Dilworth is a New Zealand-based school that provides full scholarships to its students, covering education, boarding, meals, music, sport and other educational and extracurricular opportunities.
With a diverse workforce and complex payroll requirements, the school – which teaches students from Year 7 through to Year 13 – was looking for a more efficient and compliant way to manage its payroll operations.
Dilworth’s payroll is complex. Staff work variable hours, some only during term time. Teachers receive up to 12 weeks of leave annually. Kitchen and laundry teams often work through school holidays to support facility hires. And everything must comply with New Zealand’s employment law. For Shawneez Gamieldien, who leads payroll at Dilworth, the previous system was time-consuming.
“I’d be chasing people for approvals, printing out emails and manually calculating leave balances. It took a whole weekend to get ready for Monday.”
The process was paper-based, error-prone, and exhausting.
In 2024, Dilworth transitioned to Datapay, paired with BambooHR, to streamline payroll and leave management. The decision was driven by the need for a New Zealand-based provider with a strong understanding of local employment law.
“Our main concern was being compliant. We wanted a New Zealand-based provider who understands our laws. Local – keep it local – because a local provider knows our laws. Australia does not. Neither does America.”
The implementation began in February and went live in May 2024. Datapay’s team provided hands-on support throughout the process, reviewing data and ensuring accuracy.
Datacom’s Datapay team were absolutely phenomenal,” Gamieldien says.
“They would flag anything unusual and help us resolve it.”
The new system centralised leave requests, approvals and payslips through a mobile app, improving accessibility for staff and managers. Timesheets moved from paper to Direct Access, significantly reducing manual effort.
Key improvements include:
Dilworth’s payroll includes term-time and variable-hours staff, which previously led to challenges in calculating sick leave entitlements. The old approach averaged unpaid school holidays into the rate, which diluted sick leave. Datacom configured a divisor to exclude unpaid school holidays, ensuring fair and accurate leave accruals.
“Datacom have put in this divisor that takes out the school holidays. It gives an accurate daily rate for sick leave and annual leave,” says Gamieldien.
“We had an Excel spreadsheet – a very manual calculation. Now it’s automated.”
The system also supports statutory compliance, including leave accrual visibility and automated superannuation reporting. Compliance is now visible in a way that auditors and staff can understand.
“The law is that you need to accrue four weeks leave and show that you pay it out. Datacom have done this for us.”
Tim Hogan, Director of Datapay says Dilworth’s payroll environment is complex and the focus has always been on helping them manage that complexity, ensuring they get it right for their staff and making compliance easier.
“Our team worked closely with them to streamline processes, improve accuracy, and reduce manual effort. By configuring tailored solutions and providing responsive support, we’ve helped Dilworth build a more efficient and reliable payroll foundation.”
Gamieldien highlights the responsiveness of Datacom’s support team too. “I’ve called the Datapay team late on a Friday and they are always willing to help. There’s no hesitation.”
Communication during outages and filing deadlines has also been consistent.
“You get an email every hour with updates. I haven’t seen that with many software providers.”
And when Dilworth changed its financial year and reconfigured pay codes, the Datapay team were there to help make it all work and provide responsive support.
The move to Datapay has enabled Dilworth to simplify payroll operations, reduce manual workload, and improve compliance. For the payroll team, the change has brought greater confidence and efficiency.
“It gives me peace of mind that when I have an issue, I don’t have to stress about it for too long because all I need to do is pick up the phone and somebody will give me an answer.”
Dilworth School’s payroll was complex, manual and time-consuming - until they made the switch to Datapay. With tailored configuration and hands-on support from Datacom, the school reduced payroll processing time from a full weekend to just six hours. Staff now manage leave, approvals and payslips through a mobile app, with improved visibility and compliance reporting. Datapay’s smart automation and local expertise helped Dilworth simplify operations, meet legal requirements and gain confidence in every pay cycle.
If your organisation is juggling complex payroll needs, find out how Datapay could help you streamline, stay compliant and save time where it matters most.
