Who would have thought that a pandemic would be behind the acceleration of the digital transformation of businesses.
COVID-19 imposes a new way of working on companies, with employees dispersed and confined to their homes. They need to rethink the way they communicate, carry out their administrative tasks, provide day-to-day support for employees, and so on.
This is particularly true of umbrella companies. These companies, which play a day-to-day role in the administrative management of their contractors, need to rethink their internal processes to maintain their business.
Technology can be one of the answers to the challenges facing umbrella companies.
France and COVID-19
The confinement of France began on March 17. Companies are obliged to impose telecommuting on their employees whenever possible, and staffing companies are no exception to the rule.
The functioning of their ecosystem has been turned upside down, and they have to adapt. Umbrella companies hire contractors, who in turn work for a customer. In exchange for a commission, the umbrella company takes care of the administrative procedures for the employee (contract, invoicing, payroll, etc.).
A large proportion of portage activities can be carried out from home, due to the intellectual nature of the assignments. The umbrella company must therefore secure its share of the market on the administrative side, but that’s without taking into account the constraints to come…
COVID-19: the new difficulties facing umbrella companies
Many staffing companies have not yet undergone a digital transformation, and so need to adapt their way of working. Indeed, new difficulties are added to the constraints of everyday life.
A slowdown in business at La Poste
This results in a delay in the receipt of supporting documents for reimbursements (expense claims, etc.).
For companies that choose to send by email, the consequence is that the email gets lost among the others, slowing down processing.
Declaring your activity
Some companies have a dedicated digital space to carry out this task, while others have had to set up a web form or Excel file.
Communication
It’s true that contractors have a lot of expectations regarding their status and the assistance they can receive from the government. Portage companies negotiating with the government must communicate with their employees on the progress of the situation (short-time working, work stoppage, etc.).
Solutions to support temporary employment agencies in this unprecedented crisis
Solutions such as VSP (VSPortage) have been developed to meet the new challenges faced by umbrella companies.
VSP is a SaaS ERP for portage companies that offers several advantages in the current situation:
Activity report or time sheet
Portés can declare their time via the SaaS solution or its mobile application, so it’s accessible from home. Validation is then carried out via a workflow system.
Expense reports
The application’s expense report module lets you manage and validate expense reports. Porters can also insert supporting documents.
Corporate releases
Company newsletters are used to communicate with all contractors, passing on information about their status, the company, etc.
VSP ERP features
ERP offers a wide range of functionalities to support umbrella companies in the digitization of their processes. This allows us to centralize all data, thus avoiding :
- Waiting for the receipt via the Post Office, whose activity has slowed considerably
- Sending receipts by email, which will be lost among other emails
- Performing the same task several times, e.g. retrieving the receipt, opening the Excel file, filling in the corresponding information, then making the reimbursement through your software, multiplied by the number of portfolios.
- Scatter data.
All in all, ERP is an excellent tool for managing your administrative tasks in an umbrella company. You save time and gain visibility on your business. What’s more, thanks to SaaS mode, everyone in the company has fast, secure access from anywhere.
