Meantime Case Studies

Bespoke business systems save Entrust £20k per year

Entrust Social Care is an temporary employment agency for social workers operating within the public sector in the Midlands and north west of England. With 100 social workers on its books, the company has grown beyond recognition since it was formed in 2002.

But as the company grew, so did its administration systems, and Entrust’s commercial director. Ian Brindley, found himself spending two days each week repetitively inputting timesheets and contract details into his simple spreadsheets.

Although he was familiar with the spreadsheet software and had utilised many of its complex functionality, the sheer volume of data he had to input each week meant that Ian’s system was eating into his time and preventing him from expanding his agency.

“The system I developed was okay for a small number of people, but it was proving far too time consuming as the agency grew,” he explains. “And on top of that, there was only limited validation – it was subject to human error, and with the volume of data I was inputting that was a very real risk.”

Operating an employment agency for social workers within the public sector brings many rules and regulations, and all these had to be taken into consideration with Ian’s manual system.

“I have to record all the social workers’ contracts, hold details of all the clients, all our workers, each contract that those workers were assigned to, what their pay rates were – and there are many different rates – and what the charge to the client would be,” explains Ian. “Then, when a social worker finished one contract and started another, I had to do it all again. To do all that manually was taking up most of my time.”

So, recognising that he had to make significant changes to his administration procedures if he was to grow his business, Ian contacted Meantime IT, a company which specialises in creating bespoke software that automates business systems and lets key personnel concentrate on fee-earning tasks rather than spending increasing amounts of time on administration.

“I used to work in IT, so I knew there was a much simpler solution than the one I had,” says Ian. “I knew in theory what I wanted my administration systems to do, I just needed someone to develop and implement them for me.”

Fenner Pearson is Meantime’s managing director. “Ensuring that the locums are paid promptly is one of the most important parts of Entrust’s business so Ian felt it was something that he had to do personally,” he says. “Yet unfortunately manually inputting the necessary details – basic time, overtime, expenses, bonuses – meant time Ian was tied up with boring, repetitive and time consuming work instead of managing and expanding his company.”

So Fenner and his team spent time with Ian, questioning him about his business, the specific issues he faced and the possible solutions.

“When we found out exactly what Ian wanted to be able to do, we designed a database that would store every detail Ian needed about his clients and his locums; pay rates, tax rates, contract details – everything. Then we created a very user-friendly administration layer that would enable Ian to add and maintain his data.

“The next step was to provide Ian with an easy to use interface which would allow him to simply select the locum, choose the client they were working for, enter the number of hours they’d worked and add in any expenses. Then, all Ian had to do was press a button to obtain a single report that gave the details of all the payments required for each locum.”

As a result of his automated systems, Ian was able to slash the time he spent on administration from two days a week to just 2 hours.

“The system has a clear cost benefit to Ian – a one-off cost has freed up 40% of his working time,” says Fenner. “This gave him more time to grow his business, as well as the confidence to manage his additional workload. It also provides Ian with vital management information within seconds. Who are his best clients? Which clients aren’t as profitable?”

Ian continues: “Once we’d transferred the data from the spreadsheets to the automated system, all the information I needed to generate each week was entirely automated. Some of our workers operate a PAYE system, others are self-employed, and our recruitment consultants operate on a commission basis, so to be able to have all those variables built into the system has saved us an immeasurable amount of processing time. Now, we just put in the number of hours each person has worked, click a button and the payment schedule is generated within minutes.”

The systems that Meantime created for Entrust have enabled the company to channel their investments into staff that will help to grow the business, rather than cope with the increasing demands of administration. Entrust currently employs seven recruitment consultants and just two administrative members of staff.

“Meantime’s system has saved us a significant amount of operational overheads and saved me at least one member of administration staff, to the tune of at least £20,000 each year” says Ian. “Without it, we simply wouldn’t have been able to expand the way we have.”

And, as Entrust continues to grow, so do the demands on their administration systems. “The beauty of our software is that, because it was designed specifically for us, we can add to it whenever necessary and it will adapt and grow with us,” says Ian. “And, more importantly, we haven’t had a single second of downtime since it was implemented.”