What’s New in the IRIS Spring 2019 Release?

Our work at IRIS is all about simplifying the lives of accountants by making them more efficient and productive and that’s what our new Spring release delivers.

Naturally, MTD for VAT compliance compatibility enhancements are integral to the latest version of the suite, but we have a multitude of new features and upgrades to introduce you to across our products, which have been added in response to customer feedback.

Making Tax Digital

To ensure MTD compliance, we’ve enhanced IRIS VAT Filer to allow the import of data directly from digital record keeping products, including Excel, KashFlow and Xero, to enable you to manage all filings in one controlled place linking into workflows and job stages for easy management and reporting.

You can now import all payment and liability information available for the selected client across any selected time period, so you have a clear view of all payments and liabilities according to their digital tax account with HMRC.

IRIS Personal Tax now has an updated ‘Edit Tax Return Dates’ screen. If your client is registered for MTD and making MTD submissions this will now update dynamically and display dates for End of Year submissions under MTD. Users also get a new report, making it easy to view all obligations and their status across all clients on the database.

What customers called for

We are always listening to customers to find out what changes you want.

You told us that you really wanted to see the IRIS Time & Fees export feature improved to make it compatible for importing data into other bookkeeping platforms such as KashFlow, Xero, and Sage. So, that’s what we did. The result is a simpler, smoother VAT return process, cutting time and hassle.

We can also reveal that IRIS Time & Fees now brings a new WIP Control Panel screen that will help you make billing decisions more efficiently than ever. It provides an easier way to review work in progress – a snapshot essentially - showing the clients who need focusing on the most.

Furthermore, there’s a new Actual vs. Budget comparison screen to IRIS Fees, meaning fewer steps and clicks, enabling you to easily track fees against budgets across multiple clients, providing a more controllable way to run reports.

Data protection compliance

The IRIS AutoMail engagement letters have been updated to reference GDPR, with a free form section to add detail on uses of personal data if desired. We have also bolstered security and encryption to log any files that may contain personal data and restricted access to clients, based on which branch the staff members and client are associated with.

More highlights

Here are some other highlights of the enhancements we’ve made for this release:

IRIS OpenSpace: Document messaging: Attach a short secure message to files you’re sharing with clients to provide further details and clarification on the contents.

Staff notifications: To help ensure you’re never missing important documents, notifications will be delivered to client managers/partners and any other staff you wish to have access when a client is brought over to OpenSpace from the IRIS suite.

IRIS Client Browser search: Performance has been enhanced to allow exact matching rather than dynamic search, as well as the ability to select to search just on client name or ID.

Accountant Go portal: You can now access all of your client messaging in Accountant Go directly in IRIS Suite, via the OpenPortal.

Getting the most from your new release

We’ve covered just some highlights of the new release’s enhancements, with many more waiting for you to discover. Click here for full list of updates. Overall, the release helps us to provide best-in-class software solutions that help manage and grow practices, improving productivity and enhancing workflows along the way.

Want to learn more? Please email or call our team on 0344 815 5550 to get in depth understanding of how the new features can benefit your practice.