How We Cut Our Home Care Agency Payroll Processing From 1.5 Days to 20 Minutes

A day and a half to just 20 minutes.

That’s how much Ashford Home Care reduced the time required to complete payroll after implementing Aaniie.

For a growing home care agency, reclaiming that much time each pay cycle was a significant operational win – and contributed to Ashford having the capacity it needed to grow from just three clients to over 80.

However, the key to that improvement wasn’t simply finding a better tool for running payroll. 

Like many home care agencies, Ashford Home Care’s biggest bottleneck wasn’t the final payroll calculation, but the mountain of pre-payroll preparation required to collect, check, reconcile, and approve all the information that payroll depends on.

The administrative work behind home care payroll processing

When Ashford Home Care was founded in 2017, Durrand Ashford was managing just three clients. His system was a collection of spreadsheets, with caregivers regularly contacting him and sending photos of things like timesheets.

As he describes it, the spreadsheets were elaborate – even ‘beautiful’ – but they were extremely time-consuming to manage. Keeping track of information for just three clients was already proving difficult. Trying to scale that system as the agency added more clients and caregivers would have created an increasingly complex administrative challenge.

This illustrates a common issue faced by many home care agencies when it comes to payroll: payroll is only as efficient as the information feeding into it.

Before caregivers can be paid accurately and on time, an agency needs reliable information about what happened throughout the pay period – and that can be extensive, including:

• Which caregiver worked each shift 
• How many hours they actually worked
• Whether scheduled shifts changed or were adjusted
• How actual hours compare with schedules and time records
• Which pay rate applies based on the caregiver, role, shift, client, or relevant pay arrangement
• Whether overtime applies based on the employee’s hours and applicable federal, state, or local rules
• PTO, sick leave, bonuses, adjustments, or other applicable payments 
• Travel time, mileage, or other compensation, where required by agency policy
• Verification of time, visit, location, and other service records, where required by the payer or state 
• Investigation and correction of missing entries, exceptions, or discrepancies 
• Reconciliation of information across different records or systems 

When this information comes from multiple places – including scheduling, time tracking, caregiver communication, spreadsheets, and other records – pre-payroll processing can quickly turn into a lengthy, day-long project.

That was the kind of administrative complexity Ashford Home Care was keen to move away from.

Turning payroll processing into one connected workflow

One of the things that stood out to Durrand Ashford when he first saw an Aaniie Care demo was the caregiver scheduling capabilities. Instead of managing schedules separately and then manually gathering timecards for pre-payroll preparation, he saw that Ashford Home Care could use Aaniie to set up schedules and then capture the relevant data throughout its day-to-day operations – automatically bringing everything together in one place.

For example, caregivers could use the Aaniie mobile app to access their schedules, pick up available shifts, clock in and out, and record point-of-care delivery. In the background, Aaniie’s EVV functionality then served as a vital ‘checkpoint’ for that data – capturing compliance-required visit information such as GPS location, date, times, client, caregiver, and services provided. The platform also provided scheduling and time-tracking alerts to identify issues quickly, like late or missed shifts or unauthorized overtime. 

Because Aaniie’s fully embedded payroll engine lives inside the same platform as the scheduling module, the system can instantly match verified hours and pre-configured pay rates directly to each caregiver’s profile – without manual data entry, file exports, or third-party file uploads. 

For Ashford, this transformed the administrative workflow completely. Instead of spending hours assembling and reconciling messy information for each pay cycle, he could simply review clean, pre-organized data, run the necessary reports, and then process the entire agency’s payroll with a single click.

That’s how a tedious, day-and-a-half process shrank into a task that could be completed within 20 minutes. 

What faster payroll processing made possible

The biggest benefit of cutting payroll processing time wasn’t simply getting payroll done faster. It was what Ashford Home Care could do with all the time it got back.

1. More capacity to grow

Time that had previously been spent manually managing scheduling, payroll, and reporting could be redirected toward running and growing the business.

That additional capacity was vital as Ashford expanded. The agency successfully grew from three clients and five caregivers to 80+ clients and 60+ caregivers within just four years.

“It certainly wouldn’t have been possible to grow as fast as we’ve grown without the technology platform provided by Aaniie. We’re Ashford Home Care today in large part because of our partnership with Aaniie.”

Durrand Ashford, Owner

2. Less administrative work for caregivers

The same time-saving principle extended beyond the office to the caregiver team.

With schedules, client information, and shift management tools all centralized within the Aaniie mobile app, caregivers could work with greater autonomy. They no longer had to rely on contacting the office for every single update or question. 

This meant less back-and-forth communication between caregivers and office staff, and zero time spent on tedious paperwork – freeing up more time for what mattered most.

Against this backdrop, Ashford Home Care has an average caregiver turnover rate of only 30%, far below the industry average of 75.5%.

“Aaniie creates an environment where the caregivers can spend more time with the client, less time on the road, and more time with their families. They’re not writing things down, there’s no paper, and they can upload files. Caregivers can access the information they need right out of the Aaniie application.”

Durrand Ashford, Owner

3. Greater accuracy and confidence

Reducing manual data entry and cross-referencing also had an important benefit for payroll itself: fewer opportunities for human error. With less information to transfer by hand, and the system automatically flagging any discrepancies, the office team could easily resolve any issues before the payroll run and ensure employees were paid accurately and on time.

It also gave Ashford greater visibility across its records. By keeping verified visit data, time records, and payroll information connected in one system, the agency could more easily review information, maintain accurate records, and support compliance requirements.

For Ashford Home Care, the result was much bigger than a faster payroll run. By removing hours of administrative friction from every single pay cycle, Aaniie helped create the capacity to scale, improve caregiver satisfaction, and operate with greater confidence in its payroll and recordkeeping processes.

What could your home care agency do with 10+ hours back?

Is your home care agency facing similar challenges with the amount of time it takes to prepare and process payroll? Do other areas of your business get neglected simply because there aren’t enough hours in the day? 

What would you choose to focus on if you could reclaim some of those payroll processing hours:

• Improving caregiver recruitment and pipeline building?
• Strengthening caregiver training and development?
• Cultivating your referral sources?
• Updating your website and social media presence?
• Nurturing relationships with clients and families?
• Expanding into new service areas?
• Strengthening your financial planning and forecasting?
• Finally making progress on your plans for growth?

For a growing agency, these are exactly the kind of things that can easily get pushed aside when payroll and other administrative tasks consume valuable hours every pay cycle. 

The bigger goal of payroll efficiency isn’t simply to get payroll finished faster. It’s to create more capacity for the work that matters – whether that’s building your team, strengthening client relationships, improving your operations, or growing your business.

Ashford Home Care’s results were just the beginning

The Ashford Home Care results demonstrate the value of connecting payroll with the systems and processes an agency already relies on. By connecting scheduling, time tracking, visit information, and payroll, Ashford was able to replace hours of manual preparation with a more streamlined process – creating capacity for the agency to focus on growth, its caregivers, and its clients.

Explore Aaniie Payroll to learn more about our reimagined, fully embedded payroll solution and see how it could help simplify payroll for your agency.

“For too long, payroll integrations with home care software have meant extra clicks, spreadsheets, and workarounds. With Aaniie, our goal is to create a true all-in-one home care platform. Aaniie Payroll removes friction entirely — no exports, no duplicate entry, and no switching between systems. Payroll simply becomes part of how agencies already operate.”

Scott Zielski, CEO of Aaniie