How Smith and Long Construction Improved Payroll With Criterion

Since the early 1930s, Smith and Long Construction has been leading commercial, institutional, and industrial construction projects across Canada. Starting with just a handful of service trucks, they’ve  now become a massive, full-service electrician and mechanical contractor for virtually every sector.

But growth always comes with challenges. With a new president at the helm, Smith and Long began doubling in size nearly every year for a decade — and it soon became clear their existing systems couldn’t keep up. Managing payroll and HR at scale with outdated tools was becoming impossible. They needed a solution that could integrate with their existing ERP and handle the complexities of payroll for a growing workforce.

After struggling with other tools, Smith and Long discovered Criterion HCM — a platform designed to help streamline payroll, HR , and talent engagement workflows. We spoke with Patryk Kubiszyn, Vice President of Systems & Process at Smith and Long Construction, to see how Criterion has improved their operations.

"Honestly, it’s been great. It’s just so nice to be confident in a system that’s been working flawlessly."

Challenges

When they were a smaller organization, Smith and Long got along okay using legacy ERP software. But as the company began growing rapidly in the early 2010s, that tool quickly became a major pain point.

Smith and Long is heavily reliant on unionized labor. They are signatory to over 10 unions — including electrical, HVAC, plumbing, and machinery operators. Naturally, each union has its own distinct rules, wage structures, and reporting requirements. Coupled with massive growth, these complexities made manual payroll processing and compliance management a huge headache for everyone involved.

Payroll managers were scrambling through the first half of the week just to ensure they could process it by the deadline. Even then, they often found themselves cutting it too close, with many uploads pushed to the last possible day.

The strain on their outdated software became overwhelming. Basic functionality like payroll and reporting struggled to keep pace. The platform simply lacked the controls they needed to handle their expanding workforce.

“In the old system, we had everybody emailing, calling in, or physically submitting timesheets into the office. They had to fill out the data in one format. It came into the office, then it had to be re-entered into the old system.”

The inefficiency of re-entering timesheets manually created unnecessary delays, errors, and frustrations for both employees and the HR team. As their workforce continued to expand, they knew they needed a solution that could handle growth while integrating seamlessly with their existing ERP.

Solution

Smith and Long’s journey to improve their systems began with Acumatica, their chosen ERP. The next piece was payroll and HR.

Initially, the team at Smith and Long considered Acumatica’s own payroll module as a solution. However, it wasn’t set up to handle the complexity Smith and Long required. Managing over 10 unions, they needed a system that could streamline payroll to account for the nuances of multi-location, multi-union payroll down to the penny.

After struggling with their existing systems, they were primarily looking for a payroll/HR system that could integrate with Acumatica.

“The company was putting out a lot of feelers to see who could integrate with Acumatica — and most of them claimed they already had an integration, but clearly they just had none.”

In late 2022, Smith and Long discovered Criterion, an HCM solution specifically recommended by Acumatica. What set Criterion apart was its proven ability to integrate with Acumatica and handle the complicated union configurations Smith and Long required. After exploring several alternatives, it became clear that Criterion was the right choice.

“At the end of the day, Criterion demonstrated that they actually had an integration with Acumatica, and that they would be able to pull all the necessary information to process payroll.”

With Criterion, Smith and Long could finally manage their payroll effectively, support their growing workforce, and ensure compliance with all union agreements.

Results

Since implementing Criterion, Smith and Long Construction has experienced significant improvements across their HR and payroll processes.

Faster, Smoother Payroll

The most dramatic change came with Smith and Long’s payroll process. Before Criterion, payroll was time-consuming and error-prone. After preparing emails, excel sheets, and making phone calls, just entering payroll data in the old system took up to five hours.

Now, after integrating Acumatica with Criterion, Smith and Long are processing and approving hours properly, reducing the critical step of double-entry, and removing the risk of copying numbers incorrectly due to human error.

"Where it used to take us up to 3 days between time entry, processing, and uploading to the bank, we have now reduced the overall process to half the time.”

Electronic pay stubs also save time across the board, and for the first time, payroll managers are free from the stress of worrying about missed pay cycles.

“We have never, ever, ever skipped or were worried about missing payroll. We feel extremely confident…Our payroll managers said they will NEVER go back to the old system because there is no comparison.”

Overall, Criterion and Acumatica have provided Smith and Long with a faster, cleaner, more reliable system.

Acumatica Integration

One of the key reasons Smith and Long chose Criterion was its ability to integrate with Acumatica. According to Patryk, the integration has been flawless — no manual tweaking or data validation required.

“It’s a great integration! … You don’t have to export certain data or configure it into a different format or look for special cases.”

The system’s configurability has allowed Smith and Long to manage over 10 different unions with ease. All of the various wage rates, overtime rules, and collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) are managed smoothly between platforms. Criterion’s certified rate table feature (built specifically to handle these complexities) have made payroll processing for unionized employees virtually error-free.

Additionally, Criterion has built-in controls that help ensure compliance across different union roles. For example, if a journeyperson tries to submit hours as a foreman, Criterion automatically generates a warning message to flag the discrepancy. This way, the Smith and Long team can be confident they are following the right process for accurate payroll.

“This is where Criterion came back and convinced us that they were capable of handling it — and yes, they certainly are.”

A New Custom Rate Table Feature

The complexity of managing different wage rates (especially when new CBAs are issued every year in May), was historically a big challenge for Smith and Long.

When they started using Criterion, they worried that handling updates and managing new rate tables would be tedious and time-consuming. Even with the Acumatica integration, it seemed like it would require a lot of manual configuration. However, Criterion turned this challenge into an opportunity for improvement.

We worked with Smith and Long to build a new feature that would make managing CBAs easier than ever. Now, Smith and Long can preload certified rate tables, set date ranges, and even preemptively load future rates so they swap automatically when the new agreements take effect.

Handling mid-period pay rate changes is also easier. Instead of modifying an individual employee’s position in the system, Criterion ties the rate of pay directly to the position itself. This ensures that when new rates go into effect, they are applied automatically, without any manual adjustments at the employee level.

“It's very easy to actually load [a CBA] into criterion — and it takes effect when you want it to. So, that’s a really nice feature.”

Thanks to Smith and Long’s feedback (and our internal team) this certified rate feature is now integrated with the core solution for any Criterion user working with unions.

Excellent Custom Reporting

At the end of each month, Smith and Long has to generate specific reports for union remittances. But their previous system made wrangling that data very difficult.

Since Criterion is built on a single, unified database, all the data (even what’s pulled in from the integration) is accessible for complex reporting in one place. This allows their team to pull reports directly from the system in just a few minutes. Now, all of their reporting is streamlined using Criterion’s custom reporting tools.

What’s more, Smith and Long is now working with Criterion to further improve custom reporting using our built-in DataGrid tool. While the Smith and Long team can do most of their reporting in-house, Criterion support is always available to help users generate any report they need with accuracy.

“It’s nice that if you need to force [a report] very quickly, someone with SQL knowledge can do that on the spot.”

Security Profiles and Unique Configurations

The president of Smith and Long oversees multiple related companies, and with Criterion (integrated with Acumatica), they have all the control and visibility they need for their organization. From a single dashboard, upper-level management can create new companies and customize security profiles and user permissions, tailoring access for different roles.

Now, if Smith and Long decide to add more companies to their system, Criterion’s configurability will make that process easier than ever.

“You could basically say ‘this particular profile can do these actions against these employers.’ … That security feature is certainly in there and something that we intend to take advantage of.”

In many other ways, the system gives the Smith and Long team a lot of wiggle room, so when they have a very unique configuration, they don’t always need to ask Criterion for additional development time — it’s something they can handle themselves if they want.

“The Criterion team really worked hard — there were certain customizations that they added in. They weren't just trying to take the shortest path to go from A to B to solve the immediate limitation we had. They actually expanded it so that we had toggles to [control] how complex we could allow for some of those configurations to be.”

A Top-Notch Sandbox Function for New Configurations

Criterion’s built-in sandbox feature has proven to be a game changer for Patryk, who leads the optimization of all systems and processes.

“Kudos to Criterion because they have a very easy feature on creating a sandbox instance for full testing.”

This feature allows them to make a full copy of their environment, test configurations, and validate changes before applying them to the live system.

Unlike other systems, where setting up a sandbox can be complex and time-consuming, Criterion makes it simple. With just two clicks, Smith and Long can generate a sandbox environment that loads in minutes.

“We've abused it, to be quite frank with you — on all of our configurations. It gives us the full confidence that we're on the right path.”

Continued Support from Criterion

"11 out of 10!"

Exceptional customer support is one of the standout features of Smith and Long’s experience with Criterion.

Since the initial implementation, Criterion’s team has been a reliable partner.  Any issues or requests are resolved quickly — whether it’s troubleshooting something minor or providing guidance on more complex configurations, Criterion’s responsiveness has consistently impressed. Patryk had nothing but praise for the Criterion team.

"It's been the best service that we've experienced on any software platform that we've used — I wish my bank was like that!"

Discover How Criterion Can Transform Your Business

Smith and Long’s journey with Criterion is a perfect example of how the right human capital management solution can streamline even the most complex HR and payroll processes. From reducing payroll processing time by 96% to effortlessly handling union complexities, Criterion has proven to be more than a software company — we’re an invaluable partner.

But Smith and Long is just one example of a construction company that has overcome huge challenges with Criterion. We’ve helped several others across the United States and Canada achieve more than they ever thought possible and scale their businesses with confidence.

Ready to see how Criterion can transform your organization’s HR and payroll processes? Book a demo today and experience the difference.