Waterman Broadcasting Online

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Gerry Poppe, CFO

Waterman Broadcasting owns and operates several NBC television affiliate stations. Waterman Broadcasting “strives to be the best and most respected source for public service, news, information, marketing, and entertainment.” Waterman owns WBBH-TV (NBC) in Fort Meyers, FL; WVIR-TV (NBC) in Charlottesville, VA; GOSWFL.com, a locally produced news and information website in Fort Meyers, FL; and has a Local Management Agreement with Montclair Communications for its ABC affiliate, WZVN-TV, also in Fort Meyers, FL. With nearly 500 employees and four geographical locations, they were trying to meet a couple of major challenges in the payroll area.

The Challenge:

The issues that CFO Gerry Poppe was facing in the area of time and attendance were based on the unique operational environment, television and the disparate geographical Waterman locations. He was looking for something less “labor intensive”, something that was easy to use, and which integrated smoothly with Abra Payroll. The crux of his problem was as follows:

"With our 3 locations, we have 22 segmented newscasts daily, and each one can have up to 11 different functional jobs. All of our personnel are cross trained, and we needed to implement job costing for each job on each broadcast. The time sheet software we were using forced us to create a matrix for each job and each person working in that job, resulting in a total of 242 combinations which was simply not manageable. EBSTime’s EBSTimesheet product allowed us to create two organizational levels, one for jobs and one for the employee. The solution was elegantly simple." - Gerry Poppe, CFO

EBSTime employed easy to use drop down menus with table values that could be easily understood and selected. The system emulated certain Abra features and made it easier for users to become familiar with how to use it.

A Stellar Implementation:

The EBSTimesheet was the key to resolving the major issues at Waterman. In addition, they decided to add the EBSAttendance module to their purchase. The implementation went so well that Gerry Poppe rated it as "a 5 out of a possible 5 stars".

"The EBS consultant who handled our implementation had a very strong grasp of the product and what we were trying to accomplish. Even though we had some challenging requirements, he guided us through so well that it felt like a turnkey solution." - Gerry Poppe, CFO

And the EBSAttendance Module provided some unexpected benefits. Gerry said that “With the ability for employees to directly view leave balances and request time off through the EBSAttendance system, our managers are receiving far fewer calls about these things and it has freed up a lot of time for them to be more productive."

A Bonus:

An added bonus with the implementation of the Web Based system was ease, with which the employees could enter and submit their time. Having the data in an electronic format and ready for processing helped the managers, no more need to track down missing timesheets from remote locations, no more excuses regarding late submission of timesheets due to lost/misplaced timesheets. The managers are able to quickly see who has submitted their time and who has not, thus eliminating the need to maintain a check off sheet for the timesheets. With the EBSAttendance Module managers can approve time off and have a documented trail inside the system which tracks and reports on the future time off.

This is just one case where Employee Based Systems helped a customer. You could be our next success story.

For more information, contact our sales department at: Employee Based Systems 7991 Shaffer Parkway Suite 202 Littleton, CO 80127 Phone: 303-991-3500 Fax: 303-991-3501 Website: www.ebstime.com email: