ACCESS UK LTD

Access PayCircle

Paycircle offers flexible payroll solutions designed to meet the diverse needs of UK businesses. Whether you want to run your payroll in house, an outsourcing service for your organisation's payroll, or Payroll software for your own Bureau, Paycircle offers compressive functionality with a modern, easy to navigate UI.

Features

• UK payroll processing managed entirely in‑house
• Automated HMRC RTI submissions and statutory updates
• Built‑in payroll validation and correction tools
• Cloud‑based SaaS payroll platform
• Single sign‑on via Access Evo platform
• Integrated payroll reporting and analytics

Benefits

• Greater control over payroll accuracy and compliance
• Reduced payroll risk through validation and checks
• Lower reliance on external payroll providers
• Faster payroll processing with fewer manual tasks
• Improved user experience through unified Access platform
• Clear payroll insight for informed decision‑making

• Education pricing available
• Free trial available

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at buyer.enablement@theaccessgroup.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 15

Service ID

120491527044673

Contact

Stacey Graham
01206322575
buyer.enablement@theaccessgroup.com

About your service

• Service categories:

  Applications

  Enterprise resource management

  • Payroll management
• Multi cloud support: No

Service scope

• Software add-on or extension: Yes, but can also be used as a standalone service
• What software services is the service an extension to: Access Evo and PeopleXD
• Cloud deployment model: Community cloud
• Service constraints: None. For information, Routine Maintenance is undertaken on 4th Tuesday of each month at 3.00 AM UK
• System requirements:
  • Edge, Firefox, Chrome or Safari (latest version)
  • Mobile iPhone, Android
  • Open ID Connect for Single Sign on

User support

• Email or online ticketing support: Yes
• Support response times: Access has developed a range of support plans. Our online Knowledge base and Community service plans are available to all our clients. We have made significant investment in our client support tools. The Success portal provides around the clock access to log incidents, browse articles and videos to find solutions. Our Support teams are available M-F 9-5 ( or 8-6 on Standard/Premium) On these plans P1 cases are responded to in 1 hour. Please refer to Access for further details.
• User can manage status and priority of support tickets: Yes
• Online ticketing support accessibility: WCAG 2.2 AA
• Phone support: Yes
• Phone support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support: Yes
• Web chat support availability: 9 to 5 (UK time), Monday to Friday
• Web chat support accessibility standard: WCAG 2.2 AA
• Web chat accessibility testing: N/A
• Onsite support: Yes, at extra cost
• Support levels: Our policy of continual product development keeps your software up to date with important technological advances and fully compliant with any changes in legislation. Upgrades arising from this development programme are supplied to you within the terms of the Annual License agreement. As you continue to use the solution, you will be supported by a network of people including your dedicated Account Manager. For day-to-day queries and technical issues our specialist HR and payroll help desks are there to deal with your support calls. Our support team are multi-tiered; 1st Line, 2nd Line and Technical In addition, you will also have access to a range of user events and forums and well as receiving our quarterly newsletter and meeting with your Account Manager. The key features of these services are: Access to the support desk is available Monday to Friday 8.00am to 6.00pm excluding bank holidays and Christmas closure. Additional out of hours support can be agreed if required. Additional Support services can be provided as necessary. All outstanding calls can be tracked on-line. On-line fault diagnosis through secure connections. Remote access Telephone Support through a dedicated local rate charged support line.
• Support available to third parties: No
• AI chatbot: Yes

Onboarding and offboarding

• Getting started: We tend to breakdown the training needs for a new client into three groups; The core project team, including the ongoing admin users of the system and core finance and HR users. The ‘Superuser’ group, made up of the chosen ‘champions’ of the new system in each of the business areas. The wider end-user community who will generally be ‘occasional’ users of specific functions depending on their job role. We would provide full classroom style training to the first two groups during the project to ensure the right level of familiarity and knowledge of the system. For the third group, more options are available, however, our preference and general practice is to follow the train-the-trainer approach but we would be happy to discuss other options which would be available. We provide clients with a wide selection of Training Guides (recorded videos are also available) to cover all areas of the solution (including; Core User guides for Navigation, managing hierarchy, posts, working patterns and employee rules, absence management, Training Administration as well as System Configuration Guides for more advanced users). Training Agenda and exercises templates are also provided.
• Service documentation: Yes
• Documentation formats: PDF
• End-of-contract data extraction: Clients can either use the reporting and admin tools available or where required take advantage of our technical consulting services to assist with this.
• End-of-contract process: Clients can either use the reporting and admin tools available or where required take advantage of our technical consulting services to assist with this.
• Documentation accessibility standard: None or don’t know
• How the documentation is accessible: Access Group's onboarding and offboarding documentation is accessible through the Customer Success Portal (https://access-support.force.com/Support/s/), which provides 24/7 online access to comprehensive resources including a knowledge base with FAQs, product guides, e-learning content, on-demand webinar recordings, feature release updates, and training materials that can answer most day-to-day user questions. All users can register for portal access regardless of their Success Plan level (Essential, Standard, or Premier), with additional support available through online case submission for all customers, telephone support for Standard and Premier customers, and dedicated resources like Customer Success Managers and Lead Technical Support Engineers for Premier customers, ensuring documentation and guidance is readily available throughout the entire customer lifecycle from initial onboarding through ongoing system use and any eventual offboarding scenarios.

Using the service

• Web browser interface: Yes
• Supported browsers:
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
• Application to install: Yes
• Compatible operating systems:
  • Android
  • IOS
  • MacOS
  • Windows
• Designed for use on mobile devices: Yes
• Differences between the mobile and desktop service: Our mobile applications provides a optimized user interface on smart-phone sized devices. This provides a simplified interface that surfaces the key tasks to be completed by employees and Leaders.
• Service interface: No
• User support accessibility: None or don’t know
• API: Yes
• What users can and can't do using the API: The API available is an employee detail based REST web service that enables third-party products to get employee data from Access PeopleHR The third-party products are able to request a date range of employee changes through web service. Once Access PeopleHR has received this request, it sends out a set of specified information to the 3rd party product. The data exposed is a set of completely configurable fields, which can be defined using the tool.
• API documentation: Yes
• API documentation formats:
  • HTML
  • PDF
• API sandbox or test environment: Yes
• Customisation available: Yes
• Description of customisation: Administration users can control key system parameters, including, landing page content and design, User profiles and workflow attributes.

Scaling

• Independence of resources: As the tenant population grows the resources that power the applications will also grow elastically to support the demand. This covers CPU, memory and storage as well as load balancer technologies that allow multiple server farms to exist providing the best in performance as well as resilience. This growth in the underlying environment occurs without interruption to the applications so users will be provided with a consistently fast application experience. Access is able to offer a range of application hosting options. including partially private, own instance options.

Analytics

• Service usage metrics: No

Resellers

• Supplier type: Not a reseller

Staff security

• Staff security clearance: Conforms to BS7858:2019
• Government security clearance: Baseline Personnel Security Standard (BPSS)

Asset protection

• Knowledge of data storage and processing locations: Yes
• Data storage and processing locations: United Kingdom
• User control over data storage and processing locations: No
• Datacentre security standards: Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 4.0)
• Penetration testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Penetration testing approach: ‘IT Health Check’ performed by a CREST-approved service provider
• Protecting data at rest:
  • Physical access control, complying with another standard
  • Encryption of all physical media
• Data sanitisation process: Yes
• Equipment disposal approach: Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001
• Data sanitisation type: Explicit overwriting of storage before reallocation / Secure Erase

Data importing and exporting

• Data export approach: Users can take advantage of the reporting tools available in the application to assist with exporting data.
• Data export formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data export formats: XML
• Data import formats:
  • CSV
  • Other
• Other data import formats: Xlsx

Data-in-transit protection

• Data protection between buyer and supplier networks: Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
• Data protection within supplier network:
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway

Availability and resilience

• Guaranteed availability: We will use commercially reasonable efforts to make the SaaS available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, except for unavailability during emergency or routine maintenance. Our monthly availability has not dropped below 99.8% in any 4 week period in the last 12 months.
• Approach to resilience: The Access Hosting solution has been designed to enterprise level with the highest possible specification for resilience and replication. Split across 2 of the UK’s premium data centres, the solution delivers replication and recovery options that are unrivalled in the mid-market arena. The solution operates in a near continuous state across both datacentres minimising data loss in the event of a total data centre blackout. This is achieved using Zerto Virtual Replication and VMWare vSphere being delivered as a service to the Access user. The solution has been designed so that there is no hardware single point of failure. Dual Firewalls are used to connect to dual switches, SANs and Physical Hosts. Internet connectivity is protected using the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) ensuring connectivity in the event an outage of an upstream Internet Service Provider occurs. The Physical hosts run VMWare ESX and operate within a VMWare vSphere cluster. One cluster node is located in Telehouse with the second in Equinix. The use of these technologies ensures that storage and virtual machines are resident in both datacentres giving maximum flexibility in the case of a disaster.
• Outage reporting: Users can subscribe to email alerts giving updates on scheduled maintenance and outages. An online portal is also available to clients.

Identity and authentication

• User authentication needed: Yes
• User authentication:
  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
• Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels: We operate role profile based Access Control - based on least privilege access. This applies to all our services.
• Access restriction testing frequency: At least every 6 months
• Management access authentication:
  • Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA)
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Dedicated link (for example VPN)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

• Access to user activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long user audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• Access to supplier activity audit information: Users have access to real-time audit information
• How long supplier audit data is stored for: At least 12 months
• How long system logs are stored for: At least 12 months

Security governance

• Named board-level person responsible for service security: Yes
• Security governance certified: Yes
• Security governance standards: ISO/IEC 27001
• Information security policies and processes: All controls included within Annex A of the ISO27001:2013 standard. Statement Of Applicability (SOA) available on request.
• Software Security Code of Practice: Yes

Operational security

• Configuration and change management standard: Complies with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Configuration and change management approach: All change management is undertaken in line with ISO27001:2013 using JIRA for audit purposes.
• Vulnerability management type: Complies with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Vulnerability management approach: Patched and audited by our patch management system. All non-critical OS patches are applied within one calendar month of release, first into pre-production and then into production, as part of the scheduled maintenance window. AV Updates - Signatures are updated hourly. / Rules are reviewed at minimum every 3 months. Logs are reviewed at minimum every 3 months. Access staff responsible for the maintenance of our hosting services subscribe to industry newsletters, belong to various security forums and we additionally receive notifications from our vendors.
• Protective monitoring type: Complies with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v4.0 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Protective monitoring approach: We have traffic monitoring and content based alerting which alerts on changes to the site and/or traffic flows implemented at infrastructure and application level. We proactively monitor third party suppliers (hardware, OS, application/web and database server software) vulnerability reporting and security fix availability. Any vulnerabilities found and fixes provided by third party suppliers are patched by our infrastructure team in a timescale appropriate for their level of severity. Any penetration test findings are fixed by Development in a timescale appropriate for their level of severity. Our infrastructure response is within 1 hour in the SLA period 8am-8pm Monday – Friday.
• Incident management type: Complies with a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v4.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-18 / ISAE 3402
• Incident management approach: We operate a robust incident management process in line with ISO27001:2013. Staff are encouraged to report all incidents using a pre-defined process using a form available on our Company Collaborate site. Incident reports will be provided following forensics and closure.
• Post-quantum cryptography secure: No

Secure development

• Approach to secure software development best practice: Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v4.0)

Public sector networks

• Connection to public sector networks: No

Pricing

• Discount for educational organisations: Yes
• Free trial available: Yes
• Description of free trial: We can offer free trials via our website or directly via our Sales Team here at Access, a time period can be pre agreed although we usually set these up for 2 weeks. Support via your Account Executive can be provided if required.

Discount percentage by annual call-off contract value (excluding VAT)

• Less than £250,000: 5%
• Between £250,000 and £500,000: 6%
• Between £500,001 and £1,000,000: 12%
• Between £1,000,001 and £2,500,000: 15%
• Between £2,500,001 and £5,000,000: 18%
• Over £5,000,001: 25%

Non-mandatory Standards and certifications

• ISO/IEC 27001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001: Alcumus ISOQAR
• ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date: Saturday 4 January 2014
• What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover: Nothing is excluded from the standard certification.
• ISO 28000:2022 certification: No
• ISO 9001 certification: Yes
• Who accredited the ISO 9001 certification: BSI
• ISO 9001 accreditation date: Friday 1 September 2023
• What the ISO 9001 doesn’t cover: The scope covers the design, integration, maintenance and hosting of managed information systems and software applications, consultancy, user training and support for the Health, Education, Social Care and Local authorities. Excluding all other products that fall outside of this scope.
• Quality management systems (QMS): Yes
• CSA STAR certification: No
• PCI certification: No
• Cyber essentials: Yes
• Please provide your Cyber Essentials Certificate Number: 88f162a5-ea3c-4f9a-83d5-42769c7d8459
• Cyber essentials plus: No
• Cyber Essentials Alternative: You do not have a current and valid Cyber Essentials Plus certificate, or will not have in place within 12 months of the date of award but have an IASME certified equivalent.
• Other security certifications: Yes
• Any other security certifications:
  • ISO 42001
  • ISO 27701

Social value

• Section B - Commitment for Future: Delivery:

  • Mission: Kick start economic growth. To secure the highest sustained growth in the G7 - with good jobs and productivity growth in every part of the country making everyone, not just a few, better off.

    Policy Outcome 1: Fair work: That offers fair wages and good working conditions. Help people get a job, stay in work, and progress in their careers, with good employment opportunities across the country. Notes: Where there is a large proportion of labour costs in the contract, commercial teams should consider MAC in Outcome 1 as a priority

    • Monitoring of employee engagement rates (by protected characteristic) and, where necessary, the development of actions to ensure all voices are heard across the diversity of the workforce
    • Employment contracts that reflect actual hours worked; steps taken to ensure employees understand their contracts and have the ability to review and adjust them if actual hours regularly exceed contracted hours
    • Activities that support an environment where staff are educated about, and feel empowered to, address their physical wellbeing
    • Activities that support an environment where staff are educated about and feel empowered to report and address bullying and harassment
    • Offer a pay and leave entitlement to all eligible staff who become kinship carers, ideally equivalent to statutory adoption pay and leave
    • Payment of more than the National Minimum Wage or National Living Wage (as appropriate) to the contract workforce
    • Monitoring and reporting of gender and ethnicity pay gaps and plans to address them where necessary
    • Entitlement to sick pay for the contract workforce, with provision in place for any staff who do not meet the earnings threshold for statutory sick pay, payment of sick pay from day one of absence and payment of staff on the contract workforce who are off sick a replacement income of 100% of their usual earnings for as long as possible
    • Understanding of the modern slavery risks and issues affecting the market, industry, sector or country (of origin or of source) relevant to the contract, and the workforce in the supplier’s own organisation and those of its key subcontractors

Service documents

• Pricing document

  PDF

• Service definition document

  PDF

• Terms and conditions

  PDF

Request an accessible format

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at buyer.enablement@theaccessgroup.com. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.