Red Arrow Industries hits their target with Wrapbook
Overview
The best stories stick with you. And if there’s one thing Red Arrow Industries understands, it’s how to craft a story that lasts.
Founded in 2007 by Danny Downing and Ryan Hardison, two former editors, the Knoxville, Tennessee-based company has grown from a small upstart into a production powerhouse for unscripted and branded content.
With shows like OWN’s First Time Buyers Club, HGTV’s Renovation Face-Off and Two Steps Home, and Netflix’s How to be a Cowboy, Red Arrow’s content spans genres and tones, all without sacrificing on the company’s signature “sticky” brand of storytelling—whether they’re creating long- or short-form content.
“Everyone is looking for content. Not noise, but stories. Good, sticky stories with twists and turns…That’s what we do. We’re storytellers.”
But when it came to payroll, Red Arrow Industries found that the old-school systems they were using weren't keeping up with their needs or standards of service. Red Arrow needed a solution that offered prompt customer service. They needed efficient workflows that would allow them to make the most of their time on and off set. And most of all, they needed a true payroll partner: a provider that would continue to support the company’s fast-paced growth.
They needed Wrapbook.
The Problem
Red Arrow’s previous payroll providers left a lot to be desired. With clunky interfaces and totally separate systems for onboarding and payroll, even the most basic production tasks were time-consuming and complicated. For Senior Vice President of Operations Kelsey Sarles and Production Coordinator Amber Gillespie, that was a big problem.
“It was a real pain to figure out how to do just the basics in the payroll software. It wasn’t intuitive and it didn’t make sense to have basic payroll tasks divided into two separate systems with separate accounts to manage.” - Kelsey
On the payroll end, Red Arrow Industries had problems and delays with inflexible payment timelines. Because they had to abide by their previous providers' payroll cutoffs, workers who missed the deadline to submit a timecard—even by a few hours—could end up waiting a long time to get paid. This was frustrating for Red Arrow Industries, of course, but even more so for their crew. And in the production business, a happy crew is everything.
Red Arrow Industries also found themselves frustrated with the level of support they received from their previous payroll providers' customer service. Slow response times and less-than-helpful support often left Red Arrow playing the middleman between their payroll company and their crew. Unable to get quick answers for their workers, Red Arrow worried that their go-to crew would be less likely to work with them going forward—a real hazard in the fast-moving world of production.
“It certainly damages relationships with people that you wanna keep working with if you can't get fast answers when it comes to payment.” - Kelsey
Why Wrapbook?
When it came time to look for a new payroll provider, Red Arrow Industries’ first priority was, as always, their crew. They needed a platform that crew would find easy to use, with top-notch customer support and a single interconnected system for their whole team.
Most of all, though, Red Arrow wanted a true payroll partner—a provider that would have their back, take care of their crews, and share their values. That’s when they found Wrapbook.
“We do the best work because we can get the best team, and part of that experience is we get people paid efficiently. We don't cause them lots of pain. Wrapbook treats people like we like to treat them. And that's really aligned with our values and helped us be competitive.” - Kelsey
The Solution
By providing an on-demand payroll platform, Wrapbook made it easy for Red Arrow Industries to get all their workers paid on time. Because Wrapbook’s game-changing automation eliminates the need to wait on a paymaster, Red Arrow was able to run payroll 24/7 with just a click—meaning their workers get paid faster, and with far less fuss.
“With Wrapbook, you can run multiple payroll batches anytime pretty much and make sure that everybody's paid on time, regardless of, you know, one person hasn't filled their timecard out.” - Kelsey
Plus, Wrapbook’s industry-leading onboarding process transformed Red Arrow’s workflow. With mobile onboarding via the Wrapbook app for iOS, crew members could sign their startwork and input their payment information right from their phones. Even better, thanks to Wrapbook’s profile-based onboarding system, many crew members didn’t need to fill out startwork at all—their Wrapbook profile imported the relevant information automatically.
“Maybe like 30% of the crew…had already used Wrapbook at some point, so they already had an account.” - Amber
And because Wrapbook offered an all-in-one, integrated system for handling onboarding and payroll, Red Arrow no longer had to deal with the disconnected platforms that had frustrated them with their previous providers. Data input in the onboarding process was automatically applied to payroll settings, reducing the potential errors and speeding things up dramatically.
Most of all, though, Red Arrow Industries found that Wrapbook was a ready and willing partner in their payroll journey, with responsive customer service and a willingness to go the extra mile to support their unique business needs.
Business Impact
Red Arrow Industries is already seeing the upsides of switching to Wrapbook. For one, they’re saving hours of busywork on every project—between faster onboarding for crew and on-demand payroll that lets them pay their workers on their time, not their payroll provider’s.
But more than that, they’ve also found that their crews are happier with Wrapbook. How, you might ask, does a production company know that a crew is happy with their payroll provider? In Red Arrow’s case, it’s because their crews haven’t mentioned it at all.
Amber and I checked in with our production team to say, ‘hey, what has your feedback been from the field?’ And the response was, ‘we haven't heard anything,’ which is good news. We get complaints if things are going wrong, which certainly happened with [our former payroll providers]…But [with Wrapbook] there really wasn't any feedback, which we took to mean that it was seamless, that they didn’t have any problems.” - Kelsey
The biggest change for Red Arrow, though? Having a true payroll partner—a company that isn’t just available to address problems as they arise, but invested in the success and future of Red Arrow’s business.
“It is a partnership in the full sense of the word. With prior companies…we had a rep and we could email them. It really wasn't a relationship, right? Maybe more like you're calling Comcast. [With Wrapbook] it feels like we’re working towards the same goal.”
The Future
In the coming years, Red Arrow Industries is positioned to keep growing, and keep creating the “sticky” stories its viewers have come to love. And with Wrapbook as their payroll partner, they won’t be slowed down by inefficient payroll or disengaged customer service.
Not only that, Red Arrow is also looking forward to optimizing their accounting workflows by trying out Wrapbook’s new accounting features—including its seamless integration with QuickBooks Online and its built-in production accounting platform. The company is excited to see how Wrapbook can streamline the accounting side of their business, just like they’ve streamlined the payroll side.
No matter where the future leads, one thing is clear: with Wrapbook as their payroll partner, Red Arrow is only pointing upwards.
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