Best Integrated HR and Payroll Software

Integrating HR and payroll into one software is a great way to improve efficiency and streamline you business’s operations.

In most cases, you’ll get a unified interface, where, for example, your HR/payroll team will be able to glean why pay changes have occurred, based on employees’ leave history. They’ll be able to securely carry out runs and HRMC tax submissions, while managing hiring and enabling employee self service, so personal details are kept up to date.

Based on our research, Advanced has one of the best payroll software solutions with integrated HR. Advanced comes with a high level of automation, and in-depth reporting tools. Plus, it’s a one-stop-shop for all people management software, from time and attendance to recruiting. It won’t suit every business however, which is why we’ve included four other picks in our list.

Top 5 Integrated HR and Payroll Software: Overview

Here’s a quick overview of the best integrated HR and payroll software providers:

1. Advanced: Best All-in-one People Management Platform

Key features:

• Automatic payroll calculations
• Employee self-service portal
• Live training for HR and payroll teams
• Employee trend reporting
• Time and attendance software integration

Advanced offers payroll software that seamlessly integrates with its suite of people management solutions. These include HR, time and attendance, and talent management software.

On the payroll front, your payroll team will enjoy a high level of automation, with the system calculating gross to net salaries, and making adjustments for holiday pay, back pay, and pension auto-enrolment. Employees can also be paid early through simple request via the employee portal. This a useful features if your employees have low wages, or are very young, and might have difficulty pacing out their expenses.

Advanced’s integrated HR platform comes with some excellent reporting tools, giving you insight into gender and diversity metrics, and absence trends, among other tings.

Employees also get access to a self-service portal, where they can requests various types of leave. This portal can also be used for payroll functions, such as viewing and downloading payslips.

Advanced’s shortcomings

Advanced does have a few shortcomings, however. It’s one of the few providers on our list that doesn’t offer an app version of its software. This means your employees won’t be able to log absences or manage their payslips on the go.

The platform also doesn’t have a function for paying international employees (one who work overseas). While this isn’t unusual for a payroll software, it does make Advanced a poor fit for businesses who’ve expanded, or are looking to expand overseas. If that’s you, you’re better off with IRIS Cascade or ADP.

Lastly, Advanced can’t be easily integrated with third-party software, since it doesn’t offer open API, or have any other ready-made integrations. For a payroll and HR system that does support integrations, we’d recommend ADP.

2. IRIS Cascade HRi: Best for Businesses with Overseas Employees

Key features:

• International payroll
• Mobile app
• Automatic payroll calculations
• Integrations with third-party software
• Customisable interface

IRIS Cascade HRi is an integrated HR and Payroll system designed by IRIS. Like Advanced’s software, it features high levels of payroll automation, and can be integrated into IRIS’s wider suite of people management software, which includes time and attendance, recruitment, and expenses management software.

If your business has employees all over the global, having an integrated suite of people management software will make it much easier to manage teams.

This brings us to our second point. Where IRIS Cascade’s payroll software differs from Advanced’s system is that it can support international payees, although this is a paid add-on. Since IRIS doesn’t publish its pricing online and will tailor quotes to individual businesses, we can’t tell you how much exactly this costs.

IRIS Cascade also has a mobile app, allowing employees to self-serve from anywhere, another feature not offered by Advanced. This affords more flexibility to employees, allowing them to view payslips, or log absences from wherever they are.

Another unique feature is that IRIS Cascade’s HR interface can be customised to match your business’s branding. This is a useful feature for companies looking to maintain a cohesive brand identity, and will ensure your employees feel right at home.

IRIS Cascade HRi’s shortcomings

IRIS Cascade HRi’s main shortcoming is that it doesn’t support customised reports. While the system does have a wide breadth of prebuilt payroll and HR reports on metrics such as employee payroll history or diversity and inclusion, you won’t be able to build your own based on existing data. For data hungry businesses, Advanced is a better option, since it has a higher level of report customisation.

And, while IRIS Cascade does allow companies to customise their interface, the results can look a little dated. This is a minor flaw, which might not bother some businesses, but it’s something to note.

Lastly, a lot of IRIS Cascade’s more useful features come as paid add-ons. Some of these are vital functions, such as pension auto-enrolment, while others, such as international payroll or a mobile app aren’t essential, but highly sought after. If you want a system with functions like these included at no extra cost, we’d recommend ADP.

3. Moorepay: Best for Businesses with Commission-based Employees

Features:

• Excellent payroll reporting, including changes reports
• Mobile app
• Customisable automations
• Predictive HR analytics

With over half a century’s worth of experience, Moorepay is a safe payroll solution for small businesses as well as large ones. Its interface is easy to use, nice to look at, and highly scalable, too, with solutions for businesses of all sizes.

Moorepay’s integrated payroll and HR software comes with a plethora of intelligent features, including predictive analytics that help you plan for employee retention and budget salaries. As well as having a host of automated payroll calculations, Moorepay’s system also lets you set your own, as well as create customised reports. These are useful features for businesses with commission-based employees, who have variable salaries each month.

Moorepay also offers benefits management software, with when integrated with HR software, can be managed from the same interface, saving you time and reducing complexity. It’s automated employee surveys are also great for measuring employee moral, and can help you predict and plan for turnover.

These surveys can also help you gain insights into employee feelings on salaries and commission amounts, allowing you to adjust before you get hit with resignations.

If you’d like to find out more about this provider, check out our Moorepay payroll review.

Moorepay’s shortcomings

One of Moorepay’s main flaws is that, unlike its rivals Advanced and IRIS Cascade, it doesn’t offer live training for its payroll and HR software. It does provide video tutorials and a host of written guides, but live training can significantly speed up the onboarding process, and allow your payroll and HR teams to hit the ground running.

Moorepay also doesn’t do international payroll, so you’ll have to look to IRIS Cascade or ADP if you employ personnel outside of the UK.

Lastly, while Moorepay has an excellent native benefits software, its system can’t integrate with third-party benefits software. So, if you already use a system and want to keep using it, we’d suggest IRIS Cascade or ADP. Both systems integrate with a host of third-party people management and accounting software.

4. ADP iHCM: Best for Paying Freelancers

Features:

• Automated payroll calculations
• International payroll
• Mobile app
• Customised reporting
• AI-powered tools

ADP is an award-winning people management software provider, and was named Global Payroll Supplier of the year by the Global Payroll Association in 2023.

The system supports international payroll across 140 countries, and allows for endless integrations thanks to its API developer tools.

This makes it particularly well-suited to companies hiring large numbers of freelancers. They’ll be able to pay them regardless of where the freelancers are located, and they’ll be able to integrate freelancer finding platforms with their HR and payroll, and keep an eye on expenses.

ADP’s payroll and HR platform also comes with advanced tools, such as as AI. The AI assistant can automate workflows based on previous recurring actions, and issue notifications to HR and payroll teams when tasks have been left hanging.

Plus, handy people management functions such as a mobile app, expenses management, and performance management, are included in the platform, instead of being available as add-ons. The makes ADP’s basic payroll and HR system more comprehensive than Advanced or IRIS Cascade.

ADP’s shortcomings

ADP isn’t a perfect system. Although it has quite advanced reporting tools, it doesn’t support payroll changes reports, which allow payroll teams to assess changes in expenses. You’ll have to look to Advanced or Moorepay for that.

Additionally, ADP isn’t a viable option for very small businesses, since it has a 50 employee minimum for its integrated payroll and HR software. Moorepay doesn’t have this minimum requirement, as is a great option for small businesses.

5. Roubler: Best for Shift-Based Businesses

Features:

• Mobile app with employee clock-in feature
• Customised pay conditions
• AI-powered shift scheduling
• Payroll syncs with time and attendance

Roubler is designed specifically with shift-based businesses in mind. It’s payroll and HR software includes several time and attendance management features, enabling easy scheduling and reporting on work hours.

Its standout features include AI-powered rota scheduling, which builds work schedules based on employee availability and hours worked, and its real-time rota reports, whicg provide live data on your company’s total hours, wage costs, and sales – meaning you can optimise your workforce more efficiently.

Roubler also has an app that employees can use to clock in and out of work. The system logs their worked hours, and automatically syncs this data with payroll, to ensure accurate salaries. And, you can set customised pay conditions in the payroll system, and ask it to take into account split shifts, lunch breaks, and overtime, when creating payslips.

Roubler’s shortcomings

Since Roubler’s payroll and HR system is heavily focused on shift management, you won’t get access to as in-depth payroll reporting as you would with Advanced or Moorepay. There’s no payroll change reporting for example.

On the HR front, reporting is also heavily focused on shifts, to ensure accurate pay is allocated. While you’ll be able to see leaving trends, you won’t be able to use this software to gain insights into the business’s diversity or gender pay gaps.

Lastly, so Roubler’s software is so focused on shit-based work, it’s not the best option for businesses that employee regular 9-5 workers. It’s not that you can’t use Roubler if that’s the case, but you’ll be paying for a lot of features you won’t use. If your employees have a more regular schedule, we’d recommend Moorepay.

Buying Guide: How to Choose an Integrated HR and Payroll Platform

There are a lot of options out there when it comes to payroll and HR software, so here’s what you should consider when choosing a system:

• What’s the onboarding process? You’ll most likely be switching from one system to another (or from two if your current payroll and HR software is separate), so it’s important to choose a provider that can guide you through the switch.
• What type of payroll do you run? Think about how and when you pay your employees. Do they have irregular work patterns? Or they paid monthly or weekly? Do benefits or commission pay need to be factored into their pay? Make sure your chosen software can carry out and automate your payroll runs.
• What level of HR oversight do you want? Different HR systems give you varying levels or oversight over your employees. Some just do the basics just a logging absences, new hires, and leavers, while others can be used to track performance, employee satisfaction, and diversity and equity.
• How customisable is the system? It could be that a system doesn’t have all the functions you need pre-made, but that you can customise it to fit your needs. Generally, the more customisable a system is, the better it will be for running payroll and HR.
• How scalable is the system? Chances are your company will see some changes in employee numbers, whether that’s an increase or decrease. It’s important to choose a system that can adapt to your changing numbers. After all, switching systems is a lot of work, and is something you want to avoid, especially if you’re happy with your current software.
• Does the provider abide by compliance and security standards? The last thing you want is getting fined by HMRC for inaccurate reporting or labour law breaches, or having your private data leaked. To avoid this, choose a software that stays up to date with the latest legislation, and has a high standard of data protection.

Our Methodology: How Did We Decide on the Best Payroll Software?

We carried out in-depth research into payroll and HR software providers, using an in-house comparison framework to assess each platform. For each provider we’ve asked these questions:

• How much control does it give you over your payroll process?
• What level of oversight do you gain with its HR features?
• Does the provider offer other types of people management software, and can it integrate with third-party software?
• How secure is it? What security measures does it take to protect your data?
• How much help and expertise does it offer when it comes to taxes and compliance?
• How scalable is the product? Can it grow alongside your company?
• How helpful is its customer support offering?

We’ve factored all these questions into our rating system and come out with a ranking of the best payroll software platforms.

Next steps

Integrated HR and payroll software can simplify your business processes, by consolidating people management tasks into one platform. It’s an essential tool for staying on top of the long list of demands facing your payroll and HR department. 

And if you’ve read this far, you might also be ready to look at pricing plans from different providers. To get an accurate quote, you can enquire directly with a provider, or you can fill out our free quote-finding form. 

It takes just under a minute to complete, and you’ll receive quotes from top HR and payroll software suppliers.