How two Australian entrepreneurs got their weekends back, thanks to Deputy and Xero

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Our app marketplace has over 700 apps to help small businesses and their advisors reach their goals. Each month we celebrate an app partner who really stands out for helping small businesses thrive, by taking a look at a recent success story.

Congratulations this month goes to Deputy

Deputy is an employee management solution for hourly-paid and shift-based workers. Founded in 2008, Deputy now helps tens of thousands of business owners in 70+ countries save time and money managing their workforce. And the best part – it seamlessly integrates with Xero.

We talked to Dean Jones, Co-founder and CEO of GlamCorner, about how Deputy and Xero have helped the business on its road to success – as well as given the founders their weekends back.

Glamour without the guilt

In 2012, husband and wife team, Dean Jones and Audrey Khaing-Jones, started GlamCorner after seeing customers and the environment both getting a raw deal from the fashion industry. Australian women’s wardrobes were crammed with special occasion items, worn only once. Not only wasting money and sending cost-per-wear through the roof – but leading to waste – literally. In Australia, six tonnes of clothing ends up in landfills every ten minutes, and at present, the global fashion industry is the second highest polluting industry on the planet – second only to oil and gas.

In pursuit of a better way, Dean and Audrey created a platform where customers can rent designer dresses for any occasion, bringing down cost-per-wear, while reducing waste. It’s an offering that struck a nerve with Australian women. Today with 56 people on the payroll and a customer base in the hundreds of thousands, the company is going from strength to strength.

Building profitability and viability into the company from day one

Coming from the finance industry Dean and Audrey placed a strong focus on the numbers from day one.

“When you start a small business you have to be ruthlessly focused on every dollar and where it’s going, in real time. The more the business grew the more important that was for us,” Dean said. “Before we started using Xero, we had no live view of sales, costs or our bottom line. With Xero, it was suddenly possible to view transactions, and for our profit and loss, cash flow statement and balance sheets to be produced automatically in real time, for any day, week or month. That was huge for us.”

Expanding staff numbers causing scheduling headaches

For quality control, GlamCorner manages all of their logistics in-house, from picking and packing, to laundry, dispatch and customer service. As the business and staff numbers grew, so did the amount of time needed for payroll, rosters and timesheets.

“Our weekends were dedicated to payroll. We were manually entering timesheets into Xero. It was not only an inefficient process but also had plenty of room for error. Audrey would spend her entire Saturday inputting, checking and submitting timesheets, as well as getting rosters ready. Then I would spend half of Sunday processing payroll,” Dean said.

Finding scheduling bliss with Deputy

Dean and Audrey searched for a solution to find a better way, which is when they turned to Deputy.

“Deputy was blissfully easy to set up and has completely changed the way we manage timesheets and rosters. And the fact it integrated with Xero was a huge tick,” Dean said.

Now staff members can receive their roster directly to their phone via the Deputy app. The manager of that roster can see their budget and assign staff accordingly, based on forecasted volumes for the week. It’s also easy for team members to sign in and out of shifts, ensuring staff get paid accurately and fairly for the hours they work. And best of all – the information all syncs effortlessly to Xero – without the need to manually input the information.

“Now it takes just five minutes to approve timesheets, a job which we’ve handed over to our operations manager. I spend 10-15 minutes processing the pay run and doing a batch payment on Sunday night. But it’s so fast, I’m quite happy doing it.

“Deputy and Xero have been such game-changers for our business. They have saved us so much time and it’s been a relief to have our weekends back. I only hope other small business owners can discover them too,” Dean commented.

Where to next

Using Xero and Deputy is providing the business with a scalable platform as they continue to grow. And there’s no sign of that slowing down anytime soon.

“Our goal is to become every Australian woman’s endless online wardrobe. Because we are essentially an asset leasing business, we need to keep a tight control on finances to help us get there. Xero and Deputy are a crucial part of that journey as we continue expanding. We won’t be done until we revolutionise the way Australian women think about their wardrobes,” Dean concluded.

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