Keep the work around your people connected.
Employee records, leave, time and expenses in one place.
Manage the everyday administration around your team alongside the business they work in. Review leave and timesheets, approve expenses and prepare payroll inputs for your provider.
Prepare the inputs your payroll provider needs.
Cobalt keeps employee records, approved time and related inputs together. Payroll calculation stays with your payroll provider; your team reviews the information before export.
Is this expense ready for finance?
Keep the employee, receipt and approval decision together.
People · expensesIllustrative records| Record | Status | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| Employee claim | Submitted | Check the supporting receipt |
| Manager approval | Required | Review the business purpose |
| Finance review | After approval | Check coding and payment details |
An approved claim reaches finance with its context.
The team can review the claim and supporting records before preparing the relevant accounting and payment work.
Cobalt ERP doesn't work out gross-to-net pay, tax or National Insurance, and it doesn't send RTI submissions to HMRC. Instead, it gets the figures ready properly. On the Growth plan, the payroll export gathers approved hours, leave and expenses for a pay period into one download for your bureau, your accountant or your payroll software. The file carries a built-in check, so you can tell if it has been changed. If you make it again, the new file replaces the old one, so nobody has to work out which version was sent.
The result comes back the same way. On the Scale plan you import your provider's payroll file, Cobalt ERP checks it and holds it as a draft, and posting it records one payroll journal in your books. The person who imported it can't be the person who posts it. If something's wrong, you reverse or cancel it rather than quietly editing it. You keep your payroll provider, and your accounts no longer depend on someone retyping a payslip summary.
The admin around your people, in one place.
Growth includes the tools for everyday HR. Scale adds onboarding and offboarding checklists, payroll import and expense repayment runs.
- A real employee record — personal and job details, role, pay and other sensitive fields, address and emergency contacts. You can mark someone active, on leave, suspended or left (with a reason), or move them back to draft (Growth plan and above).
- Leave nobody can approve for themselves — requests, balances and a monthly team calendar. Only the manager or someone with leave-approval permission can decide, and never on their own request (Growth).
- Timesheets by period — a day-by-day grid, entry on behalf of staff who won't log in, and bulk approval for the weeks you've fallen behind (Growth).
- Documents that warn you — they turn amber within 30 days of expiry and red once expired. Sensitive documents can be locked, and anything staff upload themselves is reviewed first (Growth).
- Self-service with limits you set — staff see their profile, leave, timesheets, documents and anything waiting for their approval, and can only edit the fields you allow (Growth).
- Expense claims that reach the books — expense and mileage lines, tiered mileage rates, category caps and policy checks, followed by approval and a journal (Growth). Repayment runs and bank payment files require Scale or above.
Most HR admin is keeping a record.
Most of the work is showing who approved what and when, and keeping private details private.
HR sits alongside sales, purchasing and the accounts, so an approved claim becomes a journal instead of an email to whoever does the books.
You control who can see the sensitive and pay parts of a record, and HR documents can be locked separately.
Leave, timesheets, claims and document reviews all record who approved them, and no one person can do both halves of a task.
An expense claim that ends in a bank file.
This is what you gain by having HR in the same system.
Someone submits a claim with expense and mileage lines. Mileage rates and category caps apply as they type, and anything outside policy is blocked straight away rather than argued about a month later. A manager approves it, and the claim posts a proper double-entry journal in the same books your accountant reads. On Scale, a repayment run picks up the approved claims, is approved by someone other than the person who built it, and produces a bank payment file you can upload. If plans change, you cancel the run. Nothing is retyped between an HR tool and an accounting tool, because there's only one system. How it works explains how the same idea runs the rest of the business.
What each plan adds.
Said plainly, so you know before you buy.
Growth covers everyday HR: employee records and their status, an org chart, and leave, where you can preview each year's allowances and the year-end rollover before you commit (with a carry-over limit from your policy and pro-rated allowances for people who start mid-year). It also includes timesheets, HR documents, self-service, expense claims and the payroll export. The HR dashboard shows approvals waiting across leave, timesheets, expense claims and document reviews, plus documents about to expire, who's off today and headcount by department. In HR settings you choose the month your leave year starts, whether balances warn, block or aren't checked, the carry-over limit, the timesheet period and which fields staff can edit.
Scale adds what matters once people join and leave often enough for a step to be missed: onboarding and offboarding checklists built from templates, training records with courses and expiry dates (Cobalt ERP records completion and expiry but doesn't host the training), an asset register showing who has what and what's been returned, payroll import and expense repayment runs. The full line-by-line breakdown is on the pricing and comparison page.
Frequently asked questions.
What does Cobalt ERP's HR module cover?
On Growth: employee records with their status, an org chart, leave with balances and a team calendar, timesheets by period, HR documents with expiry warnings, employee self-service and expense claims. Scale adds onboarding and offboarding checklists, training records, an asset register, payroll import and expense repayment runs.
Does Cobalt ERP run payroll?
No. Cobalt ERP doesn't work out gross-to-net pay, tax or National Insurance, and it doesn't send RTI submissions to HMRC. Instead it produces a payroll export: approved hours, leave and expenses for a pay period, in a checked download for whoever runs your payroll. On Scale it imports the result back as a single payroll journal, and the person who imported it can't be the person who posts it. Cobalt ERP handles the HR admin around payroll and leaves the pay calculation to your provider.
Who can approve leave?
The employee's manager, or anyone with the leave-approval permission. Nobody can approve their own request. In HR settings you choose whether leave balances give a warning, block the request or aren't checked at all.
Can employees see and update their own details?
Yes, on Growth. Self-service covers their profile, their own leave, timesheets and documents, and anything waiting for their approval if they approve for others. You choose exactly which fields they can edit in HR settings, and anything they upload is reviewed before it counts.
Can I hide salary and other sensitive details from most staff?
Yes. You can restrict who sees the sensitive and pay parts of an employee record, so most people see the directory and day-to-day details without the pay. HR documents can also be marked sensitive and locked separately.
Which plan do I need for HR?
Growth for anything you'd call HR: employee records, leave, timesheets, documents, self-service, expense claims and the payroll export. Scale if you also want onboarding and offboarding checklists, training records, an asset register, payroll import or expense repayment runs.
Related pages.
Keep staff admin next to your accounts.
Records, leave, timesheets, documents and claims in one system, with a clean handover to whoever runs your payroll.
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