EdPay replaces Novopay Online for schools’ payroll

The Novopay Online service was switched off today, Wednesday 20 October, following the successful development and implementation of the new EdPay portal.

Education Payroll Limited (EPL) Chief Executive Arlene White says EdPay has been designed with schools, for schools, so is tailored to meet their needs and is fit for the future.

“Schools have told us that they want to do everything online and in one place and EdPay is a significant step towards making that happen,” says Arlene.

EPL delivers the schools’ payroll accurately and on time every fortnight to 2,500 schools, paying 96,000 teachers and support staff a total of $6.0 billion each year. On average, EPL pays $231 million to school staff each pay fortnight and receives 12,500 payroll instructions, with the schools’ payroll one of the largest and most complex in Australasia.

The schools’ payroll has many unique requirements, which makes it time consuming for schools to administer and EPL to process.

“We’ve worked with schools to make it easy to get things right and hard to get things wrong. An increase in straight-through processing means that high-volume instructions from schools are automated and don’t need to be handled by our staff, with efficiency gains for schools as well, through fewer errors and rework,” says Arlene.

EdPay was first trialed with test or beta schools in March 2019, before being made available to all schools in October 2019. EPL has been progressively retiring forms and adding new features to EdPay, working with test schools who provide feedback, which allows adjustments to be made before rolling it out to all schools.

EPL’s dedicated payroll advisors have helped to support schools through the transition, alongside regular updates to schools, training videos, FAQs and quick-start guides to help support schools through the transition.

“We will be continuing to refine and improve EdPay and introduce new features, prioritising those that schools want first. Our focus is on delivering continuous improvements to schools, using an agile approach. We’ve had great feedback from schools to date, who are looking forward to working with one system – EdPay,” says Arlene.

ENDS

20 October 2021