How Equitas replaced manual chaos with Access Vincere Evo and Onboarded  

Equitas Staffing is a specialist education recruitment agency working with schools and educators across the UK and internationally. Operating from the UK and Dubai, the company places teaching and support staff across all levels, from short-term cover to senior leadership positions, in primary, secondary, and SEN schools. 

In the context of persistent staffing shortages across UK education - where recent data shows teacher vacancy rates remain significantly above pre-pandemic levels and nearly half of secondary schools currently report at least one unfilled post - agencies like Equitas play a critical role in filling the gap. But as demand surged, the shortcomings of manual processes became a growth constraint.   

When Christian Walshe joined as a senior leader 15 months ago, the business had ambitious growth plans but lacked the operational infrastructure to scale. The situation was more complex than simply needing new technology. In fact, some of the right technology was already in place but fundamentally misunderstood and underutilised. 

Access Vincere was already in place when Christian joined, but he was uncertain whether it was fit for the business, so he started to actively explore alternatives. 

However, a pivotal conversation with their Access Account Manager revealed the real problem wasn't the platform, it was how the team was using it. A systematic demonstration of features the team hadn't activated and workflows they weren't following unveiled the team had been working around Vincere rather than with it. 

What they showed me is that my team were not utilising it. My team were not actually doing what they should be with it, they were... misusing Vincere and now when they are using it for what it's needed, it's actually become a very vital tool.

Christian reflected on a common pattern he'd seen across his fourteen-year recruitment career: teams grow to hate their CRM, switch to another one, then realise what they've lost. What Equitas Staffing had was a capable system, with no-one asking the fundamental question of whether they were using it properly. 

This honest assessment - from both sides - created the foundation for real transformation rather than simply switching to another system that would eventually face the same utilisation challenges.

Not sure where your biggest efficiency gains are? 

Contact us for a quick process review. We’ll highlight where automation can cut risk, remove manual work, and give your team more time to grow the business. 

The agency previously relied entirely on Excel spreadsheets to monitor compliance, creating substantial operational risks. With no programmatic way to track candidate documents, compliance stages, or vetting status, the team resorted to triple and quadruple checking everything manually. The risk of human error was high, and significant man hours went into verification rather than business development. 

We were using Excel spreadsheets to monitor things... We're now into 200+ workers. We needed to track our compliance better. We needed to make sure we're keeping an eye on who was going out on what stage. 

said Christian Walshe, Managing Director. 

Before TimeTemp, every Wednesday became a predictable crisis that consumed senior leadership time and damaged candidate relationships. The email-based approval system created multiple failure points: no centralised visibility, manual follow-ups for every missing submission, delayed candidate payments, and no reliable audit trail when schools challenged invoices. 

Christian captured the weekly ordeal:

Every week Wednesday is our payroll day. Every week there were multiple outstanding timesheets. Candidates who weren’t getting paid -  the complaints landed on my desk.

In education recruitment specifically, the consequences were amplified. Schools, notoriously difficult about invoice disputes, would challenge any payment without ironclad documentation. The email-based system offered no protection. 

The convergence of these issues created an impossible situation. The business had scaled 10x in weekly placements, from 20 to 200-300 workers, but the operational infrastructure hadn't evolved with it. 

We could handle compliance on an Excel spreadsheet until we couldn't. We could handle timesheets being done via email... until we couldn't. 

Manual processes that worked for a small operation were now actively preventing further growth and creating daily crises that consumed leadership bandwidth needed for strategic development. 

Both systems integrate with the agency's Xero accounting platform, creating a unified workflow from candidate onboarding through timesheet approval and invoicing. 

While Equitas is still in the early stages of fully utilising Onboarded, the combined impact of the integrated Access stack is already clear and measurable. 

Headcount savings equivalent to four back-office roles

 
Christian estimates that without TimeTemp and Onboarded, they would have needed significant extra admin capacity to keep up with growth: 

We don't now need to go and find 4 salaries replace that job. It allows us now to invest the money back into the billing side.

Specifically, he highlights the need they would otherwise have had for: 

Before TimeTemp, payroll day was stressful, with “multiple outstanding timesheets” each week, delayed payments, and complaints from candidates. With TimeTemp, that has effectively disappeared. Additionally, it also gives Equitas the audit trail it needs when schools dispute invoices, allowing the team to upload email approvals as evidence within the system. 

Compliance process fit for growth 

Onboarded is replacing a slow, manual, multi-person process with a single integrated system. While Christian can’t yet put a percentage on the time saving - “I can't put a percentage on that because again, we haven't really utilised it yet because it's brand new to us”- he is clear that the previous model “required a lot of man hours and a lot of effort for not just one person but multiple, whereas obviously Onboarded will take away a lot of that.” 

Competitive parity with larger agencies

 TimeTemp’s online approval capabilities ensure Equitas isn’t left behind: 

Every other agency in the world will offer online timesheet approvals. So if you're not offering that, you look miles behind. It's allowed us to compete… to at least be in the same pond as the big boys and and that is a vital asset because as a small business in a very competitive market, it's helpful.

A platform that scales with the business 

As the agency grows, Christian values that there’s always another feature or bolt-on to support the next stage of growth: 

It's almost like Access Vincere Evo saying to us: Let’s get you to next level on the game. Now we've got you here, you can have this new functionality to help move you up a league.

Equitas Staffing's story reveals a hidden growth trap: the point where manual processes stop being inefficient and start being impossible. Their 10x scale-up - from 20 to 200+ weekly placements - would have required four additional back-office hires under the old model, turning growth into an overhead spiral rather than a profit opportunity. 

For agencies approaching this inflection point, the lesson is clear: the right technology doesn't just save time, it fundamentally changes your cost structure, allowing you to scale revenue without adding proportional administrative burden. 

Stop scaling your admin team. Scale your platform instead. 

See how Access Vincere Evo and Onboarded create an integrated workflow that eliminates manual bottlenecks, reduces compliance risk, and frees your team to focus on revenue generation.  

Book a 30-minute workflow review where we'll: 

• Map your current compliance and timesheet processes
• Identify your biggest manual bottlenecks
• Show you exactly how Equitas eliminated 4 admin roles
• Calculate your potential ROI based on your placement volume.