How PensionBee automated their payroll to support their scale-up growth phase with Pento

Growing payroll from a start-up to a scale-up

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Getting from ‘startup’ to ‘scale-up’ means growing at a rocketing rate—and this was exactly the case with PensionBee, the UK’s fastest-growing pension provider. After reaching the 100 employee mark, the HR team at PensionBee recognised the need for payroll automation as one of the key areas to support their scale-up phase.

Before, they would rely on an outsourced payroll provider but it turned out a productivity-killer rather than a time-saver. They had to fill out spreadsheets internally, review pay changes with each manager, and double-check every step.

And, while these challenges are nothing unusual for such a fast-growing business, the HR team at PensionBee quickly realised that an urgent change was required.
That change came under the name of Pento. Read on to hear the whole story.

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Payroll outsourcing at PensionBee: Boon turned pain

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• ƒManual process and frustrated team
• External payroll provider required a lot of internal input with filling out and reviewing payroll spreadsheets, confirming bonuses, overtime, and the like.
• Creating dedicated project management tasks around collecting data from HR.
• Endless back-and-forth to finalise pay changes with managers.
• Waiting on the external provider to implement the smallest of changes.
• Maintaining multiple employee databases in excel spreadsheets and People Management app due to lack of integration with HR software.
• Growing anxiety because of the likelihood of human error.

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Outsourcing payroll doesn’t work beyond 100 employees

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Pento + PensionBee = payroll streamlined

Immediate decision to switch: ‘When our CEO, Remi, sent the Pento demo video to the team, we were sold immediately,’ remembers Emily. It was obvious from the get-go that Pento will save a lot of time and effort for the PensionBee team.

Smooth onboarding experience: ‘The support has been excellent, everyone is efficient, friendly and on hand when we need them. At kick-off, Pento’s team saved us at least a day of work with the data input to the new system.’

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Complete control of everything payroll

Salary changes and bonuses: With an outsourced provider, making edits to each month’s payroll and adding months with bonuses or adjustments would take up to a week. Now, the PensionBee team can get it done in a few hours.

‍Payroll review: With Pento, PensionBee slashed the time it takes to prepare and review the payroll file for the bank. Before, it took a day. Now, all employee and payment information is centralised. Auditing takes less than an hour.‍

Final approval: Pento’s process lets PensionBee make last-minute tweaks easily. With the external provider, PensionBee was blocked 3 days before payday. Now, the finance team can give their approval up until the night before payday.

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One source of truth for payroll and HR data

Real-time HR integration with Hibob: Pento’s Hibob integration was quick to set up and even easier to use. Now, all employee, payment, and tax information entered into HiBob is automatically updated in Pento so there’s no need to maintain duplicate databases.

Automation prevents human errors: ‘The more manual the payroll process is, the more likely human errors are,’ Emily from PensionBee says. Pento automates multiple stages of the payroll process like duplicating employee data for payroll, calculating taxes, benefits, and pensions. There is no room for silly mistakes and the stress that comes with it.

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User-friendly payroll platform

Unparalleled ease of use: ‘We were blown away by how simple to use Pento was,’ recalls Emily. The four-minute demo video was enough to get all the key stakeholders in HR and Finance convinced that Pento would be the tool to ease all their payroll struggles.