Challenges
As 3PLS grew, its payroll process didn't keep up. Every week, timecards arrived from dozens of job sites, many of them handwritten. Staff collected the paper cards, typed the hours into a spreadsheet, keyed the same data again into ADP, and then processed payroll. They also calculated and entered travel per diem by hand.
"I had multiple people getting a paper timecard, saving it, manually inputting it into a spreadsheet, then manually inputting it into ADP, and then manually processing it," said Alex Hogan, President of 3PLS. "There was no way this was the easiest possible way of doing it."
The process created three problems:
- It consumed half the week. Payroll started Monday and ran until about 4:00 p.m. It ran through Wednesday, taking up the first three days of the payroll specialist's week, or roughly 24 hours of work.
- Every keystroke was a chance for error. "Every time timecards were entered, there was an opportunity for an error," said Becky Hendershot, Chief People Officer, who oversees HR and payroll across 3PLS and its sister companies. With deadlines to fund paychecks by Wednesday for Friday pay, there was little room to catch mistakes.
- Growth meant more headcount. 3PLS runs a lean office of seven or eight people supporting about 150 field employees. Scaling to 200 would have required another hire to manage the workload.
The manual work also pulled a skilled HR professional away from recruiting, onboarding, and employee support, the work that directly grows the company's labor force. And with the payroll specialist preparing for maternity leave, 3PLS needed a process that didn't depend on one person's time.
Solution
After a CEO Coaching meeting, Alex went looking for an automation partner. He asked ChatGPT which companies best fit his use case, and DataBlend ranked at the top. Although 3PLS has its own team of developers, Alex didn't want to build a custom solution in-house.
"One demo was enough. Within the first five minutes, I knew it would work," Alex said.
DataBlend and PopdockAI now automate the path from the field to the paycheck:
- 3PLS has a Claude prompt for timecards and processes photos of handwritten timecards to extract hours and job information, even from messy cards.
- Data is validated against ADP. The workflow checks employee names and numbers in ADP to ensure hours are applied to the right person, and flags any record below a set confidence threshold for review.
- Business rules are applied automatically. Custom logic calculates 3PLS's per diem and travel reimbursement, work that used to be keyed in by hand.
- Payroll data flows straight into ADP. Timecard and per diem data move from DataBlend directly into ADP, with Sage Intacct connected on the finance side. No re-keying required.
eOne's Senior Director of Strategic Verticals – ADP, Zachary Griggs, led the project, and his experience with Sage Intacct and ADP made him a natural fit. Becky asked for him specifically after the early discovery calls, which let the project start weeks ahead of schedule.
"His knowledge is second to none," Becky said. "He really understood what we were trying to do and made great suggestions to help us along."
Alex, who has led several ERP implementations, called it the smoothest he has seen. "I've never had one this smooth, ever," he said.
Results: Time Savings: 24 Hours Down to 5
Payroll no longer takes over the first half of the week. The payroll specialist doesn't need to touch payroll until Tuesday afternoon and can finish by midday Wednesday, with no more than about five hours of hands-on work. That's roughly an 80% reduction, freeing up nearly 1,000 hours a year.
Those hours now go back to the work that grows the business. The payroll specialist also handles HR for 3PLS, including recruiting, onboarding, and benefits education. "Shortening the time she spends on payroll allows her to focus more time and energy on the things that move the needle," Becky said. The automation also gave the team continuity while she was out on maternity leave.
Cost Savings: A New Hire Avoided
Before DataBlend and PopdockAI, 3PLS was preparing to add an extra position to keep up with payroll. The automation made that hire unnecessary, at a fraction of the cost.
"We were about hire someone new," Alex said. "Now we don't have to. I can reallocate the salary spend that to our advertising budget, and I don't have to expand my staff."
Alex compares it to digging a 200-foot ditch: you can hand out shovels, or you can get on a backhoe. "That's what DataBlend and PopdockAI did for us," he said. "We freed up very skilled people who should not be doing data entry."
Room to Grow Without Adding Headcount
Under the old process, doubling job volume would have meant hiring another payroll person to meet deadlines. Now the system absorbs the extra volume.
"The new system definitely would save us a body," Becky said. "We can grow a good bit before we have to add someone." That scalability matters as 3PLS plans to expand into new industries.
Cleaner, More Accurate Data
With data automatically flowing into ADP, manual keying errors have dropped sharply. ADP validation and confidence flags catch questionable entries before they reach a paycheck. "The information is definitely much, much cleaner and more accurate now," Becky said.
A Happier Team
New systems usually meet resistance. This one didn't. "The attitude of that team is just phenomenal now," Alex said. "Their overall morale is higher. This was one that we implemented, and everyone seems to be really happy about it."
Conclusion
By automating the journey from handwritten timecard to ADP, 3PLS turned a three-day manual process into about five hours, avoided adding aother headcount, and built a payroll operation that can scale with the business. Its skilled HR team is back to recruiting and supporting the workforce that keeps 3PLS growing.
"I'd give it a 10 out of 10," Alex said. "If you're doing anything with manual entry, use DataBlend and PopdockAI."
