IRIS Payroll Basics Review: Free payroll to 10 employees

IRIS Payroll Basics is a free, bare-bones payroll software solution ideal for UK small businesses and startups with fewer than 10 employees. If you’re tired of “free” providers that add hidden fees, this review explains whether IRIS Basics is truly free, what it can do, and whether it’s the right fit for your team.

If you’re not sure about IRIS Payroll Basics or you’re torn between it and another similar provider, below you’ll find everything you need to know to make a final decision.

What Is IRIS Payroll Basics?

As its name suggests, IRIS Payroll Basics is a slim payroll software solution focused on providing the most basic payroll processing capabilities. It’s ideal for startups and small businesses looking to streamline payroll and save time without incurring any extra expenses.

How Much Does IRIS Payroll Basics Cost?

IRIS Payroll Basics is 100% free, although it’s only for businesses with fewer than 10 employees.

In fact, that is the upper cap. Beyond that, you’ll need to upgrade to a paid IRIS product (e.g., IRIS Payroll Business) to increase headcount and unlock richer reporting and support.

What Are IRIS Payroll Basics’ Key Features?

IRIS Payroll Basics focuses on essential features: automatic PAYE and NI calculations (including statutory payments), pension auto-enrolment reporting, payslip and report generation, and direct RTI submissions to HMRC.

Let’s take a look at the key features you can expect from the platform in greater detail. Although pretty basic, these features pull their weight, saving time and reducing errors.

• Automatic compliance calculations: IRIS Payroll Basics automatically calculates tax and insurance withholdings like PAYE and NI contributions. It creates pension reports for each employee to ensure compliance with the automatic enrolment requirement for eligible employees.
• Report generation and printing: IRIS Payroll Basics can automatically generate nicely formatted employee reports at any time you need them. For the first 30 days after you download, it will even print these reports and any needed payslips for free.
• Free software updates: Whenever necessary updates become available, IRIS allows you to download and install them for free—whether they’re operations-related or compliance-related.
• HMRC-recognised and RTI-compliant: Not only is IRIS Payroll Basics compliant with HMRC, but it integrates directly with the HMRC government website via RTI (Real-Time Information) technology. This means you can submit tax forms and other documents to HMRC online, in real-time, with no communication issues.

Although these features are undoubtedly helpful, they’re also just as undoubtedly expected from any payroll software provider in the modern age. As free software, IRIS Payroll Basics lacks many of the more innovative features—like customisable interfaces and HR software integrations—offered by paid competitors like MHR, ADP, and Frontier.

What Security Features Does IRIS Payroll Basics Offer?

IRIS Payroll Basics is fully GDPR-compliant and performs automatic data backups. Its security features entail:

• Data minimisation: IRIS Payroll Basics collects and stores only the data necessary for payroll processing.
• Consent and transparency: The software ensures that clear consent is obtained before data is processed and that users are aware of how their data will be used.
• Secure data processing: Although encryption isn’t a must under GDPR, IRIS Payroll Basics takes all necessary security measures to protect user data from unauthorised access.
• Breach notification: If a breach happens, the software will automatically notify users, managers, and potentially even authorities, immediately. It also backs up any new data every time it’s used, which means breaches won’t result in any significant operational downtime.

Of course, GDPR compliance is a commendable minimum standard for a payroll software solution. But if your employees’ personal data is especially sensitive and preventing a data leak is a top priority for you, we highly recommend you look through our other top payroll software solutions. 

ADP, for example, is compliant with GDPR and ISO 9001 and 27001 certifications, SOC 1 and 2 reports, PCI DSS, and Sarbanes-Oxley regulations – and if you’d like to find out more, check out our ADP review.

If you need stronger controls, consider upgrading within IRIS’ paid range or a provider with published certifications.

What Support Resources Are There With IRIS Payroll Basics?  

IRIS maintains a large knowledge base, guides, webinars, case studies, and podcasts. Most resources cover IRIS products broadly. Payroll Basics-specific articles exist, but are fewer, so for edge cases, you may need to use live chat or call support.

For specific problem-solving help, its ‘knowledge base’ contains hundreds of detailed instructional guides for common roadblocks. For more general information, you can find blog posts, case studies, business guides, events webinars, and even four separate IRIS podcast channels with advice and insight from industry experts.

All that said, we couldn’t find many other support resources dedicated to the Payroll Basics software. This means that you’ll need to directly contact customer support for help with any specific issues you encounter.

How Scalable Is IRIS Payroll Basics?

As may seem obvious, IRIS Payroll Basics isn’t particularly scalable. After all, it’s a free payroll software solution for businesses with fewer than 10 employees.

That said, it is scalable in two ways:

1. If you’re just getting a startup off the ground, you might be paying just a single employee. In that scenario, Payroll Basics can assist you as you scale up from one employee to nine.
2. IRIS enables the seamless transition of all your employee data and payment information from IRIS Payroll Basics up to the first tier of paid software—IRIS Payroll Business. This plan supports payroll for up to 100 employees, upgraded online and phone support, and much more in-depth reporting capabilities.

IRIS Payroll Basics (Free) vs IRIS Payroll Business (Paid)

Here’s a quick comparison of IRIS Payroll’s free Basics package and its cheapest paid option, Payroll Business.

How do I upgrade from IRIS Payroll Basics?

You can move to a paid IRIS plan (e.g., IRIS Payroll Business) without starting from scratch. Do this between pay cycles for a smooth switchover.

1. Confirm the need: Approaching the 10-employee cap or need deeper reporting/support.
2. Prepare data: Back up and tidy employee records, pay elements, and pension settings in Basics.
3. Start upgrade: Begin the upgrade in your IRIS account or contact IRIS; your data is carried across.
4. Validate & switch: Check calendars/deductions, run one parallel pay run, then switch fully to the paid product.

What Are The Customer Support Options With IRIS Payroll Basics?

For a slimmed-down, free payroll software, IRIS offers a surprisingly dense customer support network.

The company provides a live chat option for all customers, regardless of the software they use. It also delineates separate, dedicated phone support numbers for each of the different software solutions—including IRIS Payroll Basics.

The only concern we found is that IRIS doesn’t provide email support channels for all of its software products—and Payroll Basics is one of them.

Still, this is a step up from a payroll software provider like MHR, which strangely offers no email help channels at all.

Free Alternatives to IRIS Payroll Basics

There are three free alternatives to IRIS Payroll Basics that we’d suggest looking at if you are a small business. All the options are HMRC-approved and best suited to businesses with up to around 10 employees.

Let’s compare them below, so you know exactly where it stands in the pecking order.

When to choose IRIS Payroll Basics?

• Pick IRIS if you want the broadest “free” coverage for micro businesses: auto-enrolment, payslips, and automatic RTI, plus a clean upgrade path to paid IRIS software as you grow.
• Pick Primo if pension auto-enrolment with direct pension-provider communication and emailing payslips on the free tier are your priorities (accept the leavers-counting limit and lighter support).
• Pick EnrolPay if you prefer a very simple, low-touch tool and don’t mind manual RTI on the free plan or the 9-employee cap. Upgrades unlock automatic RTI, too.
• Pick HMRC Basic PAYE Tools if you want a government-made tool and need NI lookups/EPS/EYU direct to HMRC. You’ll have to accept no payslips or auto-enrolment, no upgrade path, and a ≤10 employee cap, however.

How We Reviewed IRIS Payroll Basics