PRODUCT CASE STUDY

Dragon Worker:

a $40,000 subscription, replaced.

They were paying for a platform built to suit almost any business, and using two corners of it. Now one upload runs the week's payroll and invoicing.

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Type Internal system

Built for A labour hire business

Connects to Xero

01 / The challenge

Paying for a whole platform to use one corner of it.

The platform they were on is built to suit almost any business. That is its strength, and it is also why it cost what it did.

Dragon Worker's own app already handled timesheets and the day to day work, so the only parts they actually used were payroll and billing.

On top of that they were paying for separate software for reporting and rate cards. A lot of money for a lot of features nobody opened.

02 / WHAT WE BUILT

One upload. The hub does the rest.

We rebuilt the payroll and invoicing the old platform was handling, shaped it around the way Dragon Worker works, and connected it straight to their app.

Step 01 / Input

One CSV

The week's timesheets, uploaded once.

Step 02 / Engine

Operations Hub

Awards, rate cards and pay rules, applied line by line.

Step 03 / Output

Xero

Invoices and pay runs, sent through without re-keying.

FROM ONE UPLOAD, THE HUB:

01

Syncs Clients & Candidates

Validates records directly from their bespoke management platform.

02

Creates Placement Data

Establishes and confirms role-rate relationships dynamically per placement.

03

Ingests Timesheets

Processes raw multi-day CSV rows in a single batch without manual cell edits.

04

Calculates Complex Pay

Applies custom rates, overtime thresholds, and allowances accurately.

05

Groups Multi-Placement Timesheets

Consolidates candidate hours across multiple client sites into singular records.

06

Builds Weekly Sales Invoices

Matches verified client billing rates to confirmed placement times automatically.

07

Sends Pay Run into Xero

Direct API push ready for final one-click authorization and bank disbursement.

01

Syncs clients and candidates

Records come straight from Dragon Worker's own platform, so nothing is kept in two places.

02

Creates the placement

Sets the role and the rate for each candidate at each client.

03

Takes in the timesheets

A whole week of multi-day rows in one batch, with no cell editing.

04

Works out the pay

Applies the award conditions, overtime thresholds, allowances and rate cards, line by line.

05

Groups work across sites

A candidate working at more than one client site comes through as a single record.

06

Builds the weekly invoices

Matches each client's billing rates to the confirmed placement hours.

07

Sends the pay run into Xero

Ready for a final check and authorisation before anything is paid.

03 / The part that took the work

The same shift is not the same shift.

A single timesheet line can mean very different things. The same shift pays differently depending on the candidate's award, the day, the time, the breaks, the weekly hours and the overtime thresholds. Then it bills differently again depending on the client's rate card.

In

Raw candidate timesheet entries, raw start and end timestamps, breaks, candidate, client, site.

Rules

Award conditions, ordinary time, overtime, allowances, tailored client rate cards.

Out

The pay for every candidate and the charge for every client.

That runs every week, line by line.

04 / MORE THAN A STRAIGHT SWAP

The tools they could stop paying for.

We built in parts of the process the old platform never handled, so the extra software could go too.

Reporting suite

Replacing the separate reporting software they were paying for.

Rate card calculations

Built into the hub instead of living in another tool.

05 / THE OUTCOME

$40,000 back, every year.

Payroll and invoicing are fully replaced by the unified operational engine. Discrepancies that once cost manual review hours each week are caught and resolved automatically at source.

Dragon Worker now owns a system that does what they need and can change when the business does, rather than waiting on somebody else's roadmap.

Client Quote

06 / CLIENT VERDICT

“The platform we were on was a significant annual cost, and we were only using the payroll and billing side of it. Designed For Results rebuilt it around the way we work and connected it to our app. Now one upload runs our weekly payroll and invoicing.”