City, University of London has been using VT2000 for over 5 years and I have been extremely impressed with General Technology’s friendly and collaborative approach in working with us to add value to our processes.
For example, General Technology recently developed and installed customised options within VT to allow us to better manage the contracts of hourly paid employees who are subject to Tier 4 visa restrictions. Before this, we relied on an external supplier to monitor the hours scheduled for this group of staff – which added an extra layer of process and cost. Now, VT2000 automatically prevents compliance breaches for Tier 4 employees, meaning that we can manage all hourly-paid staff using a single, standard procedure regardless of their immigration status. Using the system has resulted in time and cost savings for us and I would therefore recommend VT2000 to other universities.
The introduction of VT2000 has modernised and greatly improved our processes for hourly paid appointments and I would be happy to recommend this system to other universities who use the services of hourly paid lecturers. We implemented VT2000 in June 2013 to manage contracts and payments for our Visiting Hourly Paid Lecturers. We use the system to manage schedules of work and payments for everyone in this group , which is made up of a mixture of employees and external companies. Although there are different procedures for engaging and paying these staff all have been successfully incorporated into the system.
VT2000 gives us visibility of all the data relating to work and the costs associated with this. Previously this information was in disparate documents, spreadsheets and sometimes even paper records. Now we are able to analyse work hours and costs by individuals, departments, activities, employment grades and rates amongst others.
Our processes for producing forecasts, commitments and budget monitoring have also improved significantly . Using VT2000 workflow process, we have streamlined our authorisation procedures and eliminated paperwork getting lost and mislaid.
The scope of the system has grown since we implemented it. In our first year of using the system we have managed to process almost 1700 schedules for approximately 750 employees and companies. This has generated a significant amount of payments annually, which have been managed entirely using VT2000.
From a payroll perspective, VT2000 has added considerable value. The system has allowed us to automate our payroll functions; we have moved from using a purely paper-based method of claiming and authorising hours worked to a fully electronic process. This means that payment claims cannot go missing or be held up and our users can claim in real time using the VTS feature.
Using VT2000, we do not have to input information manually so the risk of errors is virtually zero. This means that we don’t need to perform any additional checks, which saves us a lot of time every month. Reporting is easy and comprehensive, and can be generated in real time.
I have found that VT2000 has greatly improved our processes and has enhanced the way we work across departments at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama. Where previously we relied on Excel spreadsheets, VT2000 holds all information in a central system that can be shared and accessed by different departments. VT2000 has made our payroll processes quicker and more accurate, reducing the margin of error and saving us time and costs.
VT2000 has also improved how we communicate with our teachers. For example, our payslips are designed for salaried staff and were unsuitable for hourly paid teachers. With VT2000, we have clear visibility of the breakdown of work done by hourly paid teachers which allows staff to check their pay is correct. VT2000 is one of the most multi-functional systems I have come across, which truly caters to our needs as an organisation. I would highly recommend the system to other universities.
Before the introduction of VT2000 we had multiple locally maintained Excel spread sheets and Access databases for the management of our Hourly Paid Lecturer contracts and schedules of work. Extracting meaningful management information from these disparate sources was virtually impossible.
VT2000 has enabled us to provide a single system with all the data in one place. Our processes for generating contracts etc have been standardised across the University and we now have access to better management information from the reports available within VT2000.
General Technology’s consultants are extremely knowledgeable and have been able to incorporate our bespoke reporting requirements into the product with ease.
Transitioning from a paper-based system to VT2000 has addressed various issues such as duplication and loss of paperwork. The system is easy to navigate and can be adjusted to fit your organisation’s requirements. We currently upload timetables and input sessions directly which are approved on a monthly basis. VT2000 allows us to create reports that can be downloaded at any moment in time to reflect any financial movements. The system has reports from all fields therefore issues can be identified early. General Technology listen to any improvements suggested and will work closely with the customer to try and implement the solutions needed. The support team are very helpful and will fix any issue either immediately or give you a timeline which is always met. All in all, I would not hesitate to recommend VT2000 to other organisations.
From the initial entry of contract schedules, right through to posting pay claims direct to payroll, our processes are simpler and more robust. We have also been able to improve our management controls because the system provides timely information for decision making. The implementation of the system was easy and we’ve been impressed by its reliability.
I have had experience with VT2000 in two colleges now. We have used it to replace paper based manual processes which were time consuming and error prone. VT2000 converts work hours into costs and therefore enables us to forecast expenditure with analyses of costs by Department, Employee, Work activity type (teaching, support, cover, invigilation, etc) and by Course.
The system allows Departments to manage their own schedules, commitments and costs in general, and for senior management provides organization-wide analyses of schedules, commitments and costs.
In my experience this improvement in management control over part-time contracts also brings about significant efficiencies in terms of better staff utilization.
I am therefore happy to recommend VT2000 to other colleges.
As an organisation we like VT2000 so much that we have decided to extend the scope of the system to encompass our casual staff as well as the academics. Prior to implementing VT2000 the payroll team were really struggling to keep up with the workload. Now we can not only keep up but have also been able to take on additional work.
From a finance perspective, VT2000 enables us to monitor and manage costs more effectively compared to our previous, spreadsheet based, approach. With VT2000 it is possible to report on expenditure at various levels (e.g. Cost Centre, Department or even Course) and also by type of work such as Teaching, Invigilation Meetings and Cover work.
Before we implemented VT2000 we had already decided to migrate our payroll system from Software for People to Midland Trent. Because VT2000 can send data to multiple payroll systems transparently and concurrently, it helped us during our transition from one payroll system to another – not least in obviating the need to key data into two systems.