How staffing and recruitment firm Humly Group manages end-to-end payroll for 1000+ weekly temp staff using Staffology and Telleroo

Humly Group is a staffing and recruitment agency that specialises in supplying teachers and nursery staff. As the business has grown, it now operates seven entities, including Humly Midlands, Humly London, and a central head office.

Cath Hill, Payroll Manager for the group, shares how making over 1000 manual payroll payments every week across different entities became an administrative and security challenge, and how Telleroo provided a fast, secure, and unified solution for the group.

Facing complexity and security risks with multi-entity payroll via the bank

Humly Group has grown steadily by acquiring multiple temporary staffing companies, resulting in the business inheriting lots of different banking setups. 

Processing wages involved downloading and uploading CSV files for each individual bank. If there was an error, they'd have to redo the CSV file import. A process that was fiddly and time-consuming:

"There was a lot of faff, and a lot of human interaction where a potential error or fraud could happen." Cath explains.

Humly's Financial Director or CFO would then log into the bank to authorise the payment. This manual process through each entity's main bank account was not only a heavy administrative burden, but also posed a significant security risk for the group.

"If somebody hacked into your bank, they could wipe you out of all company funds," Cath notes.

Protecting company funds and paying temporary staff securely

To improve cash flow monitoring and create clearer audit trails, the leadership team decided to consolidate their operations. They moved to a single primary bank, with each location having its own account, and implemented Telleroo specifically to segregate and process their outbound payments.

When you sign up to Telleroo as a group, each entity gets its own separate e-money account for sending payments. This adds an extra layer of protection for funds, Cath says:

"We like the security we get from using Telleroo. Criminals can't clear you out of all the company's funds. If anything happens, at the very most, they'd get the sum of one weekly payroll, which for us is only in Telleroo for 24 hours before it's due to come out."

Creating payments in one click with Telleroo’s Staffology integration

Humly Group uses Staffology for payroll, which connects directly with Telleroo. Instead of downloading and uploading CSV files, Cath simply pushes the data across with the click of a button. Telleroo creates the payroll payments and sends them for approval automatically.

"You press a button and everything syncs," says Cath. "There is no way a user can hack it and pay themself a quarter of a million pounds. You can clearly see there is no human interaction with the data, which is brilliant for our audit trails."

These payments are then reviewed by a senior accounts team member before the Financial Director funds the pay run. This review stage ensures compliance and provides a clear authorisation flow. Cath shares how Telleroo's built-in bank account verification has been invaluable for catching errors during this process:

"We like the Confirmation of Payee checks as Telleroo will tell us if the details we have don't match the bank. You'd be surprised at the number of people who don't know their bank account details!"

"The great thing we've found is that if we see an issue when we're paying hundreds of people, we can remove one person from the pay run without having to cancel the whole batch. Rather than having to reject the whole pay run, that's a major plus."

Correcting bank details and saving hours in the payroll process

Telleroo also allows for single, instant payments. As they’re sent via the Faster Payment network, these typically arrive in the recipient's account in minutes. This is ideal if you catch an issue with a candidate's bank details and still want to ensure they get paid that day. The batch pay run can be processed without delay, and a separate, quick payment can be sent to the recipient once their details are corrected. Cath explains:

"We recently had a candidate whose payment got rejected by Telleroo as she had recently closed her bank account."

"She then gave us her new bank details, and we were able to ensure she got paid that afternoon. With Telleroo, we can still get the money to the candidate on payday rather than having to wait three days for a BACS payment to clear."

Overall, Telleroo's payment automation has drastically reduced the time it takes Humly Group to pay its temporary workforce. This has allowed their payment process to effortlessly scale as the company grows.

A recommendation for recruitment and staffing agencies

For Humly Group, implementing Telleroo has provided the perfect balance of operational efficiency, strict compliance, and peace of mind when it comes to the security of their main business funds.

When asked how she would describe her experience using the platform, Cath is enthusiastic:

"Telleroo is quick, efficient and very user-friendly. We have easy access to customer support, not that we need it very often, and the team is always happy to help. I would definitely tell other businesses that it is much more secure to use Telleroo."

If you manage payments across multiple entities, sign up for Telleroo today to pay staff and suppliers quickly, easily, and securely. 🚀