20 Years of TimeFiler: from startup to timesheet leader

Chapter 2: The early days

Our MVP (Minimum Viable Product)

Our first product looked nothing like today’s version. It was a basic web-based timesheet, no award calculations, no automation, just the essentials. The UI was so minimal it made a Nokia phone look high-tech. But hey, it was the pre-SaaS era; we had an excuse!

Our first customer: A lesson in persistence

Our first client was a massive APAC market research company and winning them over wasn’t easy. A small New Zealand startup handling their complex needs? Unlikely.

But we kept building. They kept saying no. We kept building anyway.

Eventually, we delivered a product they couldn’t refuse, and they said yes. We rolled out to 15 countries, managing it all online (thank you, Skype!) and often with users for whom English was a second language. That online-first approach made delivery faster, cheaper, and laid the foundation for our future SaaS model.

It helped that we knew how to work with enterprise clients. Companies like Hato Hone St John, Aviation Security New Zealand, and Tait Electronics gave us a shot as a “temporary solution.”

Two decades later, all of them are still with us. Turns out, we were the permanent solution all along.

Chapter 3: The big breakthroughs

Real-time award calculations = mind blown

One of our proudest achievements: real-time award calculations.

Every time someone entered their hours, pay calculations, warnings, and compliance checks updated instantly, like a spreadsheet, but smarter.

Most systems processed this stuff separately; we made it instant. But with great power came great complexity, so we built a business rules engine so intuitive that non-developers could use it. That’s our secret sauce, and it remains our biggest competitive edge today.

Users can see what will be paid before payroll even runs. And because Australia and New Zealand’s award rules are notoriously complex, our rules engine had to handle it all and evolve as regulations changed. Our years of experience with hundreds of EBAs, awards, and contracts made that possible.

The UI revamp: Keeping it fresh without breaking everything

Recently, we gave TimeFiler a complete visual overhaul. The new interface is sleek, modern, and faster, but here’s the kicker: we didn’t make customers reconfigure a thing or sit through retraining. That’s real innovation, user-friendly and disruption-free.

Chapter 4: Early Partnerships

In the early years, we were lucky to partner with some incredible companies, relationships that truly changed the game early on. Our first two partnerships were IMS Payroll and Fusion5. We have subsequently developed many other key partnerships since. Other partnerships include Alxemy, CostCon, Fieldforce4, Datacom and Access Coins.