HW & Associates Finds Efficiency, Flexibility, and Peace of Mind with IRIS Payroll

“Kelly, you have a chance to make a move. What do you want to move to?”

That question, posed by HW & Associates’ Innovation Strategist, provided just the challenge and opportunity that its Senior Payroll Specialist, Kelly Parkhurst, was waiting for. Prior to joining the Minnetonka, MN-based payroll and accounting firm in 2021, Parkhurst had processed payroll for an 800-employee hotel chain, then worked in sales for 15 years.

“I’m still a salesperson at heart,” Parkhurst said. “So, I was immediately set on finding a way to get a bigger piece of profit from what we were charging clients while also boosting the service we were providing them.”

With just 17 employees, HW & Associates managed the payroll for 115 clients, ranging from one-person S-corporations to businesses with 50+ workers. But they were doing it all on an outdated, highly manual legacy payroll system that required manual tax payments and portal resets.

“We were still manually making tax payments after we ran payroll,” Parkhurst recalled. “We’d have to log into EFTPS, log into the state site, and make our payments. It was incredibly time-consuming. I wanted something that would make life easier for both our team and our clients.”

The top three pain points were clear:

• Manual tax payments and filings, which doubled the time spent on payroll processing
• Cumbersome client portals, requiring phone support for every reset
• Limited scalability, preventing HW & Associates from taking on more clients efficiently

Parkhurst’s hunt for alternatives that could offer automation, better client-facing tools, and stronger profitability for the firm turned up IRIS Payroll, discovered via a combination of online searches, Reddit discussions, and professional groups. She reached out to an IRIS sales representative and was immediately impressed by the responsiveness and flexibility.

“He was wonderful. He let me bring different people into the conversation and gave us time to prepare for the transition,” she explained. “We took the plunge in summer 2023.”

HW & Associates tested IRIS Payroll in parallel with their old system in Q3 2023 and went fully live by Q4—just in time for year-end processing. The results:

• Automation that saves time:
  “We cut our processing time by more than half,” Parkhurst said. “What used to take a point 3, point 4 now takes a point 1, point 2 and it allows me to work ahead. I can queue up a payroll for the next month and go on vacation knowing it’s handled.”
• Streamlined tax compliance:
  IRIS Payroll automates federal and state tax payments, a change that freed Parkhurst from tedious manual processes. “Instead of making payments by hand for 130 clients, now I only do it for a handful.”
• Improved client portals and onboarding:
  “Before, we had to call in every time someone needed a portal reset,” she said. “Now, I can do it myself in seconds, and employees get access instantly. They love being able to see their W-2s right away.”
• Significant cost reduction:
  “Our software cost was cut in half,” Parkhurst noted. “And if I’m charging $100 to process a payroll that only takes six minutes, that makes a big difference in our profit margin.”
• Readily available support:

“Email support gets back to me within an hour, and the customer service reps I do interact with are knowledgeable,” Parkhurst said. “I’d rather have a lean, efficient system that works than deal with layers of call centers.”

The Results: Growth, Resilience, and Peace of Mind

Since adopting IRIS payroll software, HW & Associates has jumped to more than 130 payroll clients with room to grow. “Capacity-wise, we could easily be at 150 and still be a one-woman show,” Parkhurst says. “It’s allowed us to grow and take on other projects because payroll now runs itself.”

The software’s reliability proved especially vital when Kelly faced a personal health crisis. “I was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer right after we transitioned,” she shared. “Even during chemo, I could process payroll from my tablet. I didn’t need to be connected to a server. IRIS allowed me to keep working through treatment. It really made a difference.”

Ready to Streamline Your Payroll?

If your firm is ready to save time, reduce costs, and simplify compliance like HW & Associates, contact IRIS Payroll today to see how our solutions can help you modernize your payroll operations and grow with confidence.