Payroll Relief works as a staged payroll-processing system rather than a single “calculate paycheck” screen. Employer schedules and employee records are established first, payroll information is entered for a particular run, the system calculates wages and taxes, the results are reviewed, and approval then triggers important downstream actions including tax liabilities, reports and direct deposit where those services are enabled.
Understanding that sequence explains several parts of Payroll Relief that otherwise look disconnected.
Pay schedules determine when standard payrolls exist.
Employee setup supplies default compensation and payroll information.
Payroll entry records what changed for the current period.
Calculation produces a proposed payroll.
Review provides a checkpoint.
Approval turns that proposed payroll into an operational event.
Everything after approval builds on that event.
Step 1: The Employer Has to Be Built Correctly
Before recurring payroll can run, Payroll Relief needs basic information about the employer.
The Employer Contact area contains company and payroll-contact information and establishes pay schedules. IRIS currently supports weekly, bi-weekly, semi-monthly and monthly frequencies, with up to three schedules for an employer when different groups are paid differently.
The pay schedule determines period dates and pay dates for normal standard payrolls.
That setup matters more than it might initially appear.
IRIS warns that numerous payroll-related functions depend on the schedule and that incorrect setup can create compliance problems.
Payroll Relief is therefore not starting from a blank paycheck every week. It is starting from an employer model that already knows how the business intends to pay its workforce.
Step 2: Employee and Contractor Records Supply the Payroll Baseline
The payroll system also needs information about the people being paid.
Depending on permissions and account structure, setup can include employment information, compensation, taxes, deductions, PTO and direct-deposit data. IRIS identifies employee setup as one of the major functional areas available through Payroll Relief’s permissions model.
For recurring workers, that stored setup becomes the baseline for payroll entry.
This is why the standard workflow can be relatively exception-driven.
If an employee normally works the same schedule at the same rate, the processor should not need to rebuild every element of the paycheck manually each pay period.
Instead, the current payroll primarily records what changed.
Step 3: Payroll Relief Determines Which Kind of Payroll Is Being Run
Not every payment fits a normal recurring schedule.
IRIS currently documents four Payroll Relief payroll types:
- Standard;
- Additional;
- Contractor;
- Prior.
A Standard Payroll covers recurring employee payroll based on an employer’s pay schedule.
An Additional Payroll handles non-periodic events such as bonuses, commissions or certain adjustments.
A Contractor Payroll handles contractor payments outside a fixed employee pay schedule.
A Prior Payroll records earlier year-to-date payroll information processed before the employer started using Payroll Relief.
This classification is important because “process payroll” can mean materially different things depending on why the payment exists.
Step 4: Standard Payrolls Begin With the Pay Schedule
For a normal recurring payroll, period dates and the pay date are generated from the employer’s schedule.
Employees assigned to that schedule are selected for the payroll, and the processor can adjust the current-period information as needed.
Suppose a bi-weekly employee normally works 80 hours.
Payroll Relief can bring the employee’s default information into the payroll. If the current period includes overtime, paid time off or a reimbursement, the processor changes the exception rather than reconstructing the entire employee record.
That workflow becomes particularly important as the number of employees and clients grows.
Step 5: Payroll Data Can Be Entered in Several Ways
Payroll Relief does not require every payroll to be keyed through the same interface.
IRIS documents three primary entry approaches for standard payroll:
Worksheet mode provides a spreadsheet-like view for entering data for multiple employees.
Paychecks mode gives more detailed entry for a single employee.
Upload mode can bring payroll data in from Excel.
The appropriate method depends on the payroll.
A processor handling routine hours for many workers may prefer the worksheet.
A complicated individual check may make more sense in Paychecks mode.
A larger employer delivering structured payroll data may use an upload rather than keying everything manually.
These are different entry paths into the same payroll-processing engine.
Step 6: Payroll Relief Calculates the Proposed Payroll
Once the current data has been entered, the payroll is calculated.
According to IRIS, the calculation step produces a pre-approval Payroll Summary containing a Payroll Register and Payroll Comparison. The register provides paycheck detail, while the comparison is intended to highlight unusual differences between the current and previous payroll.
This is an important control point.
A payroll system should not only produce a number; it should give the processor enough context to decide whether that number makes sense.
A large change in gross pay may be completely legitimate because of overtime or a bonus.
The same change may also reveal a mistaken rate, duplicated hours or another entry problem.
Surfacing the variance before approval creates an opportunity to investigate while the payroll is still editable.
Step 7: Review Happens Before Final Approval
After calculation, the payroll moves into review.
IRIS says the review area presents a summary of payroll costs, employee pay and taxes, while a detailed view can be used to inspect individual employees. The system also provides tools for modifying certain earnings, taxes or deductions before approval.
This separates calculation from acceptance.
The fact that Payroll Relief has successfully calculated a payroll does not mean the accounting firm has decided that the result is correct.
That distinction is particularly valuable in an outsourced payroll environment where employer data may be supplied to an accounting firm for review.
Step 8: Approval Is the Point Where the Workflow Changes
Approval is one of the most important concepts in Payroll Relief.
IRIS describes it as the crucial final processing step. Approval updates master information, calculates payroll-tax liabilities, initiates direct deposits where configured and generates the selected payroll report set.
Before approval, the payroll is essentially something being prepared and reviewed.
After approval, it begins driving other parts of the system.
This is why approval rights deserve tighter control than ordinary payroll entry.
A user who can enter hours is not necessarily a user who should have authority to initiate the financial and compliance consequences of those hours.
Step 9: Direct Deposit Moves on Its Own Banking Timeline
When direct deposit is enabled, approval also interacts with banking deadlines.
IRIS’s 2026 E-Services documentation states that employers using the default three-day direct-deposit schedule must have payroll funded and approved by the applicable deadline, with the example of a Friday pay date requiring approval by 9:00 PM Eastern on Tuesday. Bank holidays can require additional lead time.
The direct-deposit workflow therefore runs backward from payday.
Payroll data cannot simply be approved whenever convenient if employees are expected to receive funds on a particular date.
For a deeper explanation, see Payroll Relief Direct Deposit.
Step 10: Approval Creates Tax Liabilities
Payroll approval also drives compliance calculations.
IRIS states that after each payroll is approved, Payroll Relief uses the pay dates and configured tax-payment frequencies to calculate withholding and unemployment-tax liabilities and schedule the corresponding payment due dates.
This shows why tax setup and payroll setup cannot be treated as unrelated areas.
The approved payroll contains the wage and withholding activity.
The employer’s tax configuration tells the system how that activity should translate into liabilities and payment timing.
Payroll processing therefore feeds the compliance workflow automatically rather than requiring an entirely separate reconstruction of the payroll later.
Step 11: Reports Preserve the Result
After approval, Payroll Relief can generate the reports selected for the employer or firm’s Payroll Report Set.
IRIS describes reports including Payroll Register, Payroll Comparison and Payroll Summary, while additional payroll reporting provides access to wage, tax, deduction and historical information.
Different reports answer different questions.
The payroll register helps explain individual checks.
The comparison helps identify changes between runs.
The summary helps understand overall payroll costs and liabilities.
Historical reports help reconstruct what happened over a period.
That reporting layer becomes particularly important when the payroll data later needs to be reconciled against accounting records or investigated after the immediate pay period has passed.
Step 12: Payroll Information Can Continue Into Accounting and Other Systems
Completion of payroll does not mean the data stops being useful.
AccountantsWorld documents integration between Payroll Relief and Accounting Power, QuickBooks and other general-ledger systems. It also describes integrations involving Cloud Cabinet, time and attendance, retirement administration and workers’ compensation.
The payroll can therefore become an input to several downstream workflows.
Accounting needs payroll expenses and liabilities.
Document management needs reports.
Retirement administration may need contribution information.
Workers’ compensation may need payroll data for premium calculations.
See our Payroll Relief integrations guide for those connections.
Multi-Client Firms Can Process the Workflow at Scale
Payroll Relief is designed for accounting firms managing more than one employer.
IRIS describes the Payroll Snapshot as a firm-level tool showing important information such as whether direct deposit is active, upcoming pay dates, tax due dates and past-due forms across clients.
The platform also supports Batch Approval.
IRIS says selected employer pay schedules can be included so multiple payrolls from multiple employers can be approved from one screen.
That is where the product’s accountant-centered design becomes especially visible.
Running payroll for one employer is an individual workflow.
Operating a payroll practice means controlling many such workflows with different deadlines at the same time.
Payroll Relief Is Built Around Checkpoints
The system makes the most sense when viewed as a series of checkpoints rather than a collection of disconnected features.
Employer setup defines the payroll rules.
Employee setup defines the people and their normal payroll conditions.
Payroll entry records the current period.
Calculation determines the proposed result.
Review checks whether that result is reasonable.
Approval finalizes the payroll and starts financial and compliance actions.
Direct deposit and checks deliver employee pay.
Tax processing turns the approved payroll into liabilities and filings.
Reports and integrations carry the results into the rest of the accounting operation.
That sequence is the core of how Payroll Relief works.
Why This Matters for Employees and Employers Too
Even users who never process payroll benefit from understanding the workflow.
An employee waiting for a pay stub is seeing the final output of a process that began much earlier.
An employer submitting hours has not necessarily reached final approval.
A payroll administrator changing direct-deposit information is working in a setup layer that affects what happens when a future payroll is approved.
Once those stages are separated, many apparently confusing Payroll Relief behaviors become easier to interpret.
Payroll Relief is not simply a portal where paychecks appear.
It is the processing system that creates the payroll those portals ultimately reflect.