With approximately 20 employees and an active development pipeline, Horizons Group needed a more efficient way to manage time tracking, payroll, and workforce administration while supporting both office and field teams.

The Challenge

As Horizons Group continued to grow, its payroll and workforce management processes were becoming increasingly difficult to manage through manual workflows.

Field employees recorded time on paper timesheets that were collected from job sites and submitted to the office every two weeks. Payroll staff then manually entered the information into payroll systems, creating duplicate work and increasing the risk of errors, missing records, and delayed approvals.

The company was also transitioning its financial operations to a modern ERP platform and needed a workforce management solution that could integrate seamlessly into its financial workflows.

In addition, the paper-based approval process lacked accountability. Employee hours were approved using handwritten initials, making it difficult to verify approvals and maintain a clear audit trail.

Horizons Group wanted a solution that could digitize time tracking, strengthen payroll controls, eliminate manual data entry, and provide greater visibility into workforce activity across job sites.

Why Horizons Group chose Lumber

Horizons Group selected Lumber to modernize workforce management and payroll operations through a connected, construction-focused platform.

Lumber provided:

• Direct integration with the company's financial systems
• Digital time tracking for field employees
• Mobile clock-in and clock-out capabilities
• Geo-tagging and geofencing functionality for workforce visibility
• Digital approval workflows for project managers and site supervisors
• Centralized vacation and leave tracking
• Automated payroll processing and compliance management
• Secure recordkeeping and workforce reporting

Rather than relying on paper timesheets and manual approvals, project managers and site supervisors can now review and approve employee hours digitally. This creates a secure, auditable approval process while ensuring payroll data flows directly into the system without duplicate entry.

The platform also provides a centralized source of truth for employee time, vacation balances, and payroll information, eliminating the risk of lost paperwork and disconnected records.

Results on the ground

Horizons Group is now live on Lumber and has transformed how workforce data moves from the field to payroll.

Key outcomes include:

• Reduced time entry processing from hours to approximately five minutes
• Eliminated paper-based timesheets and manual data entry
• Established secure digital approval workflows
• Improved visibility through geo-tagging and geofencing capabilities
• Centralised vacation tracking and workforce records
• Streamlined payroll processing through integrated workflows
• Reduced administrative burden on office staff and project managers

Perhaps most importantly, the time previously spent managing payroll administration has been redirected toward higher-value business activities.

Instead of spending evenings and overtime hours processing payroll information, the Horizons Group team can focus on project execution, managing apartment rentals, supporting building completions and occupancy milestones, and planning future developments within its five-year construction pipeline.

By replacing manual processes with a connected digital workflow, Horizons Group has built a more scalable operational foundation that supports both current projects and future growth.