When your clients need to know who's on site right now, spreadsheets are no longer enough.
For security providers, delivering a quality service is only part of the job. Clients increasingly expect visibility into daily operations, from who's rostered on site to when shifts begin and incident reports are completed.
For CPS Services, meeting those expectations became increasingly difficult using internal systems and manual processes.
As the business prepared to mobilise a major contract with Metro Trains in 2021, it became clear that sharing Excel snapshots and manually communicating roster changes would no longer support the level of transparency clients expected.
Guardhouse provided a different approach, one where clients could access live workforce information while payroll, compliance and rostering became part of a connected operational workflow.
The challenge: keeping clients informed in real time
Before Guardhouse, CPS relied on an internally developed system alongside other workforce management tools.
The biggest limitation wasn't payroll or compliance, it was visibility.
Whenever clients wanted to know who was working, the operations team had to manually send roster updates.
"The best part is the transparency between us and the clients. They can see the roster live, because otherwise we have to send them a snapshot of the Excel sheet."
For site supervisors responsible for daily operations, static reports quickly became outdated. Every roster change created another communication task for the operations team.
Preparing to onboard 80 to 90 guards for a major Metro Trains contract only reinforced the need for a more scalable solution.
Choosing Guardhouse
Unlike many software purchases, CPS didn't spend months comparing platforms.
The decision was driven by operational requirements, customer feedback, and confidence in the Guardhouse team.
Three factors stood out:
✅Live rostering with client visibility
✅Payroll integration with MYOB
✅A pricing model that suited the business at the time
Just as important was the implementation experience.
Jack Alpe, Julian Cartwright, and Customer Care Manager Alex worked directly with the team during onboarding, including supporting the company's first payroll run.
"Julian spent two or three days with us going through the process of first payroll. That personal touch... was the motivation that we were in the right hands."
Connecting rostering, payroll, and compliance
Once Guardhouse was in place, several manual processes became part of a connected workflow.
Timesheets are generated inside Guardhouse, approved by clients and linked directly into MYOB for payroll, removing the need to export spreadsheets between systems.
As Shivi explains:
"If there's any issue, we go back to the timesheet and see what the issue is. There's no downloading Excel and putting the pay in and then transforming it."
Compliance also became easier to manage.
Guardhouse flags licences and documents that are approaching expiry, helping the team identify potential issues before guards are rostered.
"Guardhouse will notify us... whether they are expired or expiring. That's a big plus point."
The platform also alerts operators when guards exceed configured working-hour limits, giving authorised users the ability to review exceptions before confirming shifts.
Transparency that benefits clients as well
The operational improvements weren't limited to internal teams.
Today, CPS gives clients direct access to live rosters, reporting and workforce information, reducing the need for constant updates from the operations team.
"They are really happy to have full access of the rosters. You have live reporting... They are very happy with that."
Instead of wondering who has arrived on site, supervisors can view roster information as it changes.
"Rather than a surprise," as Shivi puts it.
This shared visibility also improves accuracy.
With clients, subcontractors and operations teams working from the same information, mistakes are more likely to be identified before payroll or invoicing is completed.
Shivi describes it as having "four eyes rather than two eyes" reviewing operational data.
A platform that grows with the business
After several years using Guardhouse, Shivi describes the platform with three words:
Professional. Seamless. Transparent.
For CPS Services, the biggest change hasn't been replacing one software platform with another.
It's having a single operational system that connects rostering, payroll, compliance, and client communication while giving customers the visibility they increasingly expect.
As client expectations continue to evolve, that transparency has become part of how CPS delivers its service, not just how it manages its workforce.
