For 19 years, J.O. Sims, the Spalding-based fresh fruit and fruit ingredients supplier, stayed with the same outsourced payroll provider, and for most of that time, things worked well.
“Across the course of those years, things worked very well,” Steve Colvin, Financial Controller explained. “People would come and go in terms of who was processing the payroll, but it was all very accurate, well run, and everything was in a good place.”
From specialists to software
That changed after their provider was bought out. What had once been a payroll specialist service gradually turned into a software provider, pushing clients towards a self-service platform and from JO Sims. perspective it felt like less and less access to people who were actually doing the payroll.
“We didn’t just want a nice, shiny software platform that we could use,” Steve explains. “We wanted experts to take our payroll, process it, prepare it, and make sure we’re compliant. That’s something they’d done successfully for many years, but their movement away from that just didn’t tick the box for us.”
With a small team involved in payroll day to day, taking on more of the process themselves wasn’t something J.O. Sims could accommodate.
“All that does is push it onto the customer,” Steve says, “and it was just something we couldn’t accommodate really.”
J.O. Sims had a head start when it came to finding a replacement – they already knew people on the Ascend team, including Stewart Waddell, from his previous work in the industry and this gave him confidence that Ascend would be able to deliver the service levels they wanted.
Onboarding without the upheaval
When discussing the requirements, Steve was keen that their existing processes could be accommodated. One thing he did appreciate was the flexibility that Ascend could offer.
Stewart visited J.O. Sims in person to talk through their existing payroll spreadsheet and reporting needs.
“There was very little he’d want to change on the payroll spreadsheet,” Steve remembers. “When we started talking about reports, it was very much ‘anything is possible, and it can be tailored around you’. It was slick, seamless, really.”
Software that stays out of the way
J.O. Sims uses Ascend’s Elementary platform for payslips and reports, and it’s grown alongside them since they joined.
Steve says, “There’s never been a point where we’ve not had access to the information we need when we need it. It’s just always been slick.”
Experts on hand when it matters
For Steve, having direct access to specialists rather than a platform has been exactly what J.O. Sims was looking for. Over the past 18 months, the team has called on Ascend for everything from pensions queries to help recovering a payment made after an employee left the business.
“Whenever there’s something that’s not quite right, Ascend has been able to give us access to the right people to help us work through it,” Steve says. “Our payroll contact is amazing. Her attention to detail is fantastic and our payroll is always highly accurate. It just works like clockwork every month.”
A payroll partner they can rely on
For J.O. Sims, moving to Ascend meant getting back to what outsourcing payroll should feel like: specialists who know their business, rather than a platform they have to manage themselves.
“We don’t want payroll to be a massive drain on time and resources,” Steve says. “We’ve got the confidence in Ascend to just take that away from us and give us the service and the specialism that we need.”
If you’re looking for a payroll partner who’ll treat you as more than a self-service account, we’d love to chat. Get in touch to find out how Ascend can take the stress out of your payroll.
