customer success

Voyager connected the dots with Wrapbook

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Overview

Like the space program it’s named after, production company Voyager is dedicated to pushing boundaries. But while NASA’s Voyager probes are busy collecting data about faraway planets, the production company is pushing boundaries a bit closer to home—in their home base of Brooklyn, New York.

Founded in 2015 by Charles Frank and Andrew Hutcheson, Voyager represents a diverse roster of talented directors who produce projects that range from broadcast commercials and branded content to original documentaries and narratives. From the start, Voyager has focused on championing the best stories humanity has to offer, their work winning numerous awards and accolades. The company has collaborated with agencies like Anomaly, R/GA, and Wieden+Kennedy and produced content for clients like Adidas, Facebook, and Mercedes-Benz, among countless others.

Voyager’s mission to bring human-centered narrative to commissioned storytelling is embraced by everyone at the company. And for Meliz Yilmaz, a producer and project manager, bringing those narratives to life involves keeping Voyager’s operations organized and efficient.  So when she saw that Voyager’s old payroll service was not delivering dependable, repeatable results for their crews and production teams, she realized it was time to find a more efficient payroll solution.

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The Problem

Voyager prides itself on doing things the right way—producing work with meaning and impact. It’s this commitment to quality that’s enabled the company’s meteoric rise over the past few years. But as Voyager continued to grow, they noticed that their old payroll system wasn’t growing with them.

Yilmaz recalls that Voyager’s old system for onboarding crews and administering payroll was frustratingly slow and opaque. Crews found it difficult to find pay stubs and track payments, while freelancers struggled to understand the system’s confusing documentation.

“A lot of the documentation that would come back to freelance teams was really confusing. They didn’t know how to log in and see what their pay stubs were.” — Yilmaz

The unwieldy and complicated process also put an undue burden on Voyager’s in-house production teams, who had to spend hours chasing down incomplete documents and following up with paymasters to make sure crews had been paid. If that wasn’t frustrating enough, when production teams surfaced questions to the payroll service, it could take days to get a response.

“Crews weren’t getting paid on time. That really became a struggle, not only because we care about people getting paid in a timely fashion, but also because it put a lot of stress on our internal teams.” — Yilmaz

Why Wrapbook?

Voyager needed an efficient, connected payroll solution to better serve their production teams and crews. Wrapbook’s unified software allowed them to organize and manage their entire payroll on one easy-to-use, secure platform. Now, crews get paid on time and projects wrap faster.

“It is more efficient and easier for everyone. From your crew to your in-house production team all the way to accounting, it has made everything so much simpler and easier to track.” — Yilmaz

The Solution

Yilmaz and Voyager were motivated to find a more efficient solution that could take better care of their crews and production teams. Wrapbook allowed them to take control of their onboarding and payroll administration.

With Wrapbook, Voyager’s crews get paid in a timely fashion. They can view all their documents using the software’s easy-to-use interface, and production teams can easily track payroll from onboarding through wrap, cutting through the confusion. Yilmaz says that, before Wrapbook it would have been unheard of to have everyone’s startwork submitted before the beginning of a job; now it’s standard.

“Things get done way more efficiently and thoroughly. Everyone's information is properly stored and taken care of in a correct and legal manner.” — Yilmaz

Yilmaz is also grateful for the added security Wrapbook provides. Crews don’t always feel comfortable sharing sensitive personal information via less secure channels like email or physical paperwork. Wrapbook allows freelancers and employees to submit their  information securely and save it for future jobs, eliminating the hassle of filling out the same onboarding documents over and over again.

Everything In One Place With Project Dashboard

With Wrapbook’s project dashboard and custom notifications features, Voyager’s in-house production teams can quickly and easily check the status of onboarding documents, approve time cards with a click, and much more. The unified platform keeps everything in one place, so Voyager no longer has to waste time going back and forth with a payroll coordinator to fix incorrect or incomplete documentation. And it helps ensure crews are paid on time.

More Secure And Compliant Digital Onboarding

Digital time cards and startwork documents not only help Voyager run payroll more smoothly, they also help Voyager stay compliant. Wrapbook’s software integrates information from startwork forms with its payroll engine, keeping everything connected and reducing the potential for errors.

Business Impact

Since switching to Wrapbook, Voyager’s teams have saved days per project on payroll, and they no longer have to worry that unnecessary and costly delays caused by a traditional payroll service will stall wrap or keep crews from getting paid on time.

With the peace of mind that comes from working with a dependable payroll solution like Wrapbook, Voyager’s teams have more headspace to focus on the heart and soul of their business, crafting impactful stories that resonate with audiences.

“I can't imagine having gone through the growth that we've had this year with an older payroll service.” — Yilmaz

The Future

As Voyager continues to push the boundaries of storytelling and chart a course into the unknown, they plan on remaining true to their mission and cultivating the best independent work from their many talented directors.

With Wrapbook keeping everything connected, Voyager can continue showcasing the very best that humanity has to offer.

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