IRIS Software Group joins Sunday Times Grant Thornton Top Track 250
IRIS Software Group has entered the 14th annual Sunday Times Grant Thornton Top Track 250 league table which ranks Britain’s private mid-market growth companies with the biggest sales.
Ranked at 227, IRIS joins the most prestigious list of Britain’s top 250 private companies, which, when combined, grew sales by 18% to £66.7bn, operating profits by 27% to a record £6.4bn and employees by 10% to 435,000.
The announcement comes as the UK’s largest privately-owned software supplier celebrates its 40th birthday. Kevin Dady, CEO of IRIS explains, “This is a hugely prestigious accolade and we are incredibly proud to see our success and growth recognised in this way. These achievements are a result of dedicated IRIS teams across the country, developing best-in-class software solutions and providing exceptional customer services. Without them, the business wouldn’t be where it is today.”
IRIS employs 1,135 staff across many offices around the UK and provides an extensive range of specialist accountancy, financial, human resources, payroll, education and bookkeeping solutions. Its brands include IRIS, PTP, KashFlow, Keytime, Taxfiler, Cascade, 12pay, Star, Earnie, PS Financials and ParentMail.
Operating in business-critical environments, the IRIS brands:
- Serve over 21,000 accountancy practices, 11,000 schools and academies and more than 80,000 small and mid-sized businesses, corporates, and payroll bureaus
- Work with 80 of the top 100 accountancy practices in the UK
- Have 650,000 SME users of IRIS cloud applications
- Are used by customers to submit over three million tax returns to HMRC and over 1.1 million online statutory documents to Companies House, representing over 40% of all third-party submissions
- Touch over 5 million tax payers through Accountancy Solutions
- Connect schools with over 4 million parents and guardians to enhance engagement and safeguarding
- Send over 300 million messages each year from schools to parents and guardians helping to keep them informed
- Are used every year for over 6 million submissions by IRIS Payroll solutions, paying over 2.3 million employees
- Have assessed nearly 1.2m employees for Automatic Pensions Enrolment
- Serve nearly 620,000 customer employees via the IRIS HR solution
Ellen Walsh, Partner at Grant Thornton UK LLP, the title sponsor of the league table, praised the companies for their performance, “Advances in robotics and artificial intelligence, the pervasive challenge of cybercrime, and the uncertain impacts of Brexit are among the significant issues facing Britain today.
“If we are to continue turning innovative ideas into businesses with international scale, we all need to play our part in shaping a vibrant economy that thrives. In this, the role of the mid-market is crucial. Resilient despite the headwinds, the Top Track 250 are innovating, winning business and adapting to generate value. There is much to learn from them.”
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Notes for editors
Fast Track has published league tables of the UK’s top-performing private companies with The Sunday Times for the past 21 years. The company was founded and is run by Dr Hamish Stevenson, who also holds an associate fellowship at Green Templeton College, Oxford University. Previous Top Track 250 success stories include appliance maker Dyson, which first featured in 2005 with sales of just £277m, and this year featured on our Top Track 100 with sales of £3.5bn and profits of £801m. Virgin Money also debuted in 2005 when its sales were £241m; it floated in November 2014 and in June this year CYBG, the owner of Clydesdale Bank and Yorkshire Bank, agreed to buy the group for £1.7bn; and B&M, the value retailer, first featured in 2009 with sales of £256m and its market capitalisation is now £4.1bn, having floated in June 2014. Consumer data analyst Callcredit first appeared in 2015 with sales of £149.9m and was acquired by American group TransUnion for £1bn in April; in the same month, Sky Betting and Gaming, which first featured in 2016 with sales of £247m, was acquired by Canada’s firm The Stars Group for £2.6bn.
About IRIS Software Group
IRIS Accountancy Solutions is a division of IRIS Software Group, the largest privately-owned software supplier in the UK and one of the most trusted business-critical software and services providers in the UK today. Through its solutions, the group serves more than 80,000 SMEs, corporates, and payroll bureau customers across a wide range of UK industry sectors. IRIS Software Group offers the greatest range of specialist accountancy, financial management, human resource management and payroll solutions – delivered as a choice of integrated on-premise software and cloud-based applications. These are managed under the leading IRIS, PTP, KashFlow, Keytime, Taxfiler, Cascade, PS Financials, Results Squared, ParentMail, Star and Earnie product brands.
For more details visit iris.co.uk. or follow the brands on Twitter: @irisaccountants, @irispayroll, @kashflow, @keytime @CascadeHRMS, @PSFinancials, @ParentMail and @TaxfilerLtd.
