Simplifying payment workflows for contractors and umbrella companies
Enabling Fenero to automate processes, facilitate rapid contractor payments, improve efficiency, and ensure compliance through integration with Fire's API.
Overview
Fenero is a multi-award-winning tax, payroll, and accounting solutions company supporting the financial success of contractors, freelancers, and solopreneurs. With over 16 years of experience, their team of 110+ tax and financial experts simplifies complex processes, helping their customers maximise their take-home pay whilst always remaining tax compliant.
Processing over €250 million in contractor payments annually, Fenero offers an integrated service that handles salary payments, tax, VAT, business expenses, and fees while ensuring compliance. To further enhance their operational efficiency and great service to customers, Fenero partnered with Fire to digitise and automate their payment processes, replacing manual workflows and reducing administrative overhead.
By integrating with the Fire Payments API, Fenero automated payments across over 200 umbrella companies, enabling real-time payment updates and seamless fund distribution. The solution provides streamlined control and visibility over their financial processes, ensuring contractors are paid on time, every time.
The challenge
Fenero operates by managing over 200 umbrella companies. Contractors working through agencies are assigned to one of these companies. Instead of receiving payments directly from agencies and being personally responsible for tax compliance, contractors’ payments are managed through these umbrella companies. Fenero then handles the allocation of funds for tax, VAT, and fees, ensuring that the contractor receives the maximum allowable take home pay, and Revenue receives taxes accurately and on time.
Managing payments for these umbrella companies presents significant operational complexities for Fenero. Each company requires its own account, with payments split across salaries, tax, VAT, and fees. The team manually tracked incoming payments and initiated outgoing transactions by logging into multiple accounts daily, a process that was time-consuming and presented challenges in maintaining timely processing.
Additionally, Fenero operates under a unique Service Level Agreement (SLA) offering the highest standards of customer experience, which ensures contractors are paid on time and that no service charge is applied to their customers if this SLA guarantee is not met. To continue to meet this commitment efficiently as the business has scaled, Fenero needed a new reliable, automated solution to manage incoming payments from agencies and outgoing payments to contractors efficiently.
The solution
Fenero integrated the Fire Payments API into their operations, enabling a fully digitalised and automated payment process.
The integration with Fire provides several key features that streamline Fenero’s payment processes. The webhook functionality sends instant notifications when payments from agencies are received, eliminating the need to manually log into accounts to confirm receipt of funds. Additionally, outgoing payments such as salaries, tax, VAT, and PRSI are automated, allowing Fenero to submit payments directly from their systems. Fenero also benefits from enhanced flexibility in managing approximately 200+ accounts, with real-time control that improves transparency and reconciliation. Finally, the solution provides Fenero with granular access to ensure the secure management of each account.
By leveraging Fire’s integration capabilities, Fenero reduced manual intervention, improved efficiency, and maintained their commitment to timely contractor payments.
The Results
- Real-time visibility, automation and controlBy leveraging Fire's API, Fenero achieves real-time tracking of incoming payments and automates outgoing payments, ensuring complete control and transparency over their umbrella company accounts. This flexible technology empowers Fenero to offer customers significantly faster payment turnaround times, often processing onward payments within just a few hours of receiving invoice payments.
- Enhanced efficiency and complianceWith payments automation, Fenero eliminated manual workflows, ensuring contractors are paid within their SLA. The integration also reduced the administrative burden on their team, freeing up time for high-value tasks.
- Scalable payment processingManaging 200+ unique umbrella company bank accounts, each with distinct profiles and details, this technology has significantly accelerated Fenero’s payment process, enabling them to scale our service without a corresponding increase in operational team size or headcount.
- Improved customer serviceAutomating payments with Fire allows Fenero to reduce manual tasks and ensure timely payments, further enhancing the accuracy of their operations. This allows their team to focus on building strong customer relationships and delivering excellent service.
- Consistent and accurate paymentsAutomating payment processes ensures consistent and accurate fund distribution.
- Customer centricityPutting customer needs first by ensuring they are paid on time, every time offers Fenero’s customers peace of mind, reduces their stress and helps to build loyalty.
"Fire's technology has completely transformed our umbrella contractor payment process, a key operational area for our business. The increased speed is remarkable; payments are now processed significantly faster, a game-changer for our efficiency. Critically, we've enhanced data input accuracy, leading to significant gains in compliance and operational efficiency. This alone has saved many hours of operational time. The impact on our team has been equally positive. The enhanced tools provided by Fire have boosted motivation and morale, as our team now works with a streamlined, efficient system. It's made their jobs easier and more rewarding. Beyond the technology itself, the support we’ve received from the Fire team has been outstanding. From general customer support to assistance with integrating their technology into our existing systems, they’ve been consistently responsive and helpful. The Fire APIs and webhooks are incredibly user-friendly and integrated seamlessly, making the entire process remarkably smooth. A special mention must go to Sam Leybourne. From our initial contact with Fire right through to the operational implementation, Sam has provided prompt and fantastic support. His expertise and dedication have been instrumental in the success of this project. We highly recommend Fire to any business looking to optimise their payment processes."
Philip Lyons, Director of Quality & Continuous Improvement at Fenero
Q&A with Fenero
- Why did you choose Fire over other providers?
Fire's competitive and transparent pricing initially drew us to them, but their helpfulness and responsiveness during the project scoping phase truly impressed us. Learning more about their strong reputation, their comprehensive approach to risk management and the deep expertise of the key people within their organisation, gave us full confidence in their ability to meet our due diligence requirements.
- How did you find the integration process to Fire’s API?
While integrating any new system presents inherent challenges, the overall integration process with Fire was remarkably smooth. Their team was consistently available and supportive, readily assisting us in navigating any obstacles we encountered.
- How has Fire helped you to better serve your customers?
Our integration with Fire has significantly accelerated our onward payment process, leading both to faster payment turnaround times for our customers, meaning they receive their payments faster than ever before; and also freeing up substantial capacity within our team to provide further faster customer support on other aspects of our overall service to them.
Get in touch with our sales team and start your digital payments experience.