Scoring big on payroll and HR efficiency: How Sportball reclaims 5 hours monthly with automated systems

About the business

For over 30 years, Sportball has delivered play-based children’s sport and education programs across Canada, the United States and internationally. With a growing franchise network and seasonal workforce, the organisation requires reliable, accurate and scalable HR and payroll processes. Following its acquisition by Good Capital in 2022, Chief Financial Officer James Holland stepped in to modernise operations, improve financial oversight and streamline people management across multiple locations.

The challenge

Before Employment Hero, Sportball’s finance and HR functions relied on manual processes, disconnected tools and labour-intensive reconciliation.

Payroll required extensive double and triple checking, increasing the risk of human error and creating unnecessary stress for the finance team. Time-off data lived outside the system and needed to be manually imported. Employee records lacked the consistency and visibility required for CRA compliance.

“The ability to make human errors is such a big one. Fat-fingering a few numbers can snowball into hours of wasted time, and it’s not value-adding time for the business.”

The lack of cloud access also made collaboration difficult across a distributed team and growing franchise network.

The solution

Sportball implemented Employment Hero (formerly Humi) as its unified employment operating system, integrating payroll, HR, reporting and people management into one cloud-based platform.Key features now driving operational consistency include automated payroll calculations, CRA-compliant tax filing, fully in-platform leave management, custom reporting and workforce analytics that provide staffing insight across seasons and locations.

“The ability to run a few reports, download them and be off to the races, all within one system has eliminated so many frustrations.”

The ROI

With Employment Hero, Sportball achieved measurable efficiency gains across payroll, compliance, and finance. James described the shift clearly.

“The system helps us save at least a day of work each month.”

• 5–10 hours saved every month across payroll and HR admin
• 20+ hours saved during year-end, reducing the January/February crunch
• Zero compliance issues, supported by accurate employee records and automated filing
• Higher team morale, driven by fewer errors and smoother workflows
• Cleaner, faster access to data, enabling operational and financial insight

He also highlighted the year-end transformation.

“Year-end used to be the heavy lift. Now it’s probably 20 hours saved during that window alone.”

Why it matters

For a CFO overseeing a national, seasonal workforce, accuracy and access to information are critical. Employment Hero gives Sportball the confidence, control and compliance foundation needed to scale without adding operational burden.

“As a CFO, having clean, accurate, easily accessible data is invaluable. Getting information at your fingertips is massive. And making sure people are paid accurately and on time? They’re going to be happy and that’s how Employment Hero helps make my job easier.”