CASE STUDY #1:
Retailer Replaces ADP Payroll Software with
Sage Payroll Software and Unitime Time and
Attendance, Reduces System Costs by Half
CASE STUDY #2:
ACG Satisfies Complex Payroll
Requirements for Cincinnati Bengals,
using Abra Payroll CASE STUDY #3:
Abra Payroll and ACG Support Allow
Manager at Prominent Foodservice Firm
to Handle HR and Accounting Without Staff CASE STUDY #4:
ACG Accounting and IT Solution Allows
Importer to Aggressively Grow Sales –
with Minimal Added Labor
CASE STUDY #5:
Retirement Community Eliminates Errors and
Inflexibility with ACG Abra / Unitime Solution. CASE STUDY #6:
Automotive Tier 1 Reduces Costs, Gains Flexibility
with Abra Suite, Unitime, Sage FAS. CASE STUDY #7:
Social Service Agency Simplifies Management of
Client and Worker Populations with Tools and ACG. CASE STUDY #5:
Retirement Community Eliminates
Errors and Inflexibility with ACG
Abra / Unitime Solution Twin Towers is a CCRC – continuing care retirement community – with
locations near downtown Cincinnati, and in Montgomery, a leafy, upscale
suburb. Its villa-style 2000 sq. ft patio homes, apartments and assisted
living facilities are home to 1000 residents. There are 550 full-time staff,
employed by four companies. Payroll is managed by 1.5 people at each
of the two campuses. Thad Wessel was named Comptroller at Twin Towers in 2000, when the
company was beginning to evolve away from a payroll service to in-house
payroll and time and attendance. “Nursing staffs are highly patient-focused,” says Wessel, “and, as a group,
not well-disciplined in doing what’s needed to get paid accurately. There
were multiple follow-up checks needed, as well as efforts to determine
whether various ‘exception items’ were the result of employee error –
or something else. It was very time-consuming. “Each of our twelve departments,” he explains, “had a timekeeper who
was responsible for validating hours, approving overtime and irregularities,
and transmitting information to the payroll service. The decision to replace
the service with ACG’s Abra product was made after another community
we know took this step, with excellent results.” ACG installed Abra at Twin Towers in June, 2000. “ACG did an
exceptional job with training and ongoing support –they’re very responsive,”
says Wessel. Three Sage upgrades since then have been completed
seamlessly. “We particularly like the query reporting function with Abra,”
says Wessel. “ In simple English, you select the database from which you
want to retrieve information, which prompts a screen with the existing fields.
Choose one, then select your criteria, whether ‘active employees’ or
employees on leave’ or whatever. It walks you through, with no spread
sheet or other special skills required.” In 2004, Wessel worked with ACG to replace a Kronos system with Unitime
for time and attendance tracking. “Kronos was part of the deal with the
3rd party time service,” explains Wessel. “Information was collected through
their terminals. What happened was, Kronos decided to integrate time and
attendance with their own payroll systems and we were effectively handcuffed.
The time clocks were proprietary – serving Kronos only. If you bought another
time and attendance package, you had to buy new time clocks. We needed
new ones, so it made sense for us to look at all of our options. We decided
to go with new service and hardware, so if we made software changes later,
our timeclocks can be modified to accommodate this. “In a previous position,” he adds, “I had used Kronos, and those proprietary
limitations were what I didn’t like. When I arrived at Twin Towers, my first
thought was, ‘well, here we go again.’ The replacement clocks from Kronos, according to Wessel, read a bar
code imbedded in employee badges to record time worked. A Kronos
timeclock is $2400, he notes, and there are inherent challenges. “You
have to administer and track the badges, There is the phenomena of
‘badge sharing’ - and lost badges.” In contrast, the Unitime system uses
a biometric clock that reads a handprint. “There’s no need for badges,
and no opportunity for mischief. And, it’s the same price. On the rare
occasions that the clock fails to read the hand image, the employee uses
a dedicated phone to alert his timekeeper. It goes to voicemail, and there’s
a time stamp on the call. “Interestingly, though, there are no more ‘distress’ calls now that we have
the biometric system. You can’t beat the clock, so there’s no more blaming
the clock. Nursing is a highly creative profession in many ways and we think
the Unitime system anticipates and works with this reality.” Each department timekeeper at Twin Towers can access the Unitime data,
and can see, on a daily basis, any exceptions. “So,” explains Wessel, “if
someone didn’t arrive on time, or departed before the specified time, the
exception can be overridden - or not. Also, information flow between Abra
and Unitime is excellent. So if we interview a candidate who is subsequently
hired, the information can be processed into Unitime at the next available
download – there’s no re-entry needed.” The system will also change employee demographics, and confidential
information can be blanked from Unitime if needed. “If you don’t want
supervisors to see hourly rate, or a social security or phone number,
this access can be restricted. But you can selectively grant a supervisor
access. This is an intelligent system that also helps with confidentiality
requirements.” It’s also simple to change information the information that transacts
between systems. “Our timekeepers have unique log-in/ password
combinations, and can only view the information of employees they’re
responsible for. One more key capability,” adds Wessel, “is that we
can make changes so that if an employee has a new address, his file
can be updated in Unitime and it will flow up into Abra. Doing this at the
department level eliminates the forms you’d otherwise have to do for HR,
and avoids human error. “For our purposes,” says Wessel, “Unitime has proved to be far much
more effective than the Kronos configuration. We particularly like being
able to keep payroll personnel out of the business of answering employee
questions regarding accrued vacation and other items. We have found
that payroll problems do not occur because there’s a problem in payroll,
but because hours aren’t calculated properly. This can now be handled
at the local level - and it gives the timekeeper more credibility. They
can immediately see on a screen, and tell the employee, what hours
of vacation remain, for example. “It also helpful when employees formally assigned to one department
temporarily work elsewhere. You set it up in both systems, and specify
the same hourly rate, or a different one. The system incorporates the
change, and not only allows you to see where they are scheduled to
be working, but that they are working. “ Bringing these functions in-house, according to Wessel, has improved
flexibility and responsiveness, compared to outsourcing. “Unitime T&A,
is easier to use and intuitive; timekeepers who use it have become very
effective. We certainly didn’t see that with the old system, which was
text-based and intimidating for those who didn’t have high levels of
computer skills. With Abra and Unitime, we were also able to defer
hiring an additional payroll person, which would have been necessary
had we stayed with the original system. The Unitime-Abra combination
has a lot of advantages, and the interface is something we really never
have to think about.” Regarding tech support, “ACG is our first line of defense,” says Wessel.
“They always provide answers the same day. Our training experience
was also very smooth. There was a 10-day window for set-up and
building the payroll. ACG gave us options for training users and we
chose to spread one day of training over two days. Their training was
thorough and comprehensive; we periodically bring them back in
for updates.” Most recently, ACG installed Crystal Reports on both Abra and Unitime.
“This is ideal”, says Wessel, “because if you need something out of the
ordinary, both use query reporting, and you can readily retrieve information
from the historical database of either one.” Twin Towers’ next plan is a move toward employee self-service.
Abra will reportedly enable this in 18 months or so. The new capability will
also allow the remote transmission of information.
The upgrade from Kronos time and attendance to Unitime at Twin Towers
paid for itself in less than one year. It has also allowed Twin Towers to
defer the hiring of an additional person to manage payroll.
ACG also helped City Newstand upgrade from Kronos time and
attendance to Unitime.
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