Dresser & Associates Drives Costs Down For Henley Enterprises

Payroll Expenses Decreased By 70%

Dresser & Associates showed us what we could save by bringing payroll in house - and that the savings could more than pay for the HR solution."

Bo Bowditch, HR Manager
Henley Enterprises.

Company Realizes Big Savings With In-house HR and Payroll

Henley Enterprises, Inc. owns 60 Valvoline Instant Oil Change franchises and 5 Aamco Transmission franchises spanning from New Hampshire to Florida. With 600 employees across 65 locations, the company requires a powerful and flexible payroll and human resources solution. The solution Henley Enterprises depends on is Sage HRMS, ably supported by Dresser & Associates of Scarborough, Maine.

Out With The Old

"We had a completely paper system in our HR department," recalls Bo Bowditch, HR manager at Henley Enterprises. "The paperwork had become unmanageable. We'd waste time looking for paperwork that was sitting at one of the locations. I knew it was time for a technology solution to meet our HR needs."

Kathy Pittsley, accounting manager at Henley Enterprises, was frustrated by the limitations of the company's outsourced payroll provider. "We were spending more than $100,000 every year for the service, but felt we were doing 90 percent of the work," she recalls. The final straw came when the service provider inadvertently postdated a batch of checks, preventing employees from cashing those checks on payday. "It was a mess - hard to resolve and just embarrassing for us and our employees."

Pittsley and Bowditch began analyzing human resource management software, interviewing several vendors. The successful vendor was Dresser & Associates, representing the Sage HRMS solution.

"We didn't initially plan to bring payroll in house; we were primarily shopping for an HR solution," says Bowditch. "But Dresser & Associates showed us what we could save by bringing payroll in house - and that the savings could more than pay for the HR solution."

Rapid and Significant Return

Payroll processing expenses, formerly in excess of $100,000 a year, are down to $30,000. Bowditch has run the numbers on the savings. Factoring in the software costs, hardware upgrades, and consulting fees, the company was only $18,000 from a break even point after the first year. "At the end of year two, we'll be up $40,000. By the end of the third year, we'll be up $100,000," he reports.

Dresser & Associates developed an import utility to bring data from the stores' point-of-sale soft-ware into the Sage HRMS database. Previously, staff collected paper timesheets from each store and manually keyed employees' hours into a spreadsheet which was then sent to the outsourced payroll service. "By eliminating the data entry, we save a full labor day each week," notes Pittsley. In addition, an interface brings summary payroll data into the company's Sage MAS 90 ERP software.

Tax Service Saves $15,000 Each Month

With employees in multiple states, tax compliance can be a burdensome task. "One of the things we liked about our payroll service provider was that they filed our payroll tax reports for us. That wasn't a task we wanted to tackle in house."

Dresser & Associates introduced Henley Enterprises to Sage Compliance Services, an outsourced tax reporting and filing service that completely automates this complex and time consuming task-and the solution integrates seamlessly with Sage HRMS.

"Sage Compliance Services is a godsend," remarks Pittsley. "We run payroll, and then simply upload a file – they handle the rest." Pittsley receives e-mail notifications from Sage Compliance Services of payments processed and upcoming payments due. "We have the best of both worlds.
In-house payroll that gives us total control, and outsourced tax filing so we don't have to do the paperwork and keep up with the requirements."

The savings, Henley Enterprises has found, are significant, "We pay just $1,000 a month for Sage Compliance Services," says Pittsley. "We were paying $4,000 per week for outsourced Payroll!"

HR Models Efficiency

Now, no time is wasted hunting through file cabinets or phoning a store location for information - all employment related documents are scanned and attached to the employees' records in Sage HRMS, so they are readily accessible when needed.

Using the software's flexible report writer, Bowditch is delivering strategic information to management. "We're looking at turnover rates now-when people leave and why," he explains. "Analyzing that information helps us make adjustments that increase our retention rates."

Like many employers, Henley Enterprises uses employee bonuses to attract, retain, motivate, and reward its staff. Bowditch says that before Sage HRMS HR was in place, the company struggled to develop a plan that was flexible, fair, and compliant with FLSA mandates. "We couldn't manage our bonus plan without the tools in Sage HRMS HR," he says. "Using the data we now have, we're able to remove subjectivity and remain in compliance with fair labor standards."

Sage HRMS and Dresser & Associates - driving efficiency higher and payroll costs lower for Henley Enterprises.

Read more customer testimonials, or contact Dresser & Associates to discuss how we can help meet your business' HR needs.