Case Study: Saving Time & Reducing Risk Using the Global Payroll Calendar

The CloudPay Product team is conducting extensive analysis to understand the impact our new calendar application can have on day-to-day payroll operations. CloudPay Calendar is a unified global payroll calendar that provides users with the end-to-end visibility into payroll deadlines, schedules, and workflows across the enterprise.

One of the key advantages of CloudPay Calendar is the ability for organizations to achieve a single view of all payroll schedules around the globe. Since CloudPay’s payroll service team relies on the same applications our customers use inside the CloudPay platform, that feature is proving highly beneficial to our internal staff’s efficiency, accuracy, and productivity.

Julie Stevens, a seasoned member of our service team who manages over two dozen payroll runs per month, has found that leveraging the consolidated Calendar view allows her to earn significant, measurable day-to-day time savings. To showcase how she achieves those savings, I sat down with her to see get a rundown of how Julie tracked her calendar deadlines in 2016 compared to how she manages them now.

THE POWER OF A CONSOLIDATED VIEW

As an EMEA International Payroll Jedi, Julie participates in 26 payroll runs and manages 20 individual payrolls every single month. Her efforts support our customers and in-country partner network as they collectively deliver accurate, timely, and compliant payroll. 

Calendar Tracking in 2016: Excel Templates & Manual Reviews

Last year, Julie tracked deadlines using our excel calendar templates. This meant she only had the ability to review and track deadline information at an individual payroll level – which, as she told me, “took ages.”

"You simply don't have time to check every calendar, every day,” Julie said.

In trying to identify how long 'ages' actually meant, we came up with the following formula for calculating an estimated amount of time Julie was spending tracking the calendar event deadlines across her payrolls each week.

• First, we calculate how long it takes to locate, open, and review a single calendar for pending and upcoming deadlines.
• Then, we multiply this by the number of individual payroll calendars being tracked and reviewed.
• Finally, we multiply the result by the number of times we need to check the calendars. 

In Julie's case specifically, that looks like this:

• Julie spent a rather modest 3 minutes locating, opening and reviewing an individual payroll calendar for the current day and next few days of deadlines.
• She conducted this open-and-review process across 20 individual payroll calendars
• On average, Julie reviewed a calendar 2 times per week. During busy or slow periods that number would fluctuate, but checking a calendar 6-8 times across a 30-day period was fairly typical.

2 hours (or 5%) of Julie's weekly time was being spent on simply tracking and reviewing calendar deadline information. That adds up to around 104 hours for a calendar year! And it's not because she's spending ‘ages’ each day reviewing calendars; after all, she's only spending 6 minutes reviewing each payroll calendar twice a week.

Calendar Tracking in 2017: Digital Schedules & Single-Screen Reviews

This year, Julie tracks deadlines using CloudPay Calendar. This means she has the ability to review and track deadline information across all payrolls in a single consolidated view – which, as she told me, is “brilliant!”

"I use the 'Agenda' view,” Julie said, “because everything you need is right there, in a single screen."

If we update our formula for calculating how long Julie now spends reviewing and tracking deadlines, (based on using CloudPay Calendar instead of our excel templates) it now looks something like this.

• Same – we’re still measuring how long it takes to locate, open, and review a calendar.
• Different – since we're no longer restricted to review calendar information individually by payroll, we only need to multiply this by the number of times we need to review our consolidated calendar view. 

So now, Julie’s weekly time spent tracking deadlines looks like this.

• Julie still only spends 3 minutes reviewing the deadlines and deliverables in her single consolidated view, even though it's covering a much larger scope. This is partly because she is utilizing the ‘Agenda’ view, which consolidates event deadlines from all selected payrolls, across the next 7 days, in an easy to follow list which is sorted by due date. It's also because she's reviewing her view at a much higher frequency, so doesn't need to 'remember' as much when she checks in.
• On average, Julie now checks her CloudPay Calendar view 3 times a day! Since she only needs to review one single view (instead of 20 individual templates), she can do it much more often.

The Results: Better Deadline Awareness & Minimized Risk of Delays

Clearly, Julie’s experience has changed a lot since last year. She is spending significantly less time reviewing calendar deadlines, even while increasing the frequency of deadline reviewing and planning.

"We've not missed a deadline yet,” said Julie. “And I no longer worry about them because I'm able to easily check all my upcoming deadlines, across all of my payrolls, multiple times a day." 

Now try it for yourself!  

To see the impact a single consolidated view could have on your organization? Use your information in our ‘formula sheet’ below and calculate for yourself. Let us know your results in the comments!