Taylor Bloxham Ltd Case Study

Carole Arrowsmith, Payroll Administrator for Taylor Bloxham Ltd has been a part of the team for 26 years and has been using IRIS software since 2003. Carole was one of the early adopters of the IRIS AE Suite™ when it was launched in August 2014.

She runs three separate payrolls. One with 96 employees based on an hourly wage with a monthly pay cycle and the other two have a total of 96 employees based on an annual salary with a monthly pay cycle.

They attended an auto enrolment training seminar in January 2014 provided by IRIS in order to better understand the responsibilities that are expected of an employer following their staging date.  

From this, Carole explained that “after attending the seminar and learning about auto enrolment and the tasks that were facing us, we were terrified. We made the decision to speak to our Financial Director in regards to purchasing the IRIS AE Suite™ to help us manage the extra workload that came with the new auto enrolment legislation.”

Initial reaction

Carole went on to say that “we planned for auto enrolment months in advance because when we heard about it back in 2012 we realised what a large undertaking it would be. Our first impression of auto enrolment was terror. It was absolutely terrifying to think about the workload that we were going to have to do. At one point, we even considered the notion of outsourcing because we didn’t think we would be able to deal with the amount of extra expense that auto enrolment would cost us.”

The initial fears for Carole and her team were down to the fact that they were unaware of the auto enrolment solutions offered by IRIS. This was until they attended the IRIS automatic enrolment training seminar.

When Taylor Bloxham introduced the IRIS AE Suite™ in November 2014, Carole underwent training with an IRIS consultant to help implement the IRIS AE Suite™ quickly and effectively. Carole said “we decided to put the software to test by duplicating our payroll so that we could play around with different settings and elements so that we knew just exactly how Earnie would react and function. It was very useful because it also helped us to learn how to manage the software.”

Functionality and Usability

“Using the IRIS AE Suite™ is very easy. We manage to use the entire thing and everything is very straightforward. If we do have any questions we simply give IRIS a quick call and are dealt with in a friendly, helpful manner. It is too scary now to think about not having the IRIS AE Suite™”

In terms of saving time, Carole said “for the initial setup of auto enrolment, we were under a very tight schedule. We were set to stage in 4 months.”

“The software is integrated with Earnie which means that the assessment is done very quickly. It took us no time at all to set up for auto enrolment, definitely not the 103 days that the CEBR quoted.”

"In terms of the monthly saving, we definitely save around two to three days per month running the payroll. Most of our employees have now been automatically enrolled into our pension scheme and now we wouldn’t even like to think about the problems it would cause us monthly if we had to do it manually.”

 “The best part about using the IRIS AE Suite™ now is that it is integrated with our Earnie Executive software. For example, this means that the ongoing assessment will notify us automatically if anyone’s eligibility changes and it just makes things so much quicker for us.”

Recommendations

Some of the best advice that can be given to people that are yet to reach their staging date can come from those that have already been there and staged themselves. Carole’s main piece of advice is: “Make sure you have all of the information that you need from your pension provider. This information is paramount to correctly running your auto enrolment and you literally can’t do without.”

In addition to this, Carole went on to explain that “choosing a pension provider was extremely easy and shouldn’t put anyone off building up a dialogue with their pension provider – that’s what they’re there for.”

Carole went on to say “the IRIS AE Suite™ helps ensure that you comply with the regulations. Not only does that make my job easier but it is also an important aspect for the business. Staying compliant doesn’t just mean avoiding fines and warnings, it also means that the business is more functional and doesn’t have any comeback at all from The Pensions Regulator.”

Finally, Carole commented on the support aspect of IRIS: “The support is excellent. Whenever I need support I can contact my account manager. I also really like the KnowledgeBase on the IRIS website which is really quick for me to just go on and find out the information that I need to if I don’t have the time to call support.”