Why did you decide to develop this platform and what was the driver?

I’ve never been a “Glass Half Full” guy and I have always struggled to understand why someone hadn’t solved, arguably one of the biggest problems that the human supply chain faces.

I am meeting with a prospect.  

I want to provide my contingent staffing solutions to their business.  

My prospect gives me a position to fill and is keen to know the charge rate per hour for candidates.

This might seem like a simple calculation, but it is not. 

It is not as simple as knowing your market rates to secure the right talent for the position, that is the baseline and recruitment professionals think that is all they need to know, sadly – incorrect! 

It depends on the position, it depends on the award, the job location (think state-based payroll tax), work cover, super thresholds and when the work will be performed. 

Furthermore, the constantly changing landscape in industrial legislation, award, and collective agreement changes makes it near impossible to stay on top of everything and get it right every time. 

The end results?  

1. A slower sales cycle s you are unable to accurately quote at the meeting
2. Unintentional errors in invoicing, payroll (under or overpayment), and a messy start to your relationship with your new client.
   
   

CRM systems are not capable of making pay and charge calculations. These calculations generally sit with the back-office functions of the business or maybe you have separate rate calculators in Excel, but the problem remains – who updates these and how is your dysfunctional sales process working in the first place?

Traditionally, the back office does not assist the recruiter or the client-facing BDM/ Account manager in this situation with securing new business and quoting. He or she needs to live in the spreadsheet world, and re-enter the same data multiple times, taking time away from sales and introducing manual errors. So that is in the stone age and…

The risk of making mistakes in pricing becomes a thing of the past.

Now the recruiter wins the deal and supplies the candidates to fill the requirements fifty times faster than their competitor. All that is required now is for an appropriate person such an administrator or recruiter to sync the data to payroll. With RatesCalc this can happen automatically, or with a simple mouse click.  

The end result? The candidate is paid correctly, no matter how complex the award, and the customer is invoiced using the same attributes used in RatesCalc with the appropriate rule groups in payroll.

Put simply, in the context around Non-Integrated dysfunctional systems and processes that exist in 99% of businesses, – RatesCalc is the bridge to UTOPIA connecting any front office system to your payroll or finance system. Data Integrity is ensured, the recruiter’s risk of compliance to legislation is mitigated and the client will receive accurate invoices – all from a single source of truth that is built specifically for its purpose.

Critically, compliance made simple is what is key here. Recruitment is a tough competitive industry, particularly in the forever changing contingent staffing supply chain. The demands now are arguably far greater than ever before and the reason why RatesCalc exists.

I remember when I first shared my ideas with a few trusted technology colleagues who have “the finger on the pulse” on this space, what they said was; that I was either incredibly brave, crazy or if I could pull it off – a genius. 

This month we celebrated a significant milestone: It’s been five years since some of these conversations and the mapping and planning of RatesCalc started. 

I do not think for one second that we have nailed it at all, quite to the contrary, we continue to meet the challenge head on and at times in the face of adversity often dealing with scenarios that are beyond our control. 

These challenges are surpassed because of our drivers:

Passion– to contribute positively to the most rewarding industry of all – The people industry.

Courage– to be entrepreneurial and take risks to overcome a challenge that had never been achieved before and to keep us reaching beyond the boundaries and experiment to deliver the best we can and be accountable.

Commitment – Totally committed to excellence at what we do and continue to innovate in a world that is constant of change

That is what drove me to develop RatesCalc.