How Worksuite helps FloSports organize the management and payment of 20,000+ freelancers

In an average year, FloSports works with over 2,000 contractors and freelancers throughout their industry. Their biggest challenge as a business was finding a solution to keep their substantial and growing database of contractors clean and organized.

“Over the last five years, we’ve probably worked with anywhere between 20,000 to 30,000 contractors”

FloSports was relying on Google sheets to manage their data. They were finding it increasingly problematic to hire the best contractors for each project, as the sheets gave them no consistent way to rate a contractor’s previous work.

In a weekend, they might be faced with screening 400 contractors to find someone suitable for a job, plus they were dealing with the additional problems of slow onboarding, and struggling with a third-party payment platform.

For FloSports, it was crucial to be able to filter their contractors down to the regions, states, and zip codes to assign people contracts covering events in specific locations. With their manual spreadsheeting system, that was proving impossible to do.

“It was just a disaster. I looked at all those things and I’m like, this is just chaotic. So I started doing research into trying to find a tool”

Google search led to a few prospective vendors meeting with the FloSports team in Austin, but they weren’t good fits. After finding Worksuite, they saw the potential in the platform for their specific needs.

FloSports needed a partner that could work alongside their internal roadmap and be able to provide the flexibility and modifications that they needed to meet their current and future goals. They wanted a solution that would enable them to function as a one-stop shop for their contractors

“We needed a tool that would allow us to organize our contractors, get the contractors paid in one place, and organize posting our jobs in one place – so we can reach out to people quicker and find people to fill jobs quicker”

FloSports mapped out how they wanted things to work in their business, and Worksuite was up to the challenge. Implementation began in November 2019, and the Worksuite development team began adding and testing the custom features that were required.

“Coming out of COVID time was perfect to get Worksuite implemented and get it optimized the way we want it to work for us”

FloSports sees their partnership with Worksuite as very scalable and affordable for the stage of business they’re at. It enables them to be smarter with their money and get what they need to grow at the same time.

“I like to say we’re making them a better product by the things we’re suggesting – and they’re making our company’s job a lot easier with these implementations that they’re doing for us”

Worksuite carried out a mass upload of Flosports’ substantial database of freelancers from Google sheets onto the new platform. 

Once the upload was complete, FloSports was able to send emails to all of their contractors at once, letting them know about the new platform, and giving them the details they needed to get onboarded and submit the necessary tax and banking details through the FloSports website. 

“We push [the contractors] to our website where they sign their independent contractor work agreement, fill out their W9, upload a resume, and fill out a profile so that we can become more personal with them when we’re hiring” 

A lot has changed since implementing Worksuite. Having a central database and custom workflows have made it easier for FloSports to manage and organize their contractors seamlessly at every stage from onboarding, to hiring, to payment.

“We had probably two thousand W9s in emails that we had to shuffle to accounting. Now it’s all in one place, with independent work contracts”

FloSports is now in the process of transitioning their payments from a third party platform to Worksuite Pay. Having their complete freelancer workflow in one place made sense to save time and reduce the risk of errors. 

It’s now simple for their contractors to understand how to submit their contracts and expenses, tag everything with the correct task ID, and get their invoices approved for fast payment. 

Being able to see individual contact details at a glance has reduced the bottlenecks that were getting in the way of jobs being approved and completed.

“Once the contractor is hired, everything that’s sent to them is recorded. So you can always go back and look at all communication with them”

Contractors are able to access the FloSports job board through the platform. By logging into the system, they can see all the upcoming and current jobs available, which gives them the advantage of booking new contracts in advance – instead of wondering what they’ll be working on next month.

“Now they are able to look and see “Oh, FloSports has all these jobs. I have to plan out my next two months worth of work” 

As a fast-growing company that needs to manage a significant amount of external contractors, it was critical for FloSports to work with a solutions partner that had exceptional levels of customer service and support – and Worksuite did not disappoint.

“Communication is a big thing while you’re looking for a partner. We have a Slack channel that communicates directly with [Worksuite] and somebody responds within a second”

Worksuite has made it easier for FloSports to manage all aspects of their freelancer workforce. Contractors now can be hired faster and paid in a more timely manner, which has resulted in time savings for both the Worksuite team and their thousands of freelancers.

“Worksuite is the future. You can manage your own work database, your payment solutions, and your [contractor] ratings all in one spot”