Bearings & Spares Payroll App

The Challenge

Bearings & Spares relied on spreadsheets and paper files to run payroll for their growing team. Every month the finance staff gathered earnings, allowances, and deductions from multiple sources, manually recalculated totals, and double-checked summaries before releasing payments. The workflow consumed hours of administrative effort and left little confidence that every update had been captured.

Key Pain Points

• Fragmented Records: Employee information, allowances, and deductions lived across spreadsheets, email threads, and paper folders.
• Manual Calculations: Monthly pay summaries were rebuilt from scratch, increasing the risk of typos and missed adjustments.
• Limited Visibility: Leadership had no quick way to review payroll status or audit individual payouts before approval.
• Cumbersome Reviews: Sharing pay details for verification meant exporting ad-hoc reports and reconciling comments offline.

Our Solution

We partnered with the Bearings & Spares finance team to build the Payroll App—an internal tool that centralizes employee data, streamlines monthly processing, and provides transparent reviews before approval.

Experience Design

• Unified Employee Profiles: All staff details, allowances, and deductions are captured in structured records that stay in sync across pay cycles.
• Guided Pay Runs: Finance can select the payroll month and the employees in scope, keeping each cycle consistent without recreating steps from scratch.
• Dashboard Overview: A clean landing view highlights the current payroll run, search and filter options, and quick access to outstanding reviews.

Workflow Automation

• Instant Pay Summaries: The app generates monthly pay statements in seconds, using stored earnings and deduction data.
• Preview Before Approval: Reviewers can inspect every line item and lock totals prior to confirming payouts.
• Share & Print Options: Built-in export and sharing tools make it simple to circulate summaries for management sign-off or archival.

Data Confidence & Controls

• Single Source of Truth: Updates happen in one place, so the latest allowances and deductions are always reflected in payroll.
• Review Before Finalizing: A dedicated confirmation step lets finance verify totals before payout.
• Intentional Sharing: Export options limit distribution to only the stakeholders who need to see each summary.

Core Features Delivered

1. Centralized Employee Management

• Structured profiles with personal details, roles, earnings, and deductions in one source of truth.
• Quick search and filters to isolate employees by department, status, or deduction type.

2. Monthly Payroll Engine

• Month selector to define the exact pay period and team members in scope.
• One-click generation of individual pay summaries, ready for review or distribution.

3. Approval-Friendly Summaries

• Clear preview screens that surface gross pay, deductions, and net totals.

4. Reporting & Record-Keeping

• Downloadable summaries for audit trails and compliance.
• Print-ready layouts for physical filing when needed.

Results & Impact

Operational Outcomes

• Time Saved: Finance staff moved from hours of spreadsheet wrangling to minutes of guided review each month.
• Accuracy Gains: Centralized records and a structured review step reduced manual errors and rework before payout.
• Confidence Restored: Leadership can inspect pay summaries in-app and approve with assurance that the data is current.

Team Feedback

• Finance team members highlight how the dashboard keeps everything organized and easy to find.
• Managers appreciate the consistent format of monthly summaries and the ability to share them instantly.

Technologies & Delivery

The Payroll App runs on the same modern web foundations that power ZapLabs' other internal products:

• Responsive Interface built with our reusable component library, ensuring consistency across devices.
• Structured Data Layer that keeps employee records, earnings, and deductions organized and easy to maintain.
• Secure Hosting with authenticated access so finance teams can work confidently from anywhere.

Client Testimonial

"Payroll App has made paying my team so much easier. It keeps all employee details, earnings, and deductions neatly organized, and creates monthly pay summaries in just a few clicks. I can review everything before finalizing to make sure it’s accurate. The dashboard is clear and easy to use, with quick search, filters, and sharing options. It saves me hours each month and gives me confidence that payroll is always done right."

— K Godagamage, Board Member, Bearings & Spares (Pvt) Ltd

Key Learnings & Next Steps

Lessons for Internal Tooling

• Centralize Critical Data: Keeping employee information, allowances, and deductions together eliminates the reconciliation overhead that plagued spreadsheet workflows.
• Design for Reviews: Building preview and adjustment steps into the process improves trust and speeds up approvals.
• Make Sharing Effortless: Print-ready and shareable summaries reduce friction for audits and cross-team collaboration.

Roadmap Opportunities

• Extend the dashboard with payroll insights, such as monthly variance tracking and projection reports.
• Integrate notification flows so managers receive automated reminders when pay runs are ready for review.
• Connect with accounting software to synchronize finalized payouts and maintain end-to-end accuracy.