Case studies by Meantime IT

The problem

With 100 social workers on its books, Entrust Social Care has grown beyond recognition since it was formed in 2002. The success of the temporary employment agency for social workers in the Midlands and north-west of England saw its commercial director, Ian Brindley, spending two full days each week manually inputting timesheets and contract details into spreadsheets. 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.

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

Ian Brindley, commercial director

What we did

We designed a database that would store every detail Ian needed to know about his clients and his locums; pay rates, tax rates, contract details. 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.