Microlise Case Study

Gill Kirk, Payroll Manager of Microlise has been working in the payroll department of Microlise for 16 years with a wealth of experience from previous employment. Gill runs the payroll, assessing 270 employees on a monthly basis and explained that they used a previous payroll provider until adopting Earnie IQ in 2005.

Gill explained that the main challenges facing her and her payroll were that the previous provider they were using before Earnie IQ was very non-technical and that the capability of it was “nothing like Earnie IQ”.

Following further advancements within the business, they initially moved away from Earnie IQ in 2013 to try and centralise both their payroll and HR systems into the same provider.

This caused many problems for Gill as she explains: “HR was moved over first and then the payroll but as we moved further down the line we realised that the payroll wasn’t going to work on the system we were using. It was then when I noticed that the license period was coming to an end that I immediately requested that we move back to Earnie IQ”.

Gill then explained that the main reason behind deciding to switch back to Earnie IQ was “it is just so easy to use. The quick report writer is easy and it is great to use the payments and deductions calculator. Even if at first you can’t find something you can navigate round and find it. The transparency of the Earnie IQ software is great and I was really disappointed when we moved away from it two years ago.”

“When we moved over to the alternative competitor software, it took me hours upon hours to key in the data manually because you couldn’t import data directly into the software. It really was a nightmare software”.

Implementation

As with all new software and processes, there must be an implementation to ensure that the entire thing is calibrated properly. Gill explained that “The consultant that did our implementation for us was great. I initially booked two days off to ensure that I could help out but I wasn’t really needed at all! The consultant just got on with it and set up the whole thing brilliantly”.

Usability

Because Gill had already used the software previously, she found it extremely easy to get back into using it once it was implemented again. She explained that “We didn’t need to use all of the training days that were available because all of my existing knowledge came back to me very quickly because the software is just so easy to use.”

Gill explained that “I definitely think that using Earnie IQ saves me a lot of time. So much so that it means that I can focus my time on other things and be more accurate in other areas of my job.”

IRIS OpenPayslips

We found that the only real benefit of the historic, alternative software provider was the electronic payslip service that they provided for us. The negative however was that I had to manually manage and key in the passwords for each employee. However, when moving back to Earnie IQ and immediately adopting IRIS OpenPayslips (electronic payslips and P60 service), the ownership of passwords and account details was passed straight on to the employees themselves which saved me so much time”.

Gill found that the entire process itself was very good and easy to manage. She explained that “it is a much quicker process and saves us in the paper, time and resources that we would usually use to print, sort and send paper payslips”.

In terms of further benefits on the behalf of the employee, Gill explained that “it is good that they will be able to view historical payslips that they can print off should they need them for any reason.”

Dealing with IRIS

“Dealing with my account manager is really good. They follow things up really quickly and make sure that everything is ok for us.”

“When it came to using Support, the best thing about it was that we have never had to use it! Setting up IRIS OpenPayslips presented a small change that needed to be made to our firewall however this was resolved internally by our IT department and since then we have not had any problems at all.”

Would you recommend Earnie IQ?

“I can’t recommend Earnie IQ enough, it is a really good piece of software that is very easy to use and it saves me so much time. This time I can use to focus on other aspects of my job.”