A software company based in NovaUCD, the innovation and technology transfer centre at University College Dublin, has launched a product which will allow recruitment agencies to forget about paper-based timesheets.
Evolution, which was founded in 2006 by ex-Microsoft and SoftCo employee Alistair Thacker (pictured), designed the product called TempSheets.com for recruitment agencies that place temporary staff.
It allows the workers to complete and submit their timesheets online. These timesheets are then approved by the client company before being electronically submitted to the recruitment agency with all invoicing and payroll calculations already completed.
“As far as we know there is no competing product to TempSheets.com. Usually when agencies decide to offer online services, they tend to have their own in-house IT department. Smaller agencies don’t have such resources.
This product allows them to compete head-to-head without making a major capital investment, as there’s no need to install a server. They can access it via the web and once they make the decision to go ahead, it can be up and running within a week,” said Thacker.
“Normally from a smaller agency point of view the fax machine goes mad at 5.30pm on a Friday and timesheets come in with all sorts of things written on them that don’t make them easy to process. Someone then has to key them in and work out invoicing and payroll. This product ensures timesheets are entered in the format they should be and calculations are made automatically.”
Evolution is a ‘spin-in’ company to NovaUCD, explained Thacker. Following its acceptance on Enterprise Ireland’s M50 Enterprise Programme, it started out with a product called VacationTracker.net in 2006. This is an easy-to-use, web-based service which enables companies to more efficiently manage their employees’ planned and unplanned absences.
By Sorcha Corcoran
Pictured: Alistair Thacker, founder, Evolution
