As Abrakadoodle grew, Deputy was able to scale up with them and make sure they didn't experience a drop in efficiency.

Abrakadoodle was founded in 2002 as a way to offer kids an outlet for expressing their creativity. Abrakadoodle assists children and adults with offerings like an academic art program, visual art classes, summer art camps, art parties, art events, as well as classes made just for adults.

Chris Firestone and his wife Anna saw what Abrakadoodle was doing and what their brand was capable of and this motivated them to become franchisees themselves and start their own location in Oakland County, Michigan. Due to their initiative to start their own Abrakadoodle, Chris and Anna Firestone will be able to spread the benefits of art to members of their community. But running an Abrakadoodle franchise is no easy job, teaching and watching over children is a big responsibility and Chris and Anna can’t do it alone. That’s why they employ the help of teachers to assist them. And as you can imagine, having a staff of employees brings on its own challenges.

As Chris and Anna’s Abrakadoodle territory has grown in popularity, they need a way to ensure their teachers had a quick and easy way to receive their schedules so they never have to worry about missing a class or any of their shifts. “In order for the business to work, our teachers need to know what the class curriculum will be in advance so they know what supplies they’ll need and when and where the classes are so they can be in the right place at the right time,” says Chris Firestone. “We also wanted a way to make payrolling easy so we don’t end up spending a lot of time on that.” And with the sheer variety of classes and programs provided by Abrakadoodle, they needed a strong platform that could schedule their staff and ensure their teachers are exactly where they need to be.

After doing some research on Capterra, Chris came across Deputy and used it as the foundation for growing his business. The investment ended up paying off as both his teachers as well as himself loved using the platform. “The teachers love using it and it helps save us a lot of time,” states Chris. “It’s so intuitive I’m able to make 2-3 months worth of employee schedules at a time.”

Deputy has also proved beneficial as Chris and Anna scaled up their business and had to add teachers to their location. “As we grew, Deputy was able to grow with us and the software was still easy to use. Being able to go back in and re-assign classes to different teachers is also useful whenever a teacher can’t make it to their shift.” Another helpful aspect is that Deputy is able to streamline their payroll by integrating with their Quickbooks account. So they can rest assured their employees get paid on time. Thanks to Deputy, Chris and Anna are able to spend more time focusing on offering a larger variety of classes to their students as well as teaching kids how to express their creativity.