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OpenPayroll - David versus Goliath

26th Sep 2013
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There is a lot happening at Clear Books at the moment. We have re-registered as plc, we're inviting each of our 5,000 customers to own a share of the company, and we’re soon to launch Clear Books Pro to provide accountants with the services to run their practice and collaborate with their clients in the cloud. Oh and you may have seen our funky infographic in your Aweb emails yesterday.

It’s been a busy time and it’s largely why I have been quiet on the blog recently, but something appeared in my google alerts this morning which has David versus Goliath written all over it.

IRIS has launched IRIS OpenPayroll as their new cloud payroll software. I love the name. It's a great name. In fact, it's such a great name that we came up with it. Our first paying customer for OpenPayroll was back in July 2011.

IRIS knows our product exists, not least because a Google Search returns our product, brand name and website.

Remember folks, the original cloud payroll software is called OpenPayroll from those nice people at Clear Books.

Any alternative name suggestions for IRIS OpenPayroll are welcome...

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Replies (10)

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Man of Kent
By Kent accountant
26th Sep 2013 10:23

Pricing

Hi Tim

I took a look at the website and I'm struggling to see why this offering would appeal to many.

1. For clients - £2.50 per employee is pretty close to what some payroll bureaus will do the payroll for - RTI reporting included.

2. For accountants - I've just renewed my Moneysoft payroll subscription - £112 plus vat for unlimited companies with up to 100 employees.

Am I missing something?

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Replying to Smalltalk:
Tim Fouracre
By timfouracre
26th Sep 2013 11:59

It's in the cloud!

Kent accountant wrote:

Hi Tim

I took a look at the website and I'm struggling to see why this offering would appeal to many.

1. For clients - £2.50 per employee is pretty close to what some payroll bureaus will do the payroll for - RTI reporting included.

2. For accountants - I've just renewed my Moneysoft payroll subscription - £112 plus vat for unlimited companies with up to 100 employees.

Am I missing something?

Thanks for the questions Kent. A big advantage of OpenPayroll is that it is completely integrated with our accounting and HR packages. Create an employee in one and it appears in the other two automatically.

Then there is the cloud angle. Employees can log in and view their payslips and their full pay history at any time. Payslips are automatically emailed to employees as PDF attachments. 

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By ShirleyM
26th Sep 2013 10:41

Wow ... that's expensive!

£60 per year (+ VAT) to do your own payroll for 1 employee!

We don't provide payroll services, but we have some clients doing their own on Payroo ... which is an online payroll service ... and it's free!

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Replying to Chris.Mann:
Tim Fouracre
By timfouracre
26th Sep 2013 13:03

Pricing

ShirleyM wrote:

£60 per year (+ VAT) to do your own payroll for 1 employee!

We don't provide payroll services, but we have some clients doing their own on Payroo ... which is an online payroll service ... and it's free!

ShirleyM - We can't do free as we wouldn't have a business! Not sure what the Payroo business model is - I assume they have a premium version or adverts. Always interested to hear feedback on pricing - what do you think one employee should pay?

Thanks

Tim

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By ShirleyM
26th Sep 2013 14:19

I can't speak from experience

This article explain some free payroll software.

https://www.accountingweb.co.uk/article/free-rti-software-basics/532746

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Man of Kent
By Kent accountant
26th Sep 2013 15:28

Integration

Ok, I can see the integration being an advantage for bigger businesses in terms of time saving, but then there will come a point when its probably just easier to pay a bureau or do it in house with cheaper software.

After all with cloud accounting software having bank feeds, reconciling the bank takes moments and all you need to add would be a month end journal to deal with PAYE/NI. Copy the journal format for subsequent months.

I don't see staff being able to view their timesheets online being an advantage, I'm sure they'd rather open it on their smartphone.

I can see the appeal but I don't think the strategy is right to make it popular and a competitor to something like Moneysoft.

If it was provided free to Clearbooks subscribers, that, in my opinion, would make it a better proposition and perhaps also attract more Clearbooks customers.

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avatar
By User deleted
27th Sep 2013 18:21

Hmm....

... thing is IRIS have been rolling out an "Open" suite for years, may be they should call theirs ClearPayroll!

As to prices!

http://www.iris.co.uk/cloud-solutions/iris-openpayroll/

 

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Tim Fouracre
By timfouracre
28th Sep 2013 16:12

openpayroll

Old Greying Accountant wrote:

... thing is IRIS have been rolling out an "Open" suite for years, may be they should call theirs ClearPayroll!

As to prices!

http://www.iris.co.uk/cloud-solutions/iris-openpayroll/

That may well be true although it doesn't detract from the fact we have been trading under the OpenPayroll brand name for two years and that it is going to be very confusing now with two directly competing cloud payroll systems both called OpenPayroll. At least with them only launching this week I can say our system has processed tens of thousands more payslips than theirs over the past two years ;-)

 

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Glenn Martin
By Glenn Martin
27th Sep 2013 22:05

Way out on pricing
Payroll bureaus smash it on the pricing I am doing some work for a company with 1200 staff and the bureau charge £1.65 per payslip for 4 weekly pay and that includes the processing, RTI, BACS payment the works as Kent says.

The extras you offer are just frills most payroll packages link with accounts packages and I dont understand your comment that by entering the payroll details it updates the accounts package. Why would you need employee personal details within accounts package. I don't see that a member of staff having access to his payroll as a big plus either.

Cloud software should bring cost of software down but yours will be the most expensive on the block.

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Replying to WhichTyler:
Tim Fouracre
By timfouracre
28th Sep 2013 15:57

Bureau payroll

Glennzy wrote:
Payroll bureaus smash it on the pricing I am doing some work for a company with 1200 staff and the bureau charge £1.65 per payslip for 4 weekly pay and that includes the processing, RTI, BACS payment the works as Kent says. The extras you offer are just frills most payroll packages link with accounts packages and I dont understand your comment that by entering the payroll details it updates the accounts package. Why would you need employee personal details within accounts package. I don't see that a member of staff having access to his payroll as a big plus either. Cloud software should bring cost of software down but yours will be the most expensive on the block.

Take a look at the bureau payroll plan which costs £250 for 250 organisations for up to 250 employees each http://www.openpayrollhq.com/bureau-pricing/

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