PRESS RELEASE
Pharmaceutical Supplier Moves Over 3,500 Staff to New Monthly Payroll with Help from COA Solutions

February 2009 – Phoenix Medical Supplies, a UK distributor of pharmaceutical products and services to community pharmacists, dispensing doctors and hospital pharmacies, is paying tribute to COA Solutions’ human resource (HR) and payroll system for helping the company to move from a combined payroll to a monthly payroll. The benefits realised from this project include 33,600 less payslips produced and postage costs reduced from £61,000 to £28,000.

Phoenix Medical

This complicated project, which required moving more than 3,500 Phoenix Group staff to a new monthly payroll paid in arrears, subsequently won a Payroll Team of the Year Award as well as a Payroll Manager of the Year Award at the Pay Magazine Annual Pay Awards 08. Phoenix Medical’s payroll team were praised by the judges for the committed way the team approached the project and their willingness to share knowledge. Phoenix Medical Supplies’ Jacky Mansfield, the winner of the Payroll Manager of the Year Award, was honoured for the way she led the team through this very complex project.

Jacky Mansfield, Group Payroll Manager from Phoenix Medical Supplies, says “COA Solutions’ HR and payroll system was vital to the success of our move to a new monthly payroll from a combination of payrolls and us subsequently winning Pay Awards for this project.”

Mansfield continues, “It was essential that we moved more than 3,500 staff from our retail part of the business to the new monthly payroll whilst maintaining the current pay system, which wasn’t an easy task within such tight timescales. COA Solutions’ system, which is incredibly easy to use, enabled us to quickly and easily move records electronically. This, together with the hard work of the payroll team and dedication and support of the IT, HR and operations teams, ensured the project was fulfilled on time and without problems. We now produce 33,600 less payslips and have cut postage costs from £61,000 to £28,000 as a direct result of this project.”

Phoenix Medical Supplies has been using COA Solutions’ HR and payroll system to manage payroll for many years. The system runs independent payrolls for different parts of the business and has the functionality to provide cross-payroll reporting when required. However, it was the complicated move to a monthly payroll for more than 3,500 staff which truly tested the system’s usability, flexibility and reliability, as well as COA Solutions’ responsiveness as a supplier.

Mansfield explains, “We have always been satisfied with the COA Solutions system as well as the company’s quality customer service which has retained that personal touch. We were nonetheless concerned that the project to move so many staff to a monthly payroll was going to prove a considerable challenge for the HR and payroll system. For such a big project, we were also expecting to have to pay COA Solutions for additional consultancy. In fact, the system’s so user-friendly and flexible that just one call to COA Solutions support was all that was needed throughout the entire project, saving us considerable consultancy fees.”

Mansfield adds, “Phoenix Medical Supplies is a rapidly expanding organisation and payroll is a very dynamic environment where things are changing all the time, for instance, in just four years, we have added 1000 staff to the payroll. Therefore, it’s reassuring that the system is so adaptable and that COA Solutions is fully prepared to work with us to continually meet our needs.”

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