Established in 1983, Chelmsford's premier nightclub Dukes Genesis is renowned for providing up to the minute entertainment reflecting the latest trends and popular tastes.

Essex Entertainments owns and manages the nightclub, which is open four nights and records 5-6,000 visitors every week.

The group also administers the highly successful nightclub Talk-nightclub in Southend (owned by Talk of the South Ltd), which opens three nights and records 4-5,000 visitors every week.

Maintaining star attractions

Ensuring that the clubs' continue to provide popular entertainment that attracts a discerning audience of 18-25 year olds is a costly business. It is a competitive industry and both Companies invest in a regular refurbishment programme to install state of the art technology that offers the latest in high-tech audio, laser and light shows.

It also needs to maintain the clubs' facilities meet the complex government, police and council legislation, including health and safety, noise, disability, fire and licensing regulations.

Complex payroll requirements

Essex Entertainments and Talk of the South employ over 200 staff to work in the clubs, all of whom can work different combinations of hours. To administer its complex payroll requirements of two 'weekly' staff payrolls and two 'monthly' executive payrolls, the companies uses Payrite® from Rutherford Webb.

Staff working hours are recorded by the managers as they clock in for work. The total hours worked by each member are then collated on a spreadsheet, which is used to feed into the payroll system. This also includes details such as the employee's job title - particularly important as some of the staff work under two or three different job specifications, for which there may be different rates of pay. Payrite was chosen for its facility to import this data into the system.

Payrite meets the criteria

Jan Bonnington, Director at Essex Entertainments Ltd explained, "Initially we struggled to find a payroll package that could meet our criteria. We looked at several other packages but found that only Payrite met our requirements.

"We were delighted to come across Rutherford Webb's solution. Not only did Payrite have the capability that we were looking for, it is also very easy to use."

A particular feature that the payroll team finds useful is the ability to record the hours that a staff member has worked on the payslip. Recording their hours of work under the different job titles on the payslip enables staff to check their pay.

Most of the staff do not work a nine to five routine, they frequently work different hours every week and as a result do not have regular holiday allowance. They get 4 weeks paid holiday each year but it is difficult to calculate entitlement when staff work irregular hours. Holidays are based on the number of hours worked in every week, this system ensures that staff benefit from extra shifts worked outside of contracted hours. In addition, holiday entitlement is recorded on the payslip, this enables staff to see how many holiday hours they have available to take.

"Another feature that we particularly like is the ability to put remarks on the payslip. For example, if it's a bank holiday we let them know that the money will be in their account a day later than usual," explained Jan.

Flexible reporting

The Payroll team uses the reporting function extensively. The system is used to produce a report to record if any staff work more than 48 hours in a week, information required by the Working Time Directive. The reports are also used to check for missing personnel information, such as National Insurance numbers.

The payroll team are also planning to use the Internet filing facility within Payrite, to carry out year-end P35 e-filing.

"Payrite is easy to use and fulfils all of our payroll needs," said Jan. "It is robust, we can produce bespoke reports and it links into Bankline for BACS payments.

"It is very important for us that staff are paid correctly and on time, and for this reason we prefer to manage payroll in-house. Payrite enables us to do this," concluded Jan.