Robinsons FM specialise in the provision of fully qualified facilities management professionals to NHS Trusts and private corporations on a permanent basis.

During the initial days of the COVID crisis, RobinsonsFM had been approached by contacts in the NHS to ask if they would be able to provide temporary labour in the form of hospital porters, cleaners and other staff to support the incredible demand caused by the pandemic.

Without a temporary division, but wanting to assist in any way she could, the MD of RobinsonsFM, Nicola Robinson, contacted Horizon Outsourcing to discuss how an outsourced arrangement could help the business monitor staff placed, collate time records, invoice for the work and pay everyone on time.

Within a matter of days, Horizon Outsourcing assisted in setting up an online timesheet portal to allow workers to submit timesheets, clients to approve them and invoices to be raised. This work involved significant data management to record client and contractor details before providing this data to an Umbrella company to on-board the workers. Horizon Outsourcing chased workers for timesheet submissions, received approvals and raised the invoices on a weekly basis with strict deadlines adhered to.

An invoice facility has been required to fund the payroll costs. To achieve this Horizon Outsourcing has been responsible for uploading Sales Day Books and requesting draw down of funds for payment to the Umbrella company every Friday.

All of the above generated transactions that required entry into RobinsonsFM’s accounting package, QuickBooks. Where electronic transfer of this data was available, the process has been managed and monitored by Horizon’s team with manual entry made for any gaps created by non-electronic transactions.

Bank entries, matching receipts from clients and general business expenses are recorded on a weekly basis to ensure that all records are up to date. Banks have been reconciled each week and together with invoice finance reconciliations that are provided to the funder on a monthly basis, cash flow management is under control.

The business has successfully negotiated through a difficult time and provided significant numbers of temporary staff during a national crisis. RobinsonsFM is now turning their attention to building a temporary division. This will allow the risk profile of the business to spread across permanent and temporary recruitment. With Horizon Outsourcing picking up a significant amount of the administration tasks, the director and consultants can concentrate on their client facing roles.