Baker Tilly, a leading provider of accounting and business services has reduced its human resource (HR) system costs by 75% as a result of moving to a HR system from Advanced Business Solutions (ABS), formerly COA Solutions. ABS’s HR system went live in May 2010 and has enabled improved absence monitoring of Baker Tilly’s 1800 staff and more efficient HR processes.
Baker Tilly had outgrown its previous, restrictive HR system and was reliant upon external IT consultants to continually re-configure the system to fulfil its needs. A more flexible HR system to support the business moving forward was needed and after a rigorous tendering process, Advanced Business Solutions’ HR system was selected due to its strong reporting tools, ease of use and configurability.
Alison Wilkinson, National HR Manager for Baker Tilly, says, “Since implementing ABS’s HR system, we have cut our HR system costs by 75% largely due to eradicating the need for external IT consultants. Any system changes can be made ourselves as ABS’s HR is extremely flexible and user-friendly. We expect a return on our investment in just two years.”
Using ABS’s HR system, Baker Tilly can more easily monitor staff absence and can determine and take action to reduce the real costs of absenteeism. As the organisation charges out its fee-earning staff at hourly rates, absenteeism directly impacts Baker Tilly’s revenue and profits, making absence monitoring and reduction a key priority.
Wilkinson says, “With time and attendance reports instantly available, we can now more closely monitor staff absence and can take appropriate steps to reduce absence levels. We also plan to build-in automated alerts to advise managers of particular issues that need focus, such as a sudden increase in Monday absences. This will provide even greater control over our workforce.”
ABS’s HR system is also cutting time-consuming HR administration, considerably improving efficiency. Before ABS’s system, it would take one week to manually enter salary review information from spreadsheets onto the HR system. Now the same information can be uploaded within minutes.
Wilkinson adds, “Advanced Business Solutions’ HR system has considerably cut manual data entry. We can now import 800 lines of pensions data from spreadsheets directly into the ABS system in just 30 seconds whereas before it would take a member of staff many hours to manually enter this same data. With so much administration now eliminated, the HR team can operate far more efficiently, adding greater value to the organanisation.”
