5-System Build and Integration Business Performance Management Case Study

THE SITUATION

The contractor on boarding and the finance and admin team:

• Managed over 800 contractors across multiple countries, often in third world locations
• Had to deal with a complex on boarding process, including a variety of tests, training, medicals and visa applications
• Use IT software built to manage a lower number of contractor time-sheets and payments. The software was hard to use, offered too many options and led to a higher level of mistakes than desired. This created additional costs with checking and correcting errors.
• The process from start to finish was manual, with multiple spreadsheets, PDF documents and emails in use, complex and relied on staff to get everything right.

THE PURPOSE OF THE PROJECT

To build a scalable platform to manage over 1,000 contractors without a significant increase in the administration team size and therefore costs within the business.

THE PROJECT

 Jess Coles (Emerson Nash) was the Programme lead for all aspects of the project in which we designed, scoped, selected and implemented 5 systems, with integrations between each. The systems were based around contractor self-service and data inputted once to drive internal efficiency and scalability.

• Recruitment CRM system
• Bespoke contracting onboarding system – based on contractor self-service
• InTime timesheeting system (based on contractor self service)
• Access Dimensions (Finance System)
• Payments solution, including a company SWIFT network registration

The Recruitment CRM system and the Access Dimension finance systems were both being used at the start of the project. We amended parts of the CRM system. The process of moving data from the CRM to the Onboarding system was semi-automated with a checking process.

The on-boarding system was a bespoke system, created to allow contractors to enter their details during the contracting stage, and also through all the tests, training and other procedures required prior to deployment. This reduced the internal administration in the business and gave the contractors access to their information.

The onboarding system allowed us full visibility of the contractor contacts of employment. These varied between clients.

The data in the onboarding system was then transferred into Intime (timesheets). This system was a heavily configured off the shelf system provided by RSM. We had to deal with multiple currencies, time zones, and contractual terms. This system was used to allow the contractors to input their time sheets and then the client to approve the time sheets, reducing internal administration.

The finance system then used the time sheet data to raise invoicing and to make contractor payments.

Finally, the payment data was transferred into our payments system which utilised local banking systems and the SWIFT international banking system. This allowed us to reduce the costs of paying hundreds of contractors in numerous countries and currencies. Our internal administration costs were also reduced as we no longer had to re-key all the information into the bank’s payment software.

THE OUTCOMES

The task of moving the 800+ contactors from the paper-based timesheets to the new electronic self-service system took 6 months. Transitioning both clients and contractors required selling the benefits to all parties.

The system reduced made processing timesheets, payments and invoicing easier, which led to less mistakes, a quicker process, a lighter workload and reduced costs.