customer success

London Alley cut payroll time in half by switching to Wrapbook.

TYGA x Doja Cat “Freaky Deaky” | Director: Christian Breslauer

Overview

London Alley knows a thing or two about rhythm.

Founded in 2007 by Luga Podesta, today the LA-based company is one of the world’s most sought-after music-video production houses. Their gorgeous visuals have accompanied hits by Lil Nas X, Ariana Grande, Nicki Minaj, and more. Their style can be eclectic, but a London Alley production is always defined by the brand’s captivating storytelling and uncompromising vision. And whether it’s the infectious pulse of a hit record, or the kinetic pacing of its accompanying video, rhythm is always central to what London Alley does.

But rhythm plays a role in the company’s business operations as well. Over the past decade, London Alley has grown into a full-service production company, with a fast-growing roster of clients that extend beyond musical artists to brands like PGA Tour 2k23, Pepsi, Old Spice, and more.

For Adriane Maxwell, Financial Controller, managing this ever-expanding portfolio and juggling simultaneous projects is an exercise in rhythm, too—making sure London Alley’s production keeps pace with the company’s growth.

So when they saw that London Alley’s old payroll system was not keeping pace with the company’s expanding portfolio, they followed the advice of their freelancers and turned to Wrapbook.

Katy Perry x Alesso “When I’m Gone” | Director: Hannah Lux Davis
Lil Nas x Jack Harlow “Industry Baby” | Director: Christian Breslauer
New Era “PGA Tour 2K23” | Director: Colin Tilley
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The Problem

One thing London Alley does not do is rest on its laurels. In recent years, they’ve expanded from music video production into commercial and branded content, advertising, and most recently, artist management—all the while maintaining their reputation for producing top-tier work. But with such dramatic growth came new challenges, and as London Alley continued to grow, they found it increasingly difficult to keep their teams connected while managing payroll smoothly and compliantly.

“It was difficult to transfer information and knowledge from one person to another. It was very manual. Digitizing everything was a constant struggle.”

According to Maxwell, London Alley’s old payroll system was tedious and inefficient. Everything was done by hand, which made transferring information between London Alley’s many teams around the globe extremely difficult. It also increased the potential for mistakes. Every time an onboarding form was filled out incorrectly, London Alley’s project managers had to waste valuable time chasing down employees and contractors to correct it.

Simply put, with London Alley’s previous payroll system, managing onboarding, payroll, and compliance was a pain—clunky, slow, and not at all intuitive.

“I’ve worked in production for 10 years now and I’ve worked with every other payroll company there is. Every other system is difficult to navigate, you have no visibility into the project, you’re having to upload additional information in order to obtain payroll reports… so when one of our crew members kept singing Wrapbook’s praises we decided ‘why not’ and took a demo. We’ve never looked back.”

Why Wrapbook?

London Alley needed a payroll system that could seamlessly connect their production teams across time zones, while allowing managers to easily, securely and accurately administer payroll with the push of a button. So when a crew member on a 
London Alley shoot recommended Wrapbook, Maxwell decided to 
make the switch.

The Solution

A unified digital payroll solution, Wrapbook puts London Alley’s entire production at their fingertips, consolidating onboarding, insurance, and payroll into a single, easy-to-use platform.

In particular, Maxwell loves the way Wrapbook has streamlined reporting. All the information she needs to wrap a project is readily available at the touch of a button—no need to manually punch in data—and auditing a timecard is as easy as searching an employee or contractor’s name—no digging through piles of paperwork or waiting on a paymaster.

Maxwell says London Alley’s production teams also love Wrapbook. The ability to access real-time data means they no longer have to go through a paymaster to obtain information. Instead they can view their entire payroll history on a single easy-to-use dashboard.

“[Wrapbook is] everything that you want from a payroll software. It's so much easier. The pain points are just eliminated.”

Faster Wrap with On-Demand Reporting

By eliminating reliance on a paymaster to provide payroll reports, Wrapbook has cut London Alley’s wrap time in half.  London Alley’s production team can access payroll reports 24/7, in any format they need—they can quickly view and drill into data on screen, or export as a CSV or PDF.

Seamless and Smart Integrations

With Wrapbook's intuitive Hot Budget and Quickbooks integrations, London Alley can automatically send expenses from Wrapbook into their preferred accounting software making it quick and easy to track payroll expenses against their overall budget without manually re-entering data.

Business Impact

Before Wrapbook, payroll was slow and inefficient. London Alley’s in-house production manager spent all her time chasing down employees and contractors to ensure their onboarding information was accurate.

With Wrapbook, London Alley has cut the time they spend on onboarding and payroll in half. This has saved them money, of course,  but it’s also given them something more valuable: the freedom to focus their energy on executing their creative vision.

“Wrapbook has freed up our in-house production manager’s time. She’s able to run job cost reports and she’s able to produce instead of just focusing on payroll.”

The Future

Over the last ten years, London Alley has grown from a leading music video production house into a multidisciplinary entertainment conglomerate. And that’s just the beginning.

With Wrapbook onboard to connect and streamline their payroll, London Alley will be able to direct all their attention toward producing innovative and visually-stunning work, no matter where the future takes them.

Shenseea x Megan Thee Stallion “Lick” | Director: James Larese

See what Wrapbook can do for you.

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