Employer Services Limited Attributes Successful Growth To Payrite
Since being established six years ago, Employer Services Limited (ESL) has grown rapidly from being a fledging payroll services provider to processing in excess of 55,000 payslips a month for over 150 clients with both weekly and monthly payrolls.
The company provides a range of services, depending on its clients needs – from fully managed payroll, in-house payroll, HR database services and a payroll bureau service.
From the start, ESL has invested in and used Payrite from Rutherford Webb to provide its payroll services. Having researched the market thoroughly, ESL found that Rutherford Webb was like minded in that it focused on payroll. The Payrite product could be run on batch processing, essential for large clients with high numbers of payslips.
According to Stuart Hall Managing Director, at ESL:
“Of the five directors that set up the company, four of us had worked with leading payroll providers in previous years. We had a lot of payroll experience and knowledge and believed that Payrite was the right product for us. Our ambition was to grow the business rapidly with large numbers of clients – and potentially payslips – and we believed that Payrite was a product that could handle that growth.”
Commitment to providing the best Payroll Service
Another reason for selecting Payrite was Rutherford Webb’s commitment to provide regular product updates and releases over time – as many as two or three a year – as part of the service. Many other competitors only offered new releases once or twice a year at an additional cost.
Since ESL planned to operate as a bureau it also required front end software that could be installed at client sites so that data could be entered and submitted through to the bureau for processing. At the time Rutherford Webb did not have the software available but worked quickly to ensure a working model was available before the system went live.
Payrite has brought many business benefits to ESL. As many of their customers move across from other systems and bureaus, ESL has developed a data transfer tool that takes information and swiftly imports it into Payrite, with a very smooth transmission.
“We see Payrite as being at the forefront of payroll software. The product is one of the first to meet Inland Revenue standards, and we have seen real commitment from Rutherford Webb to maintain that expertise,” said Hall.
ESL was also impressed by the user group that is growing in numbers every year. Rutherford Webb is diligent in listening to user feedback and taking appropriate action to move the product forward.
A flexible tailor-made service
ESL‘s business success is not based on simply providing payroll services. When looking at a prospect’s requirements the company reviews the whole picture, with a view to providing a bureau solution that will save time, effort and money both before and after processing the payroll.
“Our success lies in the people that we have and the service that we can provide. This is enhanced by the fact that Payrite can provide even more facilities than we need,” said Hall.
“We look at how a client is operating their payroll and whether there is an opportunity to improve it – the possibilities with Payrite mean that we don’t have to force customers to do their payroll our way.”
An example of a complex service might be sickness calculations in the payroll in UK. As a result of mergers and acquisitions, a company may have a scheme whereby shop floor employees need to be with the company for six weeks before getting sick pay, then after that period may be entitled to pay on a sliding scale according to length of service.
According to Hall, ESL has one client that has over twenty different sickness schemes, all of which can be handled by automated procedures with Payrite.
In addition, there are situations where a company changes to pay employees monthly instead of weekly and there may be a union requirement to produce “dummy” payslips on a weekly basis that clearly show overtime and sick pay. Payrite has a timesheet module that enables such “dummy” payslips to be produced, as well as the actual monthly payslips and BACS payments or cheques.
Comprehensive reporting
For ESL, the reporting function is also a key element of its managed services offering. Payrite has a standard set of management reports that ESL can specify for particular clients. If they need to write a specific report, then this is easily done using the report writer and then simply added to the standard list so that it is automatically picked up.
“The report writer in Payrite is so user friendly that it is very easy for us to produce customer reports as part of the service we give,” said Hall.
“We are looking at producing reports by PDF format – at how we can produce them automatically as a standard, and then we can either send by email or on CD. This year we are also planning to enable clients to download their reports from a secure section of our web site.”
For managed services, ESL is able to take information in any format – MS Excel spreadsheets, or hardcopies and the information is keyed into the system. It also offers clients a link into Payrite – ‘ESLink’ – which is a reduced version of Payrite that allows the client to hold payroll data at their premises. The client can see data, add new starters, change salary details or put in overtime hours and then send the data back to ESL via a modem link so that it can process the payroll.
If required, the client can have trial runs – make changes and then give the final OK to ESL to do the printing and send off to BACS. Future plans also include enabling files to be downloaded via a secure part of the website.
An outsourced Payroll Department
“For many clients we become their payroll department. With Payrite we have an excellent product that enables us to look at what clients are doing, improve and standardize – improving efficiencies all round,” said Hall.
“After five years in business we have a turnover of £1.3m. Over the next five years we plan to continue our aggressive growth, confident that we have chosen Payrite as the right product for our business.”