Leading Wholesaler Streamlines Employee Time and Labor Management with UltiPro®

Weston, FL, May 19, 2009 — Ultimate Software (Nasdaq: ULTI), a leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, today announced that BWI Companies, a leading supplier of garden, nursery, turf, landscape, and agricultural supplies, is adding value across its organization by using UltiPro Workplace.

BWI selected UltiPro Workplace in 2008 for comprehensive human capital management (HCM), including HR, payroll, benefits, recruitment, performance management, and time management. In addition to numerous HCM benefits throughout the organization, one of the key areas where BWI is seeing significant improvements is employee time and labor management.

Prior to deploying UltiPro Workplace in January 2009, BWI had used traditional, stand-alone time clocks to collect employee attendance information, which was passed from manager to administrator to the accounting department before being manually entered into the company’s payroll service bureau system. The lack of automation hindered administrative operations, and the reliance on paper files and manual data entry had become increasingly burdensome as the company grew.

With UltiPro’s feature-set for time management, BWI is expediting and refining its time and labor processes, minimizing errors, and enhancing the visibility into time and attendance information for its HR and accounting teams, supervisors, and employees.

“We are seeing an incredible difference in our efficiencies with UltiPro,” said Steve Collier, director of HR for BWI. “Previously, our processes were tedious and labor-intensive. For example, with UltiPro for time management, employees clock in, managers review and approve the time, and it’s ready for payroll—all using the Web. Now the process is automated and streamlined, and it doesn’t require someone to check for problems and then correct them on the next payroll or issue manual checks. UltiPro is giving our line management more control and accountability, and our HR and accounting teams have much more time to focus on strategic programs rather than data input and error management.”

Before UltiPro, BWI’s collection process for time and attendance was error-prone because information was transferred from person to person and then manually entered for payroll. Today, the company is benefiting from built-in business rules that handle the company’s complex calculations for overtime, holiday pay, and other paid time off (PTO)—and authorized employees and managers can view and modify data to ensure it’s accurate before submitting it to payroll.

“With our previous methods, we wouldn’t know we had a problem until paychecks were in hand. Then we had to either issue a manual check or correct it on our next payroll. It was not the way to do business,” said Collier. “With UltiPro, our authorized employees and managers now have more accountability for their time management, and payroll is right the first time. Everyone—employees, managers, and our company—benefits.”

With more than 600 employees in 15 states, BWI also needed the advantages of a Web portal for its employees in order to enhance communication and information delivery to its remote users and corporate office. By using UltiPro’s portal with self-service, BWI employees can view current or past time sheets, request PTO, and see accrued vacation; managers can view real-time attendance details, approve time, and review PTO requests; and HR and accounting teams and company executives can quickly and conveniently analyze labor metrics on the company as a whole, for a department or business unit, or for a particular individual.

“For the first time, I have visibility into critical HR information, including time and attendance, for our entire workforce. When an employee or manager calls and has a question, I can log on and access everything I need without going to a physical file. Our accounting group has access to the identical information,” said Collier. “Most importantly, employees and managers have the same access, which is limited to information on themselves or their work group. UltiPro’s flexible tools for business intelligence are helping us tremendously by unifying information that is accessible online and then slicing and dicing available data for labor reporting. UltiPro is positively impacting everyone in our company.”

“As part of UltiPro's unified human capital management functionality, our time management feature can help organizations proactively prevent labor issues that negatively affect business and employee performance, such as coverage gaps, compliance issues, and budget overruns,” said Chris Phenicie, vice president of UltiPro Workplace at Ultimate Software. “We are pleased that BWI is taking full advantage of UltiPro Workplace to create optimal benefits for its workforce.”

About Ultimate Software

A leading provider of end-to-end strategic human resources, payroll, and talent management solutions, Ultimate markets its award-winning UltiPro products as on-demand services through software-as-a-service (SaaS) and as on-premise software. Based in Weston, FL, the Company employs more than 900 professionals who are focused on developing the highest quality products and services. In 2008, Ultimate was the first HR/payroll SaaS provider to be audited and awarded the ISO/IEC 27001:2005 Certification for security management, was named the #1 “Best Product Development Team” in the nation by the American Business Awards, and was ranked the #1 best medium-size company to work for in America by the Great Place to Work® Institute. Ultimate has more than 1,700 customers representing diverse industries, including such organizations as The Container Store, Elizabeth Arden, Major League Baseball, The New York Yankees Baseball Team, Nintendo of America, Ruth’s Chris Steak House, and Sony Music Entertainment. More information on Ultimate’s products and services can be found at www.ultimatesoftware.com.