Table of contents
| 1 | Overview |
| 2 | About Cerebral Palsy Alliance? |
| 3 | Challenges in Payroll Management |
| 4 | Pay run processing |
| 5 | Key business outcomes |
| 6 | Download full case study [PDF] |
Overview
Recently, we heard from Daniel Watson (Senior Payroll Manager at Cerebral Palsy Alliance) to understand how he is setting a new standard for operational excellence in payroll.
In this article, we will outline how Daniel has transformed his payroll department with the use of Paytools, enabling his team to:
💎 Reduce their time to run the payroll process by an entire day
💎 Significantly improve team development and onboarding for new starters
💎 Embed better transparency and governance practices across payroll
About Cerebral Palsy Alliance
Founded in 1945 CPA is a non-profit organisation with 2,700 employees dedicated to improving the lives of individuals with cerebral palsy. Their payroll team of seven professionals manages complex salary packaging and a fortnightly pay cycle using systems like Workday, Roster Space, and Preceda, alongside Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.
Challenges in Payroll Management
CPA faced several issues, including
-
- Lack of a shared payroll calendar: Everything was managed in people’s heads.
- Manual Excel checklists: A pay run took four days to complete.
- Paper-based processes: Documentation was ahrd to find and update.
- No audit trail: Difficult to track when and by whom processes were completed.
- Informal issue management: No systematic way to log and resolve issues.
- Ineffective risk management: Managed via an Excel spreadsheet.
Pay run processing
How payroll was operating before
6 months ago, CPA’s payroll process was managed through a 30-page printed Word checklist (originally created in 2017), requiring manual updates and physical handling.
This out-dated way of working made the pay run process heavily reliant on memory and vulnerable to error, especially when key team members were on leave or had moved on.
After being introduced to Paytools work management software, Daniel realised he could boost payroll efficiency quickly and without a huge investment – which then drove a business improvement initiative for CPA.
After Paytools
CPA transformed its payroll process by replacing the outdated checklist with an online schedule and live calendar. The integration of Paytools brought about:
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- Streamlined pay runs: Tasks are completed accurately by 5pm instead of 7pm.
- Improved issue management: Proactive loggin and categorisation of payroll-related issues.
- Enhanced team learning: A Learning and Development module tracks training progress.
- Upgraded risk management: Transitioned from Excel-based to proactive risk response plans.
- Comprehensive audit tracking: All activities are logged and easily filtered.
Key Business Outcomes
Implementing Paytools led to significant benefits:
-
- Reduced burnout: Efficient processes allowed tasks to be completed by 5pm.
- Enhanced onboarding: Training time for new staff reduced from six months to one month
- Smoother system migrations: Easier payroll migration projects
- Embedded governance: Transparency in payroll operations and risk management
- More time for critical tasks: Reduced open customer service cases from 600 to 16 in six months
Download the full case study
Want to learn more about how CPA uses Paytools? Download our case study today to get more in-depth insights, real-life examples and images from the tool. Discover how you can achieve similar results.
This case study covers:
- Payroll challenges CPA was able to solve including pay run processing, issue management, team learning and more.
- Key business outcomes of using Paytools.
- How CPA got started with Paytools and what’s next in their radar.
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