NetEffects: Cultivating a Culture of Expansion
Growth is the most coveted reward for a successful staffing company, and St. Louis-based NetEffects has grown every year since its inception in 1995. As it has reaped the many benefits of sustained growth, NetEffects also has had to make sound and productive strategic decisions to shape an environment that cultivates future expansion.
“One of the most important decisions we made was to maintain a low-overhead organization, with minimal staffing in administrative areas,” explains Claire Nottingham, Chief Financial Officer. “That meant we really had to go outside and buy administrative services like time and billing and payroll from experts that could help us manage our growth.”
Leveraging Internet Power and Capabilities
“We found that one of the best companies to serve the staffing industry is BusinessWare Service, Inc. – BWSI. They’re knowledgeable, accommodating and creative,” she notes. “We must have evaluated about 40 other staffing systems before we selected BWSI and their TempWizard software solution. It provides an easy-to-use, integrated approach to our administrative requirements, it’s attractively priced for our size business, and implementation was painless.”
Internet-based and intuitive TempWizard staffing industry software took NetEffects’ back-office work environment to a whole new level of technology-driven efficiency. Nottingham recalls,
“Before BWSI’s TempWizard we were using Excel spread sheets to record data, written timecards to collect consultants’ time, and off-the-shelf software for billing. All this required multiple entries and redundant keying of data, depending on how you wanted to use the data.”
With TempWizard, time sheet information is input and automatically updates billing, general ledger and payroll.
“The greatest thing about BWSI is that nothing is ever broken,” the CFO observes. “We’ve probably called their service people two times with a problem. Their billing solution provides us with the ability to bill in a more timely fashion with a very high degree of accuracy. From my perspective, their solution is bulletproof.”
Another great thing about BWSI is the value its solutions add. For one thing, their TempWizard software application made it simple, easy and convenient for NetEffects to migrate to ADP’s payroll and tax filing services.
Keeping Pace with the Client’s Growing Needs
“We were a relatively small company with a high growth rate and we simply outgrew the capabilities of our original payroll service provider, a small company in Illinois,” explains Nottingham. “With offices in Chicago and San Francisco, and consultants working in different tax jurisdictions around the country, we needed the services of a firm that could easily handle the increased complexity that business growth was bringing our way.”
Expert Administrative Assistance with Compliance Requirements
Each pay period, NetEffects uses BWSI’s TempWizard to provide payroll data to ADP. With billing data and time sheet information already housed in TempWizard, accurate payroll data is easily extracted and fed directly into ADP PayrollSM. Checks are processed by ADP and provided to NetEffects, ready for distribution.
“With ADP, the whole issue of redundant keying of data simply went away for payroll and tax filing,” she notes. Nottingham is also impressed by ADP’s accuracy. “I’ve tracked their performance and their margin of error is less than .1%. That’s an accurate payroll solution. They’re a very good company with a very stable set of solutions.”
ADP’s payroll tax filing service removes yet another headache from the CFO’s plate: the heavy burden of tax and regulatory noncompliance.
“ADP has been managing compliance issues for a long time and they have experience with every jurisdiction you can think of,” says Nottingham. “Just as important, they have the staff to keep up-to-date with the latest rules and regulations, and they assume the responsibility for accurate and timely filings.”
A Measurable Return on Investment
NetEffects’ CFO measures the overall value of BWSI’s and ADP’s solutions in terms of a huge expense that was avoided – new hires.
“In each case, I see ROI expressed in the number of full-time employees (FTEs) that we would have had to hire to do all the things that BWSI and ADP provide,” she says. “I think we would be looking at two FTE hires, one for staffing and billing and another for payroll and tax compliance. I’m also convinced that no FTE would ever be as accurate, knowledgeable and responsive as BWSI> and ADP has been for us.”
Seamless Integration and Streamlined Workflow
“I think everyone in the staffing industry is looking for the best way to handle complicated business processes in the best way possible,” she notes. “The combined administrative solutions offered by BWSI and ADP are attractive because they are stable, accurate, use proven technology to the fullest, and are backed up by very responsive client service teams.”
Nottingham concludes, “As a staffing company we basically need to manage the relationship we have with our clients, through efficient and precise billing, and the relationship we have with our consultants, through timely and accurate payrolls. BWSI and ADP are individual companies with great solutions. Together, they’re seamless – the ‘one stop shop’ that we need to help us meet our administrative requirements as we keep growing.”