Member Spotlight – Ocerli

Tell us a bit about yourself and your role

I’m Mike Edward, Managing Director of Ocerli. My role covers the overall direction of the business, from supporting our team and clients to guiding the continued development and growth of the platform.

Payroll is a responsibility built on trust, so a large part of my role is making sure we remain focused on what matters to our clients: accuracy, reliability, security and genuinely helpful support.

For anyone who hasn’t come across Ocerli before, what does the platform do?

Ocerli is a cloud-based payroll platform designed to make every pay run simpler, more accurate and easier to manage.

It automates many of the calculations, returns, reports and administrative tasks involved in payroll, while supporting the specific requirements of Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man, the Cayman Islands

It is used by businesses running payroll internally, larger organisations with more complex requirements and payroll providers managing multiple clients. The aim is straightforward: to give employers confidence that payroll is being handled accurately, securely and on time.

What inspired the creation of Ocerli?

The business began in Guernsey in 2004 as Offshore Payroll. It grew from a practical need for payroll that understood the requirements of smaller and more specialist jurisdictions.

Generic payroll systems were not always designed around local tax, social security and reporting rules. Employers often had to rely on manual workarounds or systems that did not reflect how their businesses actually operated.

We saw an opportunity to combine specialist payroll knowledge with genuine SaaS technology that was more flexible, responsive and closely aligned with local employers.

What challenges were you trying to solve for employers and payroll teams?

Payroll teams often spend a great deal of time checking information, re-entering data, preparing statutory returns and working around systems that do not communicate with one another

At the same time, there is no room for error. Payroll affects people directly, involves sensitive personal information and must keep pace with changing employer obligations.

Ocerli was developed to reduce repetitive administration, improve the movement of data between systems and give payroll teams clearer processes and stronger controls, without removing the human expertise and oversight that good payroll still requires.

Payroll isn’t always seen as an area for innovation. How is technology changing the industry?

Technology is transforming payroll from a largely administrative process into a more connected, automated and insight-driven function. Cloud platforms, better integrations and intelligent workflows are reducing repetitive data entry, improving accuracy and giving payroll teams greater visibility over each pay run.

The biggest change is not simply doing payroll faster; it is helping teams identify issues earlier, respond more confidently to regulatory changes and spend less time on manual administration. Technology supports that progress, while experienced people remain essential for oversight, judgement and handling more complex situations.

What makes Ocerli different from other payroll platforms?

Our combination of specialist jurisdictional knowledge, modern technology and accessible human support is a significant part of what makes us different.

Ocerli is a genuine Software-as-a-Service platform, designed and built specifically for the cloud rather than being a legacy desktop or server-based system adapted for online access.

That distinction matters. Because the new platform has been developed with a modern cloud architecture, clients can access it securely through a browser, receive updates without managing local installations and benefit from a product that can evolve, integrate and scale more effectively.

This modern technology is combined with more than 20 years of practical payroll experience and specialist knowledge of jurisdictions with distinct tax, social security, pension and reporting requirements. Clients therefore get both a purpose-built SaaS platform and direct support from people who understand the platform and the complexities of payroll itself

How important are automation and compliance in modern payroll management?

They are closely connected. Effective automation helps organisations apply the correct rules consistently, complete repetitive processes and reduce the risk associated with manual handling.

However, automation must be transparent and properly controlled. Employers still need clear audit trails, secure access, reliable reporting and the ability to understand how figures have been calculated.

For us, the goal is not automation for its own sake. It is using automation to create greater accuracy, consistency and confidence.

What has been the biggest lesson from growing a payroll platform in the Channel Islands?

The biggest lesson has been the importance of listening closely to the people who use the system every day.

The Channel Islands may be small, but payroll here is anything but simple. Building in this market has taught us that success comes from understanding local complexity, responding quickly to change, and never assuming one solution fits every employer.

It has also reinforced the value of combining innovative technology with genuine human expertise. Clients want intuitive, efficient software, but they also want the reassurance of knowledgeable people who understand their business and are there when they need them.

What made you join Digital Jersey?

We joined Digital Jersey because we wanted Ocerli to be an active part of the Island’s technology community.

Although payroll is our specialism, many of the opportunities and challenges we face are shared by other technology businesses: developing talent, improving products, protecting data, adopting responsible automation and growing beyond the Island.

Being part of that wider community gives us opportunities to exchange ideas, build relationships and contribute to Jersey’s reputation as a place where trusted technology businesses can develop and grow.

What are your goals for Ocerli over the next 12 months?

Our priorities are to continue strengthening the platform locally but also expanding into supporting UK payroll for UK businesses, enhance the experience of onboarding and using Ocerli, and prepare the business for its next stage of growth.

This includes continued improvements to the user dashboard and guided workflows, further integration with accounting and HR systems, and investment in the compliance capabilities needed to support UK employers.

We also want to remain close to our existing clients. Growth is important, but it must not come at the expense of the reliability and personal service on which the business has been built.

What excites you most about your expansion into the UK market?

The UK gives us the opportunity to apply what we have learned from supporting complex, highly regulated and multi-jurisdictional organisations to a much larger market.

Our offshore experience has required us to build flexibility into the platform from the outset. We believe that experience can be valuable to UK employers looking for a payroll partner that combines strong technology with practical expertise and responsive support.

We are approaching the expansion carefully, with an emphasis on compliance, testing and making sure the onboarding experience is right before scaling more widely.

Are there any upcoming developments or features you can share

We are continuing to work on a more intuitive dashboard, improved onboarding journeys and deeper connections between payroll, HR and accounting systems.

We are also exploring how carefully designed AI-assisted tools and data analysis can help users identify anomalies, navigate processes and access relevant guidance. The emphasis is on supporting informed decisions rather than replacing professional judgement.

Alongside this, our UK compliance and market-readiness work remains an important area of focus.

Three words to describe Ocerli

Simple. Powerful. Seamless.

What technology trend are you most excited about right now?

The move towards responsible, embedded AI in our support tools

They will be the tools that quietly help people identify unusual data, reduce repetitive work and find the right information at the right point in a process.

In payroll, accuracy, explainability and human oversight must remain central, so responsible implementation is particularly important.

If you could automate one task in every business tomorrow, what would it be?

Re-entering the same information into multiple systems.

Moving employee information manually between HR, payroll, finance and banking platforms takes time and creates unnecessary opportunities for error. Better-connected systems can remove a great deal of that friction.

What do the team enjoy outside of work?

We are a varied group, but spending time with family and friends, making the most of island life and switching off from screens are common themes. Whether it is sport, travelling, brewing beer, marathon running, surfing, good food or getting outdoors, everyone brings different interests and experiences back to the team.

To learn more, visit Ocerli.