HR software for professional services supports HR management in organisations such as law firms, accountancy firms, consultancies and engineering firms. It automates and streamlines processes such as onboarding, performance management, benefits administration and compliance reporting, and gives firms a clearer view of workforce trends such as turnover and engagement. It typically integrates with payroll and time-tracking software to give a fuller picture of employee data.
HR software built for the pace of professional services
One connected suite. Built to make work, work
Professional services firms run on chargeable hours and client deadlines. HR shouldn't be the thing that slows things down.
Most HR systems ask your team to hold the whole picture together by hand: one system for employee records, another for payroll, a spreadsheet for compliance checks, an inbox for policy sign-off. Ciphr connects HR, payroll, recruitment, learning and benefits in one suite, so the record a partner checks, the number payroll runs, and the report the CFO asks for all come from the same place.
One system, not six tabs
Onboarding a new associate, tracking a DBS check, running payroll, logging a training hour: all in the same system, all reading the same data. Update a fee-earner's hours and payroll sees it. Approve a leaver and their access, benefits and records update with it.
That's the gap between HR software for professional services that connects and HR software that simply sits next to everything else.
Professional and financial services firms such as Wright Vigar choose Ciphr to run HR and payroll from one system rather than several.
The connected suite is what makes the AI useful
Ciphr's AI works because it draws on one connected data set, not a chatbot layered on top of disconnected systems. Some capability is live today, answering questions from real, current HR data. Other capability sits on the roadmap, and we say so plainly rather than describe it as though it's already shipped.
Live now:
- AI assistant
- AI form summarisation
- AI-powered coaching (through MyTeamBuilder)
Built in the UK, for UK employment law
Ciphr is a UK company, built around UK employment law, UK payroll cycles and UK statutory reporting, not adapted from a global platform after the fact. Your data sits under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act, with UK-based teams who understand what a change to an Acas code of practice, or an HMRC deadline, means for a partnership structure or a fee-earning team.
Ciphr holds ISO 27001 certification for information security, and is a Crown Commercial Service and Microsoft partner.
Compliance that holds up to scrutiny
Professional services firms carry real regulatory weight, like right-to-work checks, DBS checks, reference checks, and professional body requirements. Ciphr's identity and background checking functionality integrates with third-party providers, Experian and TrustID, so checks are run consistently and the record is stored against the right employee automatically, not chased down when an auditor asks for it.
Policy acceptance works the same way. Store every policy centrally, track who's signed what, and connect to e-signature tools from Adobe and DocuSign for anything that needs a formal signature. When a regulator or client audit asks: "can you prove this was read and accepted?" the answer is already there.
Reporting your partners can rely on
When a partner or the CFO asks for headcount, utilisation, or turnover by department, the answer shouldn't depend on which system was updated last. With Ciphr, the report you pull matches payroll, because it's the same data underneath.
Graduate and trainee intakes are a fixture across professional services. A cohort of accountants, consultants or analysts often accepts an offer many months before their contract starts. That gap can leave new joiners with nothing to do, and leaves your team clearing a backlog of admin in a single week.
Ciphr's onboarding module puts that admin somewhere else: in the weeks before day one, not after it. As soon as an offer is accepted, the new joiner can have their own login to the onboarding portal in your Ciphr HR software. They can read role-specific information, browse meet-the-team pages, and start to picture themselves at your firm long before they walk through the door.
That same login unlocks access to the tasks that usually clog up week one: right-to-work checks, contracts, bank details entry, and any pre-start compliance or induction training. All of it sits in the same HR system they'll use once they start, so there's no printed joining pack in one place and a different login to figure out in another.
For firms that run a graduate or trainee scheme every year, day one turns into something smaller. Everyone arrives already checked, signed and comfortable with the HR system they'll use every day after.
Self-service that removes admin, not accountability
Employees update their own details, request leave and find policies without raising a query with HR. For firms with fee-earners who bill by the hour, that's less time lost to admin and more of it back on client work, while HR keeps full oversight and an audit trail of every change.
Built for mid-market professional services
Ciphr is designed for firms with genuine HR and payroll complexity: multiple offices, mixed employment types, professional body reporting, without the budget or appetite for a multi-year enterprise rollout. It's a system a 200 to 2,000-person firm can implement without turning it into a transformation project.
Whether you're a legal firm, a financial services firm (or another firm subject to the SMCR), a management consulting company, or an IT, HR or marketing firm, Ciphr fits around how your people data already works. Not the other way round.
This is HR amplified
One connected suite. Built to make work, work. For HR directors who need a system that holds up to a partner's questions, and CFOs who need numbers they don't have to double-check, Ciphr’s HR software gives professional services firms more control over complexity, not more of it.
1. Initiate
A kick-off meeting, your base system deployed, and a finalised project plan
2. Discover
Sessions to document exactly how your firm works, recorded in a Functional Requirements Document
3. Realise
The build phase. Your data imported, your system configured, and on-demand tutorials available in the Ciphr Academy to help you
4. Validate
We’ll give you user acceptance testing (UAT) scripts, so your team can test the system and checks the data before go-live
5. Deploy
Support through final go-live, then handover to the customer experience team for the long term