Organization
merchandising company (name confidential)
This company is a full-service merchandising company based in Virginia. They provide experienced merchandising teams to help companies like Kraft, Purina, and Albertsons, show their products to consumers at the right time and place. They help drive sales for their clients by setting up displays, performing demonstrations, and setting up and rotating product displays at various retail locations.
Location: Virginia, USA
Industry: Retail/Merchandising
Company size: 100+ employees
Challenges
At a given time, the company can have hundreds of part-time representatives assigned to various locations for merchandising. They needed to simplify merchandising employee scheduling across hundreds of employees and locations while reducing staff time spent on time and attendance, billing, and payroll.
The company’s small team of office staff created schedules manually in Excel. This was a time-consuming task, as schedules changed weekly depending on their clients’ projects. In addition, staff spent about two hours every day calling the representatives, checking to make sure they could work the scheduled shifts.
Each week, they would also manually enter the hours representatives worked from paper faxes into Excel. Then, they would manually calculate payroll hours and billable hours to clients.
“Using a spreadsheet for employee scheduling for several hundred stores was very difficult and forced us to calculate billing manually. We needed a solution that works in our dynamic environment where we could get data in and out quickly.”
Company President/CEO
They needed a system that allowed them to reduce the time spent on scheduling and automatically communicated shift details to employees. They also needed a system that provided a real-time record of attendance, immediately ready to report to clients, and for accuracy in payroll and billing.
Solution
Celayix simplified the scheduling process by allowing staff to quickly assign representatives shifts based on their skills and availability. The system also automatically emails schedules to the reps, eliminating the need for staff to call them directly. Representatives can now call into the system to check in and out of their shifts and Celayix records the exact time of the call for accurate attendance tracking.
“Payroll and billing are more accurate; we speed up cash flow and reduce busywork for internal staff. $22,000 in savings is more than half the cost of an employee. I can invest those savings in benefits to retain current employees.”
company President/CEO
Results
Faster Scheduling
With Celayix in place, the company moved from manual scheduling with Excel, to automated scheduling online. Now, schedules can be created in minutes, using features like autofill. Shifts can be filled automatically with best fit representatives based on any rules/qualifications as set out by management. Schedule changes can also be made in seconds, with no hassle. The Celayix system will find & suggest replacement representatives at the touch of a button. This makes life easier for the office team and resulted in less time spent managing schedules in general.
Now that the company has a system in place for scheduling communication and attendance tracking, both representatives and office staff save time from the elimination of old processes. For the office staff, they save time from the scheduling process, calling reps, and manual data entry. For the reps, they get their schedule delivered right to them, and they no longer need to fax in their timesheets for payroll.
Improved communication & Client relations
Celayix notifies office staff if a shift is missed or if a representative is late. Instead of waiting for the client to report attendance issues, the company can now find a replacement quickly with Celayix. Thanks to the Find Replacement feature we mentioned above, the company can send replacement staff to client locations ASAP. By ensuring that all shifts are covered, and being able to guarantee replacement representatives at the drop of a hat, the company saw huge improvements in client relations.
Reduced payroll processing time and faster billing
Previously, the company had to wait until the end of the week to gather timesheets, and then process billing and payroll. Now that the team can track scheduling and employee attendance in one system, the office team can easily process payroll and billing as soon as the shift is complete. Celayix automatically keeps track of pay rates for employees, and calculates it based on actual hours worked.
“With Celayix, everything is in one place. Payroll went from one-and-a-half days to minutes.”
Company President/CEO
For payroll, the company simply pulls reports in Celayix and electronically submits that file to its outside payroll processing company – significantly cutting down manual processing time each week.
Celayix also communicates employee attendance data directly into its Quickbooks application for billing, expediting invoicing and payments from clients.
“Celayix allows me to speed up the invoice process, so we get invoices out more quickly.”
Company President/CEO
As an added benefit, the company has access to detailed reporting within Celayix. They send employee attendance reports each morning – before 8:30 – to their clients showing requested tasks and what was fulfilled. Schedulers can also generate Other reports to support decision-making and financial planning.
Cost-savings of $22,000
With time-savings across merchandising employee scheduling, check-in/out, time-sheet validation, invoicing and payroll, the CEO estimates that his company saves more than 30 hours every week. That’s the equivalent of more than $22,000 worth of labor. His office staff has remained the same, however, they now spend more time on higher-value tasks.
“I’m a small business. Celayix allows me to get data faster to clients so they know we’re doing a good job. Payroll and billing are more accurate, we speed up cash flow and reduce busywork for internal staff. Twenty-two thousand dollars in savings is more than half the cost of an employee. I can invest those savings in benefits to retain current employees.”
Company President/CEO
These savings represent the return on your investment when you come on board with Celayix. With us, not only do you save time and money, but you also free up resources to improve other areas of your business. If you’d like to see how much money you could save with us, visit our ROI Calculator!
