Gurugram, also known as the “cyber-city of India” is home to various educational institutions including Vedatya, a private establishment specializing in hospitality, design and business management studies. With an inspiring vision to reduce the gap in education quality between their homeland and some of the best schools in the world, Vedatya was started in the year 2000 by IIT and Wharton school alums. With a strong focus on applied studies, a farm-to-fork approach (students in their culinary program work in their in-house farms and grow their own raw materials), and partnerships with prestigious organizations across the globe, they’re well on their way to realize that dream.
Initially, they were using Zoho CRM, and adopted additional Zoho apps from there.
After using some other Zoho tools, they started managing their HR and payroll operations using Zoho People and GreytHR. It was at this point of time, and during Amit’s monthly ritual of browsing Zoho’s website for new productivity tools, that he found Zoho Payroll.
In 2012, Amit deployed TCS iON, an ERP system designed specifically for educational institutions. They used this system for almost three years but weren’t satisfied with the user experience. Even though their HR operation was smooth with Zoho People, coordinating with an external vendor for payroll made things difficult. GreytHR showed a slight improvement in their payroll process but the HR and payroll team still couldn’t achieve their productivity goals.
Strong integration with the existing ecosystem: The information flow between Zoho People and Zoho Payroll is so seamless that it feels like a single platform. Unlike before, the synchronization of loss of pay (LOP) data across the two tools happens automatically now on predefined dates with just a few clicks of a button. Other changes related to employee’s contact information made in one system also reflects automatically in the other.
Diversity in salary structure: Vedatya had employees in various pay structures ranging from entry-level employee to the director. The salary structure option in Zoho Payroll helped them customize and fully accommodate their diverse salary structure needs.
Backed by incredible support staff: Whenever the team at Vedatya came across a roadblock, the Zoho Payroll support team came to their rescue. As one of Zoho Payroll’s early adopters, when Amit came up with suggestions like adding new allowance types to the existing list, the team was ready to make changes accordingly.
Once they started configuring Zoho Payroll, it took them just one month to complete their first pay run and they had switched completely from GreytHR to Zoho Payroll within three months.
Digitization: Amit’s team had a wonderful user experience with Zoho Payroll. It was a struggle to collect proofs and validate them manually with their previous system. The team at Vedatya was spending close to 56 hours on this activity every month whereas Zoho Payroll helped them digitize the whole process through a self-service portal. Now they’re able to complete the same work in less than a few hours each month. The digital proof approval system also created accountability for both the employees and the processing arm of the organization with transparent management processes.
Intuitive self-service portal: Even though their previous system, GreytHR, had a private portal for every employee, the employees weren’t keen on using it. However, the ESS portal in Zoho Payroll had an easier workflow for employees therefore increasing adoption. It only took about 5 minutes for the employees to choose between the two tax regimes for this financial year within their portal and take care of their tax declarations without any manual hand holding. This reduced the number of enquiry emails to their inbox drastically.
Transitioning to remote work: It took us just a week to transition to a remote setup. Our classes are functioning today just as they were a few months ago. And a huge credit for this goes to Zoho and it’s offerings. We are delighted that India has a world-class company like Zoho and we are keenly waiting to see what more does it have to offer.
“After using Zoho Payroll for over a year now, we have brought down the paper work to less than 40% already and we will reach our 15% target very soon.”
Vedatya emphatically believes that if it takes care of it’s employees, then in turn, the employees will take care of the students. Zoho Payroll has helped them achieve this even during the transition to a remote work environment.