From humble beginnings in 1974, when founder Nigel Cope developed a traditional recipe all-butter tablet fudge in his family kitchen, Cottage Delight now has a range of more than 700 speciality foods. This growth has seen its staffing levels increase significantly too, with the organisation now employing nearly 200 people, as well as taking on casual staff to meet seasonal demand.
With a series of complex staff rotas and pay bands to administer, the organisation decided its payroll systems were in need of an upgrade. Gary Bowcock, IT manager at Cottage Delight, says: “Our previous payroll system had been in place since 2003 and was seriously antiquated. It wasn’t very user friendly and, because only one person could use it at a time, running payroll was very time consuming.”
After evaluating the systems that were available, the organisation selected Carval’s HR Unity Payroll system. “It’s allowed us to pass some of the responsibilities down to the departmental managers,” says Bowcock.
The system went live in June 2016, cutting the time it took to administer payroll from two days a week to just over two hours.
And, while there is plenty of change scheduled for payroll this year, Bowcock is not worried. “Carval provides us with two releases a year covering off all the changes,” he says. “We also have access to [its] online support portal, which contains all the information we need about any changes in legislation or taxation. It’s a huge improvement.”