Sage - a great supporting act at The
Roundhouse
This document is also available as a pdf for download.
The Roundhouse is a legendary London venue
that has played host to the BBC Electric Proms and the Royal
Shakespeare Company amongst others. But as well as being a
commercial multi arts venue it is also a charity that provides a
creative education for young people. Throughout the year the
Roundhouse delivers projects for up to 6,000 13-25 year-olds from
all backgrounds. The projects cover a huge range of topics from
radio, music production, drama, poetry, TV, sound engineering,
photography to VJ skills and more. The focus is on creating an
environment in which young people can develop self-esteem and
confidence or gain valuable experience to help launch a career.
“We aim to create synergy between what we do
for young people and the artists who perform on the main stage,”
explains Farideh Lappage, HR Manager at the Roundhouse. But running
such a diverse operation requires a lot of staff. “There are
currently 65 permanent and fixed term employees, 140 casuals, and
another 250 volunteers,” says Farideh, “which leads to quite a
complex situation requiring three different payrolls, one weekly,
one fortnightly and one monthly.” The Roundhouse has been a Sage
customer since it reopened in 2006 but it didn’t use Sage Outsource
Services initially. “We had some difficulties with our original
payroll outsourcer, and so we decided to change to someone we were
already familiar with and felt we could trust,” says Farideh. One
of the things about Sage that appealed to Farideh is that it is UK
based and so has the same office hours as The Roundhouse. “People
are available when I need them, and as I’m not a payroll expert I
need easy access to Sage’s payroll and accounting knowledge.”
Changing payroll outsourcers may seem
daunting, but Farideh was very satisfied with how Sage handled the
changeover. “We needed a quick transfer over from our previous
supplier,” explains Farideh, “the implementation was incredibly
fast, and we managed to get all three payrolls set up in less than
2 weeks, and it was done incredibly accurately.” Prior to the
changeover to Sage Farideh had to produce a range of documents each
month, but that has all been simplified. “I’ve been able to
streamline a lot of the information required so that everything is
in a single set of spreadsheets, which I email to Sage once a
month. It’s a lot faster for me now, and it’s helped with my own
time management.” Farideh was also very pleased with the help she
received from Sage during the transfer. “The people at Sage were
incredibly supportive throughout the process and coached us through
the information that we needed to gather,” she explains.
The Roundhouse was also thinking about the
future when it chose Sage. “Although we outsource now,” explains
Farideh, “I’m interested in Sage’s web hosted system. It was part
of the appeal in choosing Sage, as it offers an ‘in between’ system
that is not fully outsourced, but doesn’t mean we have to have
software in house. It’s something that seems to suit the size of
our organisation.”
For now though, Farideh is very happy with the
outsourced solution Sage provides, “I can trust that the payroll is
run effectively and I can call on Sage’s expertise when I need it.”
And for anyone thinking of making the move to Sage Outsource
Services Farideh has the following advice, “Preparing ahead for
data transfer was incredibly useful but also regular communication
and the chance to discuss all of the details was invaluable to me.
I now have a streamlined, consistent payroll I can rely on.”