COMPANY PROFILE

Buckeye Partners, L.P. is a publicly traded master limited partnership that provides mid-stream energy logistics services. Buckeye owns and operates one of the largest independent petroleum products common carrier pipeline networks in the U.S., providing refiners, wholesalers, marketers, airlines, railroads and other commercial end-users with dependable, all-weather transportation of refined petroleum products. In addition to pipeline transportation services, Buckeye provides services for terminalling, storage, and refined product distribution.

THE CHALLENGES

Buckeye Partners had been using a payroll service bureau that did not provide the cost-effectiveness or functionality required to build the company’s bottom line. In addition, the company’s HR and payroll teams didn’t have the ability to respond quickly to the range of information requests on workforce data.

THE SOLUTION

After choosing UltiPro in 2001, and then completing an on-time and on-budget activation, Buckeye Partners significantly cut technology costs because UltiPro proved to be a less expensive alternative compared with the payroll service bureau. UltiPro’s online functionality for benefits enrollment also reduced Buckeye’s reliance on third-party consultants, enabling employees to make benefit selections over the company’s Web portal.

“By bringing payroll and benefits in-house, we are achieving significant financial returns for our business,” said Wayne St. Claire, vice president of human resources for Buckeye Partners. “We’ve realized a range of hard- and soft-cost savings that exceed $140,000 per year as well as empowered our workforce with easy-to-use Web access to information without adding extra staff.”

In addition to online benefits enrollment, Buckeye Partners’ employees can make direct deposit selections, update individual data, and view personal details like year-to-date payroll summaries, job history, and benefits deductions. Managers can log on to the Web portal to generate salary increases, job changes, or organizational modifications with UltiPro’s built-in workflow for automated approvals. UltiPro also records this workflow so the HR team can access the details in the future when necessary.

“The workflow approvals in UltiPro are used by our HR team to answer important questions, such as those from auditors related to Sarbanes-Oxley compliance,” said St. Claire. “For instance, we had auditing firms asking questions such as, ‘Who authorized this raise?’ or ‘Who authorized this new hire?’

“UltiPro’s workflow provides documentation that helps us address these types of questions by showing who initiated the change as well as noting the multiple layers of approvals for these processes.”