TUTCO, Inc.

Company Overview

Established in 1938, TUTCO, Inc. is a leader in heating innovation. TUTCO supplies heating elements and electric heater assemblies for various applications to the home appliance, air conditioning, and heating industries. TUTCO occupies a large manufacturing and warehouse facility in Cookeville, Tennessee and employs over 400 people.

The Situation

TUTCO had used two different in-house applications to process their payroll over the past ten years. Senior Programmer/System Analyst Trish Grant explains why TUTCO was dissatisfied with these two systems: “We cannot remember one time in ten years that we had a problem-free payroll run. Many times it would take weeks to work out the problems of one week’s payroll.”

The previous systems TUTCO used rarely produced correct calculations, causing employees’ deductions and accruals to be re-calculated manually. With approximately 430 employees’ payroll to process, TUTCO spent large amounts of time correcting and recalculating. They needed software that could streamline their payroll process while giving them broader functionality to automatically do such tasks as process multiple payrolls every month for different employee pay structures. TUTCO desperately needed a more efficient and productive way to process payroll and began searching for another in-house solution.

The Solution

TUTCO went through an evaluation of the Optimum Suite for Windows and immediately recognized the ease of use and productive way Optimum Payroll processes payroll. TUTCO was also pleased with the integration capability Optimum would have with TUTCO’s current time and attendance solution. Ultimately, Optimum was their choice. TUTCO found Optimum Payroll Windows and Optimum Human Resources Windows to be the advanced, robust software applications they needed to improve productivity and efficiency with their payroll and human resources departments and their organization as a whole. They also decided to purchase Optimum Alerts, which automated previously manual processes such as vacation-tracking and other needed, TUTCO-specific alerts.

The Result

“Optimum Solutions applications are like a breath of fresh air to our company,” said Trish Grant. “For the first time in years we are experiencing no problems when processing our payroll.”

Due to bad experiences with their previous payroll systems, TUTCO tested Optimum Payroll and HR extensively during the implementation phase. During this process, a simple customized program was written for Optimum’s applications to easily integrate to TUTCO’s general ledger. They were very pleased during the testing stage and went live with the software as scheduled.

Optimum Solutions has provided TUTCO with a very valuable gift – time. Optimum’s applications are saving TUTCO time when payroll is processed and in other daily activities involving payroll and human resources. With Optimum’s applications, it now takes only a few hours to process TUTCO’s payroll since no time is needed to correct errors, re-calculate figures, and total accruals. Taxes are now calculated automatically onto one simple report – far different than TUTCO’s old tax-calculating system of combining multiple reports manually.

Optimum Human Resources also offers TUTCO more human resources functionality than ever before. They can now adhere to OSHA guidelines and track this information automatically. “Our old systems did not have features such as these,” Trish Grant said.

The implementation of Optimum’s applications has had a very positive effect on the company in areas such as employee satisfaction. Vacation accruals, sick leave, etc. all automatically calculate and print on each employee’s check which was not available on TUTCO’s old payroll systems. “Our employees are very happy with this feature,” Trish Grant said. “They now know automatically how much vacation time they have and don’t have to wait to find this out from a manager.” The company’s controller, Beth Dalton, also has benefited greatly from the robust features of Optimum’s applications. She is now more confident than ever about TUTCO’s compliancy and tax reporting which has eased some unneeded stress. She now knows they are legally compliant in every way.

TUTCO’s first year-end using Optimum Payroll was a very smooth process. TUTCO could not believe the ease in processing year-end with Optimum, and W2′s were printed and sent out much earlier than ever before. “We thought there was a problem because it seemed too easy to complete year-end,” Trish said amusingly.

Conclusion

Trish sums up the experience using Optimum Payroll and HR very simply: “Since the implementation of these products, we have improved productivity, reduced errors, and eliminated downtime.” Trish and other TUTCO employees look forward to maximizing the functionality of Optimum Payroll, Optimum Human Resources, and Optimum Alerts to the fullest in the near future.