroll has automation tools to help users become more efficient and increase accuracy. Learn more about benefits of an automated payroll system.

by Duane Jackson

Salary Sacrifice Arrangement, Explained

16th Feb '22

Planning to add salary sacrifice arrangements in your workplace? We discuss what employers should consider from payroll implications to effects on pensions.

by Duane Jackson

Introducing Payees

9th Feb '22

Here we are, fast approaching Tax Year-end for Payroll!  Can you believe it, another Tax Year is nearly over? We are busy working on the legislative changes for you, and these will be published in due course. The latest Staffology release includes a new time-saving feature, detailed below. Payees Under Settings, there is now a […]

by Anna Stephens

CSV Templates, Student Loans, AEOs and DPS updates.

17th Jan '22

Here’s wishing you a Happy New Year and welcoming you into 2022 with What’s New for Staffology. Here is an update on some of the recent changes we introduced at the end of last year.  CSV Templates In Payroll, you now have the option to export blank CSV templates for completion – Download CSV – basic (only […]

by Anna Stephens

P11 (Detailed) Report and update to Sign-up Form and Hourly Rate calculation

30th Sep '21

The latest update to Staffology includes the following new features, detailed below. P11 (Detailed) Report We have added a Detailed P11 Report to the Reports section. This new report displays payments and deductions you make to employees throughout the tax year and is a useful tool for reconciliation purposes or investigating any issues. To print/download […]

by Anna Stephens

Pay Run Column-Based Import & Report Packs

9th Sep '21

The latest update to Staffology includes two ways to help you save time when running your payrolls. Pay Run Column-Based Import Mapping We have received requests to make Import more flexible. To that end this release includes the ability to map columns from a csv file to pay codes, rather than having a row for […]

by Dylan Martinez

Supporting Documents

31st Aug '21

Governmental bodies supply several documents which form part of the payroll process. In some instances, they are used to update an employee’s record, and you can then file them away. To support you with your record-keeping, we have added the ability to attach documents to Employee records, making it easier to refer to should queries […]

by Dylan Martinez

Customer Service Community

13th Aug '21

Following the acquisition of Staffology by IRIS, we are implementing several changes to help improve customer experience. The next phase of our journey is the introduction of Service Cloud. From Monday 16th August, our new customer service community (Service Cloud) will provide you with greater capabilities for self-service, product guidance and live chat. On this date, […]

by Dylan Martinez

Auto-Open & Earlier Year FPS

23rd Jul '21

What’s New in Staffology? As the flags crack outside, it’s time to review changes to Staffology over the last few weeks. As well as the usual maintenance fixes, two changes have recently been made available to you that may help you with two unrelated specific issues. Auto-Open Next Payrun While the ability to run and […]

by Dylan Martinez

What’s New?

21st Jun '21

As you can imagine there have been a fair few changes since IRIS Software acquired Staffology back in late 2020 to provide its customers with a next-generation, cloud payroll software solution. Thank you for your patience as we restructured some things to get this blog up and running again. The team has grown 1000% and will be expanding further still. Those of us […]

by Dylan Martinez

We’re hiring!

16th Mar '21

We want to hire a C# developer and an Automaton Engineer In case you missed it, we’re now a part of IRIS Software Group.Every day 335,000 UK organisations rely on IRIS payroll software to pay over 2.5 million people. Staffology is a cutting edge, API-first product and is responsible for a tiny percentage of that total, but we’ve […]

by Duane Jackson

Parallel Payruns

11th Feb '21

It’s a common scenario: you’ve looked at the demonstration, you’ve played with some of the automation settings.You’ve realised Staffology really is as amazing as everyone says. But you’re cautious. It’s mid-year and you don’t want to jump in feet first. The Usual Way So often what you would do is a couple of months of “parallel runs”. […]

by Duane Jackson

Overriding Calculated Values

19th Jan '21

One of the benefits of working with an experienced team like our new colleagues at IRIS is that they can pre-empt a lot of issues that they suspect will likely come up in the future. We’re now adding some areas of functionality to address some of them. First up is the overriding of calculated values. […]

by Duane Jackson

A New Home for Staffology

8th Jan '21

As some of you will know, I’ve been on the start-up journey before.In a previous life I started KashFlow and grew it over nearly ten years to 20,000 customers. Staffology came about, not because I wanted to do it again, but because of the clear need for some innovation in the payroll space and my personal desire to […]

by Duane Jackson

On Hold and Rehire

9th Dec '20

We’ve added a couple of features around employee management that might save you some time. On Hold If you have temporary employees then you’ll be familiar with the ability to filter payruns based on employees that are being paid and those that aren’t. This works for most situations, but sometimes you want to put an […]

by Duane Jackson

Twinfield Integration

13th Nov '20

We’re already integrated with many accounting software platforms. Today we’re adding one more to the list: Twinfield. Whereas the other platforms we integrate with are mainly used by SMEs, Twinfield is primarily used by some of our larger “mid market” customers. So if that’s you, you can now map nominal codes and then have journal entries automatically […]

by Duane Jackson

IR35 and Off-Payroll Workers

29th Oct '20

We’re starting to get a lot of enquiries about the ability of our software to handle payroll for IR35 and Off-Payroll Workers. We upgraded our software last year ready for the expected launch in April 2020 – so we’ve been ready for this for a while. As HMRC delayed in the introduction to April 2021 we’ve taken the opportunity […]

by Duane Jackson

Employment Allowance Journal

26th Oct '20

Like most other payroll applications, we don’t include the Employment Allowance shown on the payrun journal. There’s good reason for this as in many potential configurations it simply shouldn’t be. A payroll developer will argue this point until he is blue in the face. But in reality, for most employers where there’s just a single payrun […]

by Duane Jackson

Import Multiple Employers

16th Oct '20

Typically once an accountant or payroll bureau has read about our automation features and tried the software out with one or two employers they’re sold. They then want to know how to migrate all of their other clients to us. If you have access to developers then you could use the Payroll API. But not everyone has access […]

by Duane Jackson

Validating Bank Account Details

6th Oct '20

It can be annoying to run a large payrun – perhaps even fully-automated – and then have a failure when it comes to paying everyone due to bank details being entered incorrectly. So we’ve just introduced a feature that should reduce the chances of this happening. Whenever you are entering bank details for an employee we’ll check that they appear to […]

by Duane Jackson

Custom PDF Passwords

17th Sep '20

It’s been a busy week in terms of improvements. Tuesday saw the release of enhancements to Accrued Holiday Pay.And yesterday we made it easier to manage P45s. Today’s update is a small one.Since very early on in our existence you’ve been able to set employee payslips to be password protected for GDPR compliance. We just took a lead from […]

by Duane Jackson

Tracking P45s

16th Sep '20

We already automatically generate P45s for employees that have left, and we make it easy for you to send them via email. What we hadn’t done – until today – is give you the ability to simply tick a box to say whether or not an employee has been issued their P45.  So now on […]

by Duane Jackson

Accrued Holiday Pay Enhancements

15th Sep '20

We’ve added a few enhancements to the Accrued Holiday Pay feature. Override Rate You can now override the default rate of 12.07%. You can do this either on the employer (so as to affect all employees) or you can override it on a per-employee basis. Show Balance on Payslips You can now choose to show any […]

by Duane Jackson

Will face masks become mandatory in the office?

3rd Sep '20

Following September 1, face masks are now mandatory within all offices and factories in France. This enforcement is due to the surge in coronavirus cases France is currently experiencing. As a number of cities across the UK are also seeing coronavirus spikes and local lockdowns, many HR professionals are wondering – will we follow suit? […]

by Anthony Wolny

Payments After Leaving + Standard 18

19th Aug '20

I really don’t like having to say “Sorry, we don’t have any support for that” when someone asks how to do something. So we’ve recently dealt with a couple of common requests…. Payment After Leaving There are specific rules about how this should be done and reported to HMRC. I’m pleased to say we’ve now […]

by Duane Jackson

Furlough: New law to stop redundancy pay cut

13th Aug '20

Some businesses have been giving lower redundancy payments to staff who were furloughed, then later laid off, the Government says. Although it describes them as ‘the minority’, Ministers have sought to stop this happening by introducing a new law, which has now taken effect. Why has it happened? Some employers have been making redundancy pay-outs […]

by Anthony Wolny

Deputy Payroll Integration

3rd Aug '20

We’re pleased to announce yet another addition to our growing list of integrated software. Deputy is staff management and rostering software that’s been around a while, but recently a lot of our UK customers have been mentioning it as something that they’d like to see integrated. When we took a look we could see why. It’s very […]

by Duane Jackson

New Pension Features + more

27th Jul '20

As well as the more noteworthy additions such as the recent addition of overtime codes and the new CJRS report, we are also constantly adding or tweaking other smaller bits and pieces. These often don’t merit an announcement on their own, but we like to occasionally list them here in case any are of use to you, so here […]

by Duane Jackson

Overtime and Double Time Pay Codes

25th Jul '20

We’ve just added support for a new type of pay code. Many of you either import hours worked from an external system or CSV file. Or you pay your employees on a salary rather than an annual rate. For the former, adding overtime and double time is easily done. But for those managing salaried employees it’s a bit […]

by Duane Jackson

50,000 bank staff WFH till 2021, despite PM’s guidance change

23rd Jul '20

Large swathes of the workforce have been working from home for months to help reduce the risks of COVID infections, as instructed by the Government. But as August nears, the Prime Minister signalled a shift in the messaging around coronavirus and workplace safety. As of next month, employers will be given a much greater say. […]

by Anthony Wolny

Updated Furlough (CJRS) Report

15th Jul '20

After being the first to release a Furlough (CJRS) Claim report back in April, I’m pleased to say we now have an updated report to take into account the changes between now and October. The employee details page now lets you state that an employee is partially furloughed and to enter the required information about hours […]

by Duane Jackson

New funding for employers who hire trainees and apprentices

9th Jul '20

A lot has been announced in the recent summer statement, but few changes will have as large an impact on HR professionals as the support being given to apprenticeships and trainees. The policies are part of the Government’s wider plan to encourage hiring and job retention across the UK. Below we’ve outlined what has been […]

by Anthony Wolny

Furlough to end and new Job Retention Bonus scheme revealed

8th Jul '20

Furlough is to be wound down and succeeded by a new Job Retention Bonus Scheme, costing up to £9bn, the Chancellor has revealed today. Rishi Sunak has just released a summer statement detailing the future of the Government’s COVID-19 support for workers and businesses. Key announcements were made about the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, […]

by Anthony Wolny

Quick wins for the next normal – 5 ways of working to leave behind

1st Jul '20

If the last few months have taught us anything, it’s the importance of business resilience. We know that resetting, reorganising, and finding resilience are likely to be a huge part of your business strategy right now. So, inspired by the ingenuity of SMEs across the globe, here are 5 ways of working we don’t think […]

by Anthony Wolny

Staying home vs returning to the office?

26th Jun '20

Continue homeworking or return to the workplace? The question SMEs are all facing right now…  It’s a big question and the answer will be different for each and every business.   Either way, Staffology HR is here to help.   Staying home Home working is set to become a much more regular part of the way most […]

by Anthony Wolny

Managing Right To Work

23rd Jun '20

As an employer, you have a legal responsibility to ensure your employees have the right to work in the UK. For relatively static workforces that isn’t too difficult to manage. But we’re seeing an increasing number of employers with high numbers of temporary workers using our platform. For a large and changing workforce it can […]

by Duane Jackson

Multiple Employee Actions

12th Jun '20

Hot on the heels of yesterdays product enhancements, we have a few more for you today. All are centered around employee management. Bulk Delete You can now delete multiple employees at once. Handy if you messed up importing employees. On the main employees list you’ll see there are now checkboxes down the side of the page. Check […]

by sam.thomas@iris.co.uk

Statutory Pay Report + Email a P45

11th Jun '20

We’re constantly adding small features and making minor tweaks to improve the product for you. Often they’re too small to warrant announcing. But here are a few of the recent changes and additions that you might find useful. Email a P45 A common request of late has been the ability to send a P45 by […]

by Duane Jackson

Custom Pay Periods: 445, Quarterly, etc

2nd Jun '20

If you’re on our mailing list you’ll know I usually end my emails with a request to let me know about any features you need or any suggestions we can try and implement to make things easier or more efficient for you. One small request we received was to make it so you can temporarily disable the […]

by Duane Jackson

Here to Help: Becoming COVID-secure – what does this mean?

22nd May '20

The government has provided a list of guidelines to help companies make sure their workplaces are safe for employees to return to. They’re calling this being ‘COVID-secure’. Encouraging businesses to translate the guidelines into the specific actions they need to take, the government is also asking them to undertake a COVID-19 risk assessment. In addition, ways […]

by Anthony Wolny

Time and Attendance Integrations

13th May '20

We’ve supported importing time and attendance data from uAttend, TimeMoto and Access People Planner for a while.But as they don’t have APIs it’s meant fiddling with CSV files. Better than nothing, but not ideal. So I’m pleased to report that today we’ve released integration with two modern Time and Attendance platforms:RotaCloud and WeWorked. Once you’ve connected to […]

by Duane Jackson

New: Variance Report

11th May '20

We’ve just added a new report based on requests from customers – the Variance Report. The report is intended to help you compare one period to another to identify any variations in pay as well as highlight joiners and leavers. The report has a number of options including the ability to compare a range of […]

by Duane Jackson

Please don’t compare us to Sage

5th May '20

I noticed last week that a new user, Sarah Carter @ Rocket Software, had run a payroll in our payroll software but the FPS had failed so I got in touch to ask if I could help. Here’s the reply from Sarah:  I know why it has failed: due to me not putting the government […]

by Duane Jackson

Multiple Schedules, Same Frequency

23rd Apr '20

I was asked a great question a couple of months ago: “What kind of business is Staffology not suitable for?” Our customers range from single employee firms, to payroll bureaux and accountants, to 1,000+ employee businesses, to CIS Contractors, to umbrella companies, to temp recruitment agencies. So it’s a fair question! The answer though was […]

by Duane Jackson

Furlough Claim Report Now Available

17th Apr '20

We’ve just released a new report to help you make a claim for a furlough payment under the UK Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme. We’ll walk you through the process here. It’s quite likely that HMRC will update the guidance on how we should be making calculations so we will update our system accordingly. Furlough the Employee […]

by Duane Jackson

Automate Distribution of Funds to Employees

15th Apr '20

We like automation. It saves so much time. We know you make a lot of use of the automated payroll features we offer. But it’s always been missing one piece of the jigsaw: someone has to submit the BACS file to the bank for processing. We have the option to automatically send an email to someone to […]

by Duane Jackson

Stress Awareness Month – 3 steps to starting conversations about stress

7th Apr '20

The disruption and uncertainty caused by the Coronavirus pandemic is turning our working and personal lives upside down. This means that levels of stress and anxiety are likely to be higher among your employees than ever before. Unfortunately, stigma still surrounds stress which means some of your employees may feel embarrassed or uncomfortable opening up […]

by Anthony Wolny

Here to Help: 8 simple ways to enhance your wellbeing strategy for home workers

6th Apr '20

The way we live and work has changed dramatically over the last few weeks. So much so that even the most resilient and adaptable of your employees are likely to be feeling the strain. That means it’s more important than ever to focus on employee wellbeing. To help, we’re sharing 8 simple ways you can […]

by Anthony Wolny

Employee Notes

30th Mar '20

We’ve just added notes to Employees so that you can store extra tidbits of information. You can access the notes by choosing a employee and switching to the new Notes tab. The app itself uses our API. So everything you can do in the app you can also do programatically via the API, as such […]

by Duane Jackson

COVID-19: Furlough and SSP

26th Mar '20

Part of the support being provided by the government due to the COVID-19 outbreak has an impact on payroll. Specifically furloughing of employees and SSP being paid from the first day of sickness. HMRC haven’t yet given any guidance on how it will reimburse employees for these costs, but we’re taking steps now to ensure […]

by Duane Jackson

Year End Made Easy

17th Mar '20

Many of you have already closed 2019/20 and have moved on to 2019/21. But for those that are about to do it, here’s a little preview of what to expect.Once you’ve completed all of your payruns, where you’d normally see the button to start the next period you’ll instead see a button to start the […]

by Duane Jackson

Our 5 top tips for creating a culture of learning and development

28th Feb '20

Improving employee engagement, retention and boosting the skills available within your business – three great reasons why a strong learning and development strategy should be a high priority for SMEs. But all too often, sitting down to set up a new strategy can be seen as a time-consuming task. So, we’ve put together five top […]

by Anthony Wolny

See you on the red carpet – at the 2020 Amazon ScaleUp Awards

27th Feb '20

We couldn’t be happier to announce that we’re sponsoring the Employer of the Year category at the 2020 Amazon ScaleUp Awards, which will be celebrating the best of UK business. Our Chief People Officer, Stephanie Kelly will be presenting the award, and is excited to have the chance to honour a business that strives to put its people […]

by Anthony Wolny

Umbrella Reconciliation and Statements

25th Feb '20

If you’re working with Umbrella company payroll then your 2020 is off to a good start. We’re really beefing up our Umbrella features. At the beginning of the month we added CSV imports and now we’re announcing two new reports. Umbrella Statement The Umbrella Statement report allows you to select an employee and a date range to produce […]

by Duane Jackson

Introducing Employer Groups

19th Feb '20

A new feature has just been added to help those of you managing multiple employers. We now have Employer Groups. You can set up as many groups as you like and you can then add employers to those groups. Employers can be in multiple groups, with one group being set as the primary one. Making use […]

by Duane Jackson

CSV Import for Employees and Umbrella Payments

4th Feb '20

There’s just no escaping CSV files. They’re everywhere. We have a powerful payroll API that can do absolutely everything you can do in the payroll software itself.But to take advantage of it you need access to a developer. So the developer-deprived amongst you turn to CSV files to move data from one system to the other. We already support […]

by Duane Jackson

Accrued Holiday Pay

29th Jan '20

Thanks to how easy it is to integrate other systems in to our payroll software, we now have a number of clients that are paying employees on an ad-hoc basis. Their systems tell our systems how many hours should be paid and the rest all happens by magic. If you’re immediately paying your employee their […]

by Duane Jackson

Introducing Daily CIS Payroll

10th Jan '20

It’s rare that we’re asked if our software can do something and the answer is ‘no’. But one of those things is daily payroll. When it comes to doing PAYE daily, it’s tricky as it’s not something HMRC recognises.A number of our customers that need this manage to get it to work using a combination […]

by Duane Jackson

New Year, New Reports

3rd Jan '20

We’re welcoming 2020 with the addition of a couple of new reports. Holiday Report Found in the ‘Employees’ section of the ‘Reports’ area, the Holiday Report gives you an overview of the leave allowances for all of your employees at once. You can immediately see if any employees have custom settings and how many days everyone has […]

by Duane Jackson

The quick way to import pay via the API

19th Dec '19

Unlike other blog posts, this one is going to get quite technical.If you don’t know your JSON from your XML then this one might not be for you. Importing Hours Worked When you’re integrating your platform with our payroll API, a very common requirement is to update the pay for employees – often in terms of hours […]

by Duane Jackson

Introducing Tags

27th Nov '19

We already have the ability to create departments and to add employees to a department (or multiple departments).That gives you a single level of analysis for your data which is sufficient for most of you. But many of you that are integrating platforms into us need additional levels of data analysis. Sometimes this relates to […]

by Duane Jackson

Employer Portal

5th Nov '19

Two big features that we’ve felt we’re missing are an Employer Portal and an Employee Portal. There may only be one letter differentiating the two but they’re very different beasts. We decided to start by tackling the Employer Portal. What’s needed? From talking to those of you that wanted to give a separate login to […]

by Duane Jackson

October Tweaks

4th Nov '19

We’ve made a number of small-ish tweaks in the past month, we’ve listed some of them here. Transfer OwnershipYou can now transfer the ownership of an employer to another user. Re-send Payslip EmailsYou can now re-send the payslips emails for a payrun. So if you want to you can choose to finalise the payrun without sending the […]

by sam.thomas@iris.co.uk

Defaults for New Employers

3rd Oct '19

A new feature we’ve just added will make life a lot easier for those of you that are managing multiple employers. You can now configure the system so that when you create a new employer it copies settings from an already existing employer. On either the employer index page or the page where you create […]

by sam.thomas@iris.co.uk

More CIS Features

27th Sep '19

Our Cloud CIS functionality has proven remarkably popular. I didn’t realise just how little there was out there in terms of cloud-based, modern software for paying subcontractors.Even before taking into account our API, our software seems to be the most modern option. Based on requests from users we’ve added a few more features specifically for CIS Umbrella Features […]

by Duane Jackson

Managing Holiday Allowances

24th Sep '19

We’re trying to stay away from any HR functionality as there are already a lot of great products out there for that. We want to stay very focused on payroll. Managing leave and holiday allowances falls in to that fuzzy space between HR and payroll and it’s something some of you have said you really […]

by Duane Jackson

Global Search

19th Sep '19

We’ve just introduced global search to make it easy for you to find employers, employees or help articles from anywhere within the application. You’ve always been able to search for employers from the employer index page and for employees within a specific employer. But now you can search within all of your data from any […]

by Duane Jackson

Payrolling Benefits

11th Sep '19

We now have full support for payrolling benefits. This is a new(ish) method for reporting employees benefits throughout the year rather than on a P11D at the end of the year. The important part to note is that you must register with HMRC to be able to use this. And you must register before the start of […]

by Duane Jackson

Payments CSV Importer Upgraded

2nd Sep '19

Until today the CSV Importer for payments only supported importing the basic pay amount for a paylsip. You couldn’t use this tool to import additional lines to a payslip. Now you can. Simply include the employee multiple times in the CSV file. The first time the employee appears in the file will be used to set the […]

by Duane Jackson

Pay Codes for Daily and Hourly Amounts

1st Sep '19

Whilst you’ve always been able to set the basic payment to employees as being either a fixed amount, an hourly rate or a day rate – when it came to adding additional lines you only had the option to add or deduct a fixed amount. Not any more When you add a new Pay Code or edit […]

by Duane Jackson

Umbrella Company Payroll Features

27th Aug '19

Umbrella companies have to do some pretty complex calculations to work out how much to pay an employee. This sounded like a challenge, so we’ve started building features to make these calculations as easy as 1, 2, 3. Assumptions We’ve made a number of assumptions to get started. These include: You make a charge per […]

by Duane Jackson

Mileage Allowance Payments Feature

20th Aug '19

Not as exciting or magical as last weeks new feature, but just as important. We’re now making it really easy to pay your employees for business miles driven in their own vehicle. You can pay employees per mile driven, and as long as it’s at or below a certain amount approved by HMRC then it’s tax-free […]

by Duane Jackson

Auto Emails After Payruns

15th Aug '19

We’ve just released a big update to the automation side of things. The options for auto emails after payruns have expanded. You previously had the ability to automatically send a Payment Summary to any email address after the Payrun had been finalised. We then got a bunch of requests for more options on these emails. […]

by Duane Jackson

Import from Sage 50 and more

6th Aug '19

Despite previously suggesting that July would be a quiet month on the development front, we’ve actually added a lot of new features. Improved Employers List With many of you now managing more than 100 employers, it became apparent you needed a better at-a-glance overview.So the main employer list now contains a few extra columns. You can now […]

by Duane Jackson

P11D Benefits, HMRC Notices and more

26th Jun '19

This months payroll software product additions are detailed below. There’s a lot to like! Benefits, P11D and P11D(B) You can now record benefits for employees and create and submit the required P11Ds and P11D(B) at the end of the year. Which of course we’ll do automatically for you. Read more here. HMRC Coding Notices When HMRC want […]

by Duane Jackson

Importing from FPS

3rd Jun '19

If you’re already running payroll in another system then you can now easily get started with Staffology or just see what it has to offer by importing an FPS file from your current software. What’s an FPS? Every time you pay your employees your payroll software has to create a Full Payment Submission (FPS) file […]

by Duane Jackson

Automatic Journals And More Accounting Integrations

28th May '19

This month has mostly been focused on behind-the-scenes speed improvements and improved accounting integrations. Accounting Integration A journal entry will now automatically be posted to your accounting software when you finalise a payrun. As well as Sage, Quickbooks and Xero we’re also now integrated with FreeAgent, KashFlow and Reckon One. uAttend Import As well as being able to import hours worked from […]

by Duane Jackson

NEST Integration, Webhooks, NMW

30th Apr '19

Another month gone and a raft of new features added to Staffology Payroll. Read on to discover what we’ve added in the last four weeks. NEST Integration We’re now fully integrated with NEST Pensions, so your pension contributions can now be automagically sent. If you’ve already created a Pension Scheme in the software and want […]

by Duane Jackson

Introducing Payroll Automation

26th Mar '19

Just because we’ve now officially launched, doesn’t mean that development has slowed down. We’ve added lots of new features in the past few weeks. Payroll Automation Not everyone has the development resources to take advantage of our Payroll API. So we’ve built a group of features that will allow you to take advantage of automation […]

by Duane Jackson

We’re live

18th Mar '19

It’s official, we’re now live! This morning TechCrunch published an article announcing our existence. The first (or was it the second?) phase is now over. The hard work of getting a product to market is done. Now the hard work of getting customers to love us begins.

by Duane Jackson

Pricing Announcement

4th Mar '19

It’s great to see so many of you making use of the software over the last month and many are now confident enough to be using it as a live payroll system. More than 20 companies ran actual live payroll in February, paying in excess of 100 employees – this is before we’ve even launched! […]

by Duane Jackson

Public Beta Announcement

5th Feb '19

The last update I posted was just before Christmas. Since then we’ve had a nice mention on AccountingWeb that ruffled a few feathers, and of course lots of progress on the software. I was aiming to get the software ready for public beta testing by the end of January and I’m pleased to say we’ve reached that […]

by Duane Jackson

Pre-Xmas Private Beta Update

21st Dec '18

I thought I’d send a final Staffology update for the year before we all wind down for a bit over Christmas There has been lots of progress in the past 3 weeks. Specifically: 1) Email We’ve gone from zero email functionality to a lot of email-related features.. You (as a brand) and individual Employers can customise […]

by Duane Jackson

Private Beta Progress

30th Nov '18

Since I announced the Staffology private beta a couple of weeks ago, lots more has been done based on your feedback. Below is a list of some of the changes and a heads-up on what we’re now working on. Do let me know if you have any suggestions on what we should add/change or what […]

by Duane Jackson

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