I have one point of contact - one payroll officer with whom I’ve built a really strong working relationship. I have the confidence my payroll will be right. I trust them.
- Rob Green, Controller of HR and Payroll, Sydenhams
“There were a number of factors that made us choose Cintra (formerly known as Trace). I liked the fact that, as an organisation, they felt like us: a rich heritage, a family firm; independent and committed to keeping their work within the UK.
“Then there was the service. With Cintra, I rediscovered the sort of personal service I feared didn’t exist anymore. One point of contact. One payroll officer with whom I’ve built a really strong working relationship. He understands me. I understand him, and he’s always available by direct dial, so there’s no delay in getting through to him, and getting my questions answered. Nothing gets missed.”
Rob Green controller of HR and Payroll at Sydenhams, a timber importer and merchant that was founded in 1874 and remains a family firm, here explains the reason for his move to Cintra Payroll Services from a larger payroll provider.
“We’d had a good relationship with our previous provider, but they were part of a much larger organisation and the parent company decided to move processing overseas as part of a cost-cutting exercise.”
Rob’s worst fears were quickly realised: “Payroll isn’t general inputting. It’s complex. You need knowledge and understanding of the businesses you’re working with – and all of a sudden we found that vanished. Errors crept in. Accuracy fell and the relationships I’d built fell apart because the people were no longer there. I no longer had one person handling our payroll; no single point of contact. I didn’t feel there was anyone left who understood our business – or cared about it. I knew it was time for us to move on.”
This was not the case with Cintra.
“There were a number of factors that made us choose Cintra. I liked the fact that, as an organisation, they felt like us: a rich heritage, a family firm; independent and committed to keeping their work within the UK.”
Rob explains: “I rediscovered the sort of personal service I feared didn’t exist anymore. One point of contact. One payroll officer with whom I’ve built a really strong working relationship. He understands me. I understand him, and he’s always available by direct dial, so there’s no delay in getting through to him, and getting my questions answered. Nothing gets missed.”
For all the attractions of personal service, independence and shared values, cost was a key driver of the decision.
“Cintra had to be competitive,” says Rob. “Happily, they were. The result is we now get a service we really value for around 30% less than we were paying our previous provider. It’s a no-brainer really, isn’t it?” Sydenhams’ new payroll service went ‘live’ in September 2010, within 3 months of moving to Cintra’s system. Rob was delighted with how simple and easy the process was:
“It was a seamless handover, and it’s stayed seamless ever since.”
Rob’s experience with Sydenhams’ previous payroll services provider meant that Cintra had to earn his trust, a process that began with achieving the sort of consistent accuracy he had lost.
“I do the inputting; our Cintra payroll officer runs the payroll every month. It’s a simple one- to-one process and it means there’s so little room for error. Cintra sends me a preview of the month’s payroll so I can check online to make sure everything’s correct. That’s a safeguard I never had before.”
For Rob, the difference is clear:
“I have the confidence my payroll will be right. I trust them. I wanted a payroll service that was spotless every month. Cintra’s is.”
