Get Live Quote My Small Business Story: How Float Improved Business Operations through Simpler and Faster Payroll
Ghana
Nigeria
Kenya
Uganda
Challenge
Float, a Nigerian fintech company operating since 2019, faced significant operational challenges with their payroll process. The company, which provides credit solutions to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across Nigeria and Ghana, had a team of approximately 30 employees spread across two countries.
Previously, Float's payroll process was entirely manual and time-consuming. The operations team had to make individual bank transfers to every single employee, with each employee requiring a separate transfer from the company's bank to their individual bank accounts. This manual process was particularly complicated because employees used different banks, requiring separate transactions for each person.
The team relied heavily on Excel spreadsheets to track employee information, payroll data, and other HR-related information. On payday, the process of paying all employees across Nigeria and Ghana separately took approximately 1.5 hours to complete. Additionally, the manual banking system in Ghana and Nigeria created risks - transactions could fail to reflect in employee accounts, and there was no centralised way to track payment status or troubleshoot issues.
"Definitely. Because once you run it, you're good. Before now, when doing individual transfers, anything could happen. Maybe somebody's money doesn't reflect. With the banking system in Ghana which is still growing and developing, some transactions are still carried out manually. If you're sending from one bank to a different bank, anything could happen along the line. But since we started using Cadana, even if somebody's salary didn't reflect or there's a challenge, all I have to do is reach out to Cadana and let them know and they follow up to give me feedback; so I don't have to keep checking by myself to see that everyone has received payment and all of that." - Priscilla Kpobi, Operations Specialist, Float
"Yeah! Definitely. What we were doing before, was that we were running payroll twice a month at first because we had some employees that wanted to be paid every two weeks. So, we had to run payroll twice. But, when we introduced Instant Pay (EWA), I didn't see the need for that anymore, because if you want your salary, you can just go on and access it yourself. At any point in time, you can access your salary, so it just took that particular burden off me as well because now I don't have to run payroll twice and they can access their salary at any point in time." - Priscilla Kpobi, Operations Specialist, Float
Solution
Float implemented Cadana's payroll and people operations platform to automate and streamline their entire payroll process. The solution provided several key capabilities:
1. **Centralised Payroll Management**: All employee information is stored in a single system, eliminating the need for Excel spreadsheets and manual tracking.
2. **Automated Payment Processing**: Instead of making individual transfers to each employee, Float can now process payroll for all employees across both Nigeria and Ghana in a single batch.
3. **Tax and Pension Remittance**: Cadana handles tax and pension remittance payments automatically, which previously required separate manual processes and visits to tax offices.
4. **Seamless Employee Onboarding**: New employees can be quickly added to the system with all their information captured in one place for easy access and management.
5. **Payroll Activity Tracking**: The platform provides a complete history of payroll activities, allowing the operations team to easily reference when payroll was last run and access historical data.
6. **Additional Features**: Float's team also explored other Cadana features including Instant Pay (Earned Wage Access/EWA), which allows employees to access their earned wages on-demand, and the option to save in USD.
The implementation was straightforward, and the operations team quickly adapted to the new system.
Results
The implementation of Cadana resulted in dramatic improvements to Float's payroll operations:
- **Time Reduction**: Payroll processing time was reduced from approximately 1.5 hours to less than 10 minutes - a reduction of over 85%.
- **Operational Efficiency**: The faster payroll process freed up significant time for the operations specialist to focus on other critical business tasks.
- **Improved Reliability**: With Cadana handling payments, Float no longer had to worry about individual transactions failing to reflect. The platform provides support and follow-up on any payment issues, eliminating the need for manual verification.
- **Consolidated Processes**: Tax and pension remittance, which previously required separate manual processes and office visits, can now be completed within the same 10-15 minute timeframe as payroll.
- **Enhanced Employee Management**: The centralised system allows for easy access to employee information, bank account details, names, and identification numbers (SSNIT) at any time.
- **Reduced Payroll Frequency**: With the introduction of Instant Pay (EWA), Float was able to reduce from running payroll twice a month to once a month, as employees could access their earned wages on-demand at any time.
- **Improved Employee Satisfaction**: The Instant Pay feature was so well-received that one employee won a prize for being amongst the top Instant Pay users.
