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o8t brought Australian, US, and Canadian employees into the same system—saving 10 hours per month on IT and finance

1 minute read

As Omniscient Neurotechnology (o8t) expanded into North American markets, the company accumulated a bloated list of HR and finance software systems that didn’t synchronize. Stephen Lai, o8t’s VP of Finance, sought a unified system to onboard, manage, and pay his growing remote workforce.

10

hours saved per month running payroll and managing IT

3

hours saved configuring work laptops per new hire

Headquarters

Australia

Industry

Neuroscience

Employees

50+

about the company

Read More

Pain Points

Too many cooks: o8t used separate systems to pay and manage its workforce in Australia, Canada, and the US. The company drained time reconciling all the disparate platforms; for instance, the HR team sent time off requests through BambooHR but routed them through Gusto for US employees, Xero for Australian employees, and a third solution for Canadian employees. Employees also juggled separate account logins for payroll, benefits, HR, and retirement.

Inefficient IT processes: o8t’s Head of IT Operations spent hours manually configuring their new laptops. And since o8t doesn’t have physical offices in the US or Canada, IT had to send batches of devices to a single employee’s home, who then had to assist IT with configuring the laptops and shipping them on the company’s behalf. This was a waste of employee resources  and led to suboptimal onboarding.

Lagging reporting: o8t struggled to cohesively report on employee spend; Stephen had to manually export data into Excel, check for formatting discrepancies, and dig into individual line items to find issues when employee spend data didn’t match up in their accounting system.

The Challenge

o8t was founded in Australia and expanded into the US and Canada. But managing finance, IT, and payroll in three countries across a patchwork of different software systems grew time-consuming and complicated. Stephen found himself constantly toggling between a growing list of platforms depending on where employees lived and which tasks he needed to carry out. Employees themselves had to juggle different account logins and manually configure their own work devices. 

To save time and spare stress, o8t sought a more streamlined path toward hiring, managing, and paying its distributed workforce.

o8t switched to Rippling to consolidate its software stack. Now, the company can manage its entire international workforce on the same platform.

01

An all-in-one system

o8t ditched using separate payroll providers for different countries. Rippling unifies the company’s employee data and manages HR and payroll for all employees, who now have one login for time-off requests, pay stubs, and benefits. 

“As soon as the pay run’s done, Rippling sends it through to us, everything reconciles. Happy days,” Stephen said. “Previously, with three different providers, sometimes things break.”

02

Seamless laptop distribution and device management

Rippling also syncs HR data with o8t’s IT workflows. Pre-used devices now sit in secure warehouses instead of an employee’s home. After onboarding, they’re automatically sent to new hires and come pre-configured with all necessary software and permissions instead of the employee manually setting everything up. 

03

Automated onboarding

Finance and HR no longer have to chase down new employees for payroll and other onboarding information. Instead of worrying about missing onboarding deadlines, Rippling automatically sends and collects documents, adds new hires to payroll, and ensures they have all the resources they need to hit the ground running on day one.  

04

High-visibility reporting

Stephen uses Rippling’s tight integrations to run consolidated leave reports and look at time off policies. He can also look at pay runs across countries with automated salary conversions. “I’m finding reporting more and more useful. All the information is consolidated in one system that I can trust,” Stephen said.

05

“10 out of 10” support

Stephen also raved about Rippling’s support team. “The implementation process was one of the best I’ve been a part of.” Rippling support members gave prompt, in-depth responses to every question that arose and they continue to provide timely solutions to requests. 

“Historically when I’ve used other systems, it takes longer to get support, which is frustrating at a startup where you want to work at a fast pace,” Stephen said. “I’m very happy with all the help I get at Rippling.”

With Rippling, everything is there. Across different modules, you can log in and see what you need to see—there’s ease of use for myself and for employees.

Stephen Lai,

VP of Finance at o8t

The Impact

  • Saving time: o8t saves 10 hours every month running payroll and managing IT, including three hours per new-hire on laptop configurations
  • Consolidating resources: The company originally planned to hire a staff member to help with IT and finance administrative work. “We can delay this for the time being. Rippling does a lot of the leg work for us,” Stephen said.

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Discover how Rippling can help you manage all of your employee data and operations in one place.

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