Payroll software services for schools

At Access Education we offer a choice of a managed or in-house payroll service. Our managed (or outsourced) service means that we take on the responsibility of running and delivering your payroll. This is our most commonly selected option and we process more than 50,000 education payslips every month for schools and trusts across the UK.

For those who have a dedicated, certified payroll person or team in place across their school or trust, we have an in-house payroll option which allows you to manage your payroll centrally, allowing you more control and responsibility over your payroll and pensions.

There are pros and cons to both options. If you’re undecided and want to find out more about your options, take a look at our payroll guide for schools.

Your dedicated Access Education payroll executive will look after everything from sending BACS, producing electronic pay slips, meeting RTI obligations, managing your pension processing and much more. We have a 99.9% accuracy rating and a 100% pass mark from the Chartered Institute of Payroll Professionals’ Payroll Assurance Scheme, so your payroll needs couldn’t be in safer hands.

This is a summary of everything we manage on your behalf…

• Agree Annual Processing Timetable
• Balance Year End figures to HMRC / IRS / country specific payments made
• Calculate Alabaster
• Calculate occupational payments
• Calculate statutory payments
• Carry out standard exception checks
• Create & submit authorised BACs/SEPA for employees,
• HMRC / IRS / country specific files
• Distribute P60s / country specific documents
• Gross To Net Process
• HMRC / IRS / DWP / other country specific bodies
• Import all data changes
• Maintenance of other payroll background tables
• Maintenance of statutory payroll tables
• Monthly telephone Service Review with payroll exec
• Process in month HMRC / IRS /country specific files
• Process redundancy payments
• Process Year End and P60s / country specific documents
• Processing attachments and other documents
• Produce P45s / country specific documents
• Produce payroll check reports
• Produce report for standard 3rd party payments
• Produce standard monthly payroll reports
• Produce standard payslips
• Queries from agreed customer representative via email or telephone
• Reconcile statutory month end figures
• Scheduled employee payments & period HMRC / IRS / Country specific payment
• Tax Year End clear down and roll forward
• Terminate period and roll payroll forward

We have a range of implementation options depending on your needs. We require 2 parallel runs with your existing service provider to ensure your data is migrated successfully and there is no interruption to your service. It’s worth thinking about this when making your decision.

At Access we provide telephone support, account management and online support. You can pick up the phone and speak with your dedicated payroll executive or another member of our team when you need assistance. We also offer a monthly telephone service review with your payroll executive and any queries you have are responded to from an agreed customer representative via email or telephone.

At Access Education our payroll service costs are split into one off (implementation) fees and annual (subscription fees). Our one-off fees cover all your implementation and support needs plus two parallel pay runs which are required to ensure a smooth transition from your existing provider. The cost for this depends on your requirements but we would be happy to discuss this with you.

Our annual fees operate on the basis of a price per employee per month and will depend on the number of employees you have in your school or MAT.

We do have an integrated HR system called Access Education People. This can work alongside your payroll service or you can just take our payroll service on its own, it’s up to you. If you decide to take the latter, we provide a version of our HR solution for your staff to access their payslips. You can always upgrade your HR system at a later date if you choose to.

Our contracts are 36 months