Stuart and Belinda Griffin have saved time implementing PaySauce to manage payroll.
Dairy farmers in Victoria and NSW are starting to use a payroll system that is saving them considerable time processing their obligations to employees.
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Financial technology company, PaySauce, has landed in Australia with their newly-introduced smartphone App that promises to simplify Australia’s complex payroll legislation.
Dairy farmers Belinda and Stuart Griffin, of Westbury, were among the pilot group of Victorian and NSW dairy farmers who trialled PaySauce. They were impressed by the speed and compliance of the program, and the support for themselves as customers.
Belinda said they participated in the pilot program because they were looking for a new payroll system that complemented their staffing arrangements and business systems.
Westbury dairy farmer Belinda Griffin, with Bayley Budin and Asantha Wijeyeratne from PaySauce.
The couple share-farm on Stuart’s parents farm at Westbury, milking 500 seasonal-calving cows.
They have recently changed their milking infrastructure from a herringbone to a 50-unit rotary dairy.
Belinda said they employ five permanent and a couple of casual staff.
“Our permanent staff are part-time employees and the casuals are still within the secondary education system,” she said.
Belinda Griffin (front) with PaySauce Bayley Budin, founder and CEO Asantha Wijeyeratne, executive director Chris Ridd and Melanie Shortlan and Meena Berry.
Stuart and Belinda were using a couple of software programs for rostering staff and themselves, and for accounting for timesheets, then calculating into payroll, making the appropriate adjustments for annual or other leave, paying tax and superannuation — it was a long and laborious process that used multiple software programs and added stress to their lives.
“We were basically inputting data into one system and then copying that across into another system. It was all done manually,” Belinda said.
“We wanted a one-stop process that met how we structure our staffing.”
A couple of years previously, Belinda and Stuart demonstrated their system during a fact-finding tour in Australia by PaySauce staff.
Two years later, they were offered access to a new App. It enables them to do everything on their phones.
“I asked, how much is it?” Belinda said.
“Bottom line, I’m a business owner. I need to make sure it’s going to work.”
The couple participated in the recent trial.
“We were right in the middle of calving season, so it wasn’t ideal timing for us,” Belinda said.
“But we wanted a new payroll system.
“Stu mostly got all the data that they asked for, because he’s more a numbers person than I am.
“We went live on the day we were supposed to, and we were the first Australian business to do a live payroll with PaySauce.”
Belinda said the PaySauce system accommodated Australia’s Pastoral Award 2020, but adapted to their own needs.
“We like to pay employees their overtime fortnightly, because we think that’s fair,” Belinda said.
“When we do a pay, we want to know it’s legal. PaySauce has a specialised staff member that makes sure everything we’re doing is up-to-date and accurate for the Pastoral Award requirements.”
Belinda said the new system was also more efficient.
“It used to take overnight for our pays to go through. Now we just push a button, and they’re all paid within 10 minutes and you can watch the payment go through to each person,” she said.
“We actually do the pays on Thursday night and they used to go into each person’s bank account on Friday. Now they’re going into their accounts on Thursday night.”
Belinda said the software program also highlighted potential errors before payment, so she or Stuart could check – and paying overtime fortnightly rather than monthly was one of those potential error messages they can now accommodate.
“It’s a user-friendly and counter-intuitive system,” Belinda said.
“It also enabled us to go on holiday and do all the pays quickly and easily on our phone.
“Before using PaySauce, Stu would’ve taken an hour and a half to do the pays each fortnight, and we would’ve had to take the computer with us on holiday to do them.”
PaySauce CEO Asantha Wijeyeratne said PaySauce simplified the complexity of processing Australia’s payroll system, and included timesheets, leave approvals, automated tax payments, superannuation management, and ensured compliance with awards.
Ross Wallis, a dairy farmer at Raglan, New Zealand, has been using the PaySauce system for several years and said he spent less than five minutes a fortnight processing payroll.
“All I do now is ask each employee to close their fortnightly hours out,” he said.
Ross said he experienced less stress and was more confident now, than he was using previous payroll programs.
“Payroll was an absolute nightmare,” he said.
“It was a lot of stress. I had to take the information from one program and take it across to another program.
“For each employee, that took half an hour.
“I could never work out what holiday pay was due, what holiday time was left.
“Now I know I’m on top of legislative requirements and I’m doing it right.”
Asantha said a key advantage of PaySauce was the customer helpline.
Belinda agreed. She said she was able to phone for help when she needed it, and deal with someone who understood the complexities of complying with the Australian payroll system.
“PaySauce is a single, integrated platform providing end-to-end payroll that seamlessly handles rostering, timesheets, complex award calculations and single-touch payroll-tax filing,” he said.
“We have also developed the program to integrate payments via Australia’s new payments platform, and be compliant with new Australian legislation.
“We believe all of these features will resonate with the 46,000 people working on Australia’s 4000 dairy farms, reducing complexity, saving them time and delivering peace of mind.”
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