How Miller Construction Lowered Payroll Errors By Over 99%

Operating for over 50 years, Miller Construction was a successful and continuously scaling commercial contractor with inefficient timesheet processes that slowed down productivity and caused costly mistakes during payroll. 

Unnecessary stress and excessive overtime spent on manually entering thousands of line items (and resolving timesheet errors) distracted payroll administrators from other key operational tasks.  

Knowing it was time for a change, Miller Construction’s Director of Operational Excellence, Whitney Mendes, searched for a more efficient, accurate, and compliant payroll management strategy. 

This is the story of how hh2’s automation and Sage integration capabilities helped this veteran commercial construction firm save on labor costs… and reduce payroll errors by over 99%!  

The Challenges 

Relying entirely on a spreadsheet for tracking timesheets, Miller Construction struggled with accuracy and efficiency because every line entered into a timesheet had to then be manually entered into Sage. 

This was especially problematic since new (last minute) projects sometimes weren’t entered into Sage – which meant that employees entered job names without knowing the appropriate job code, and thus didn't know the cost code to apply.  

This confusion invariably resulted in errors and confusion that made payroll chaotic and stressful. 

Painstaking manual data entry and corrections made it necessary for the payroll specialist to routinely stay late and come in early to process everything on time. And these exhaustive work and time constraints meant human error was just part of routine operations. 

Exacerbating circumstances was the lack of interconnectivity between the spreadsheet employees used to enter their time and the Sage platform. Instead, the accounts receivable (AR) specialist manually entered multiple unique job codes (per employee) into Sage. 

For Miller Construction’s 95 employees, this required the specialist to enter an average of 950 line items every payroll cycle. 

“These issues and errors occurred EVERY payroll — especially in the pre-construction stage.”  
– Whitney L. Mendes, Senior Director of Operational Excellence 

The Goals 

Seeing the crucial need for optimization in both systems and cost, Mendes knew a spreadsheet just wasn’t going to cut it anymore – especially as Miller Construction continued to scale.  

Mendes knew every level of operations was feeling the negative impact of payroll issues, and was determined to optimize the process and find a solution that: 

• Eliminated job coding and cost coding errors 
• Streamlined payroll workflows 
• Freed up the AR specialist to focus on other high-priority tasks like owner billing  
• Was easy for everyone to use 

Fortunately, she didn’t have to look very far, thanks to her participation in a local Sage User Group. 

Mendes saw that hh2 was a popular topic in TUG (The User Group) for Sage customers and many of Mendes’s industry colleagues were using the hh2 platform with great success. She introduced hh2 to her team, noting that the user interface was similar to the spreadsheet everyone was already accustomed to. “I thought it would be a very smooth transition for our company,” Mendes shares. 

It didn’t take long for Mendes, and the stakeholders at Miller Construction, to see how beneficial the hh2 platform could be at every payroll-related touchpoint. 

The Solution 

Miller Construction’s leadership cared deeply about how their decisions affected everyone in the organization. They wanted everyone to have a voice on such a huge change in process, which is why they use an employee buy-in philosophy. “I presented it to stakeholders in operations, pre-con, accounting department, and leadership,” shared Mendes. “I showed them how it would work, and answered any questions. By the end, they really liked the product. That was my approval to move forward.” 

But the firm’s positive hh2 experience wasn’t just in response to how well it worked. Mendes was really pleased with her customer experience, too. “We didn't have any issues,” she said while discussing her onboarding experience with her hh2 representative. 

“hh2 went through the process smoothly and answered all of our questions. They even helped train members of our accounting department on how to most effectively use hh2, so everyone felt more confident in the transition,” explained Mendes. 

Daily operations only improved from there, with one of the most immediately beneficial features being hh2’s Sage compatibility and timesheet automation. Switching to the hh2 platform for timesheet entry allowed Miller Construction to pull the data from Sage, and automatically populate the corresponding job numbers. Based on the job number assigned, the AR specialist could easily review and access cost codes. 

The Results 

Automating Miller Construction's thousands of lines (and countless hours) of manual processing optimized every level of the payroll experience. 

• Eliminating manual entry resulted in an over 99% reduction in payroll and coding errors 
• Automating payroll created more bandwidth for high-priority tasks 
• Mobile timesheet compatibility eliminated phone tag, improved morale, and ensured accuracy  

Not only did hh2 save their AR specialist from unnecessary overtime and stress on manual entry, but it practically eliminated payroll errors entirely. 

“I highly recommend hh2 to anyone in the construction industry struggling with their payroll process.”  

– Whitney L. Mendes, Senior Director of Operational Excellence 

“hh2 reduced job and cost-coding errors by 99%—we just don’t have those errors anymore because the pre-existing integration with Sage makes the process much more fluid,” Mendes noted. 

But Miller Construction saved more than time and money — employee morale was greatly improved, too. hh2’s mobile feature allows employees to enter timesheets from anywhere— 24/7.  

Aside from the convenience, mobile timesheets also eliminated back-and-forth phone tag because employees who forget to submit their timesheets don’t need to be in the office, or by a laptop, to make the corrections. They can update time cards remotely with their cell phones. 

All in all, Miller Construction hasn’t looked back since integrating hh2 into its payroll workflow and looks forward to continuing to grow with the flexibility and scalability that hh2 provides.