Every day, thousands of people frequent Compass Coffee’s 12 stores across the Washington Metro Area. Co-founder Michael Haft has enjoyed bringing people together over “real good coffee” and seeing the Compass community grow since launching in 2014. “We could be the best five minutes of someone’s day, so it’s important to provide an amazing experience,” he said. 

But after several years of using Gusto for payroll and benefits, Michael realized the business had reached breaking point with the solution: “I was spending eight hours every other week running payroll, which included manually calculating PTO, enrolling people in healthcare, and managing pay rates and job titles.... Hourly employees also comprise much of our staff, so keeping track of everyone’s hours required the tedious process of manually typing those in every pay period.” 

Michael wanted help automating payroll so he could focus on brewing the best possible cup of coffee for his customers.

During his search for a new payroll solution, Michael evaluated several enterprise-level HR management systems, including ADP, Kronos, and Paychex, but was unimpressed. 

“We’d rather go with a young and dynamic company like ours, and Rippling immediately appealed to me,” he said. “They want to automate the things that humans don’t need to be doing, which means our team can focus on what we’re good at.”

“Rippling solved all the issues we had with Gusto—what used to take hours now takes minutes,” Michael explained. “I’ve texted every single one of my entrepreneur friends in DC and told them to check out Rippling, because it changed my life.”

Michael now spends only 15 minutes every other week on payroll, which has freed up time to focus on more strategic projects, including constructing a new factory, building additional cafes, and expanding the company’s product line in Whole Foods.

We’d rather go with a young and dynamic company...and Rippling immediately appealed to me. They want to automate the things that humans don’t need to be doing, which means our team can focus on what we’re good at.

Michael Haft

Co-founder at Compass Coffee

Getting Compass employees paid accurately and on time is not negotiable, Michael told us. However, human error can get in the way: “One of the most frustrating things about Gusto is that there were times when I made mistakes or something didn’t import, which affected the payroll. In that case, I would Venmo someone just to ensure they had the cash.... Even if it’s an accident, you feel awful because maybe that employee was relying on that paycheck. With Rippling, I no longer have to worry, because everything is automated and taken care of.”

Compass offers a wide array of benefits for employees. Before Rippling, managing the health, commuter, FSA, and time-off benefits often involved a lot of work. But now it’s simple. “Not only was the process of switching our benefits to Rippling fast and easy—we just did our annual insurance renewal, and it only took 15 minutes. The simplicity is fantastic.”

Previously, onboarding corporate employees and setting them up with new accounts took two hours. With Rippling’s automatic provisioning, it takes only 20 minutes.

Michael likes Rippling’s ability to provision sub-users of admins based on organization structures. “With Gusto, you can only choose ‘admin’ or ‘user.’ This is extremely sensitive data, so it’s great that Rippling gives me more control over who can see what.”

Michael loves that Rippling syncs with Legion, their time and attendance app. “You just click a button and everything syncs over. It even calculates overtime and all the necessary compliance.”

Rippling’s job codes enable Michael to accurately report workers’ comp hours to Compass’s insurance company. “It’s normal for someone to work three different jobs in a year, so the ability to accurately track each employee’s hours by job code has changed the game by ensuring we’re not overpaying for insurance.”

“Rippling quickly helped us put together the necessary compliance paperwork to submit to banks for COVID financial assistance. We ended up getting a PPP loan, and Rippling was instrumental in that process. Their support is head and shoulders above any HR solution I’ve worked with; you can tell there are real people on the other end who care.”

• With Rippling, Compass saw a 96% reduction in time spent on HR & IT tasks.
• Compass saved an additional 15 hours a month on manual work. 
• The coffee company can now onboard corporate employees six times faster.