As your Multi Academy Trust (MAT) grows, so does the complexity of your payroll. You acquire a new school, and suddenly you are managing another site, a new set of staff, and an entirely different set of legacy terms and conditions brought over via TUPE regulations.
When you attempt to run payroll across multiple school sites using off-the-shelf payroll software or inexperienced in-house teams, things can get complicated fast. Don’t suffer through this payroll nightmare alone, Ascend Payroll can help! We’re not just another generalist payroll company, our team of experts is trained to handle sector specific payroll, putting a wealth of regulatory knowledge at your disposal.
Removing payroll bottlenecks
In a growing Multi Academy Trust, it’s very easy to hit bottlenecks in your payroll, your team is working hard trying to ensure that everyone is paid on time but your data has multiple points of approval before each payroll run, the individual school’s headteacher or business manager needs to verify hours, including cover staff and overtime, then the Finance Director of the MAT needs to review any and all costs against each academy’s budget before final payments can be approved. One sick day or poorly timed holiday can throw a spanner in the works and delay payments if things aren’t managed to the minute.
If your current setup relies on emailing spreadsheets back and forth between the Trust office and the individual schools, you are wasting days of administrative time and creating a massive data security risk.
Trying to chase down different site managers for confirmation leads to missed deadlines, incorrect payments, and frustrated staff.
This is where an outsourced payroll provider like Ascend Education can help, switching couldn’t be easier.
Multi-level approvals built around you
Multi-level approval is the process whereby different payroll runs are reviewed and authorised separately in a set sequence by different people/roles. It ensures that, rather than the onus for payroll approval being on one individual, there is the ability to have multiple people checking the payroll at different stages. This helps with accuracy and compliance as there are more checkpoints and ‘eyes on the data’ within the process.
When we created our payroll tech we realised how important this feature is, especially in the education sector, where there are likely to be multiple payrolls and people involved. Schools and MATs need a payroll system that offers central control without forcing unworkable rules on your individual schools. That is where Ascend’s Elementary platform can change the game for MATs.
Elementary provides highly customisable multi-level approvals designed specifically for schools and Trusts. You can build a workflow that perfectly mirrors your internal hierarchy, removing bottlenecks and simplifying your payroll run. For example:
Level 1
The individual School Business Manager reviews and approves the specific timesheet data, overtime, and absences for their local site.
Level 2
The data flows securely to the central Trust HR team to verify new starters, leavers, and contract changes.
Level 3
The Trust Finance Director reviews the consolidated data and gives the final, high-level sign-off for the entire MAT.
Our system provides a complete, transparent audit trail of who approved what, and when. It gives your Trust total visibility and control, eliminating unorganised spreadsheets from your workflow and ensuring your entire MAT is paid perfectly on time, every time. And, we don’t dictate what that process should be. You can configure your multi approval flow to suit your organisation
