Payroll records, employment letters and holiday entitlement for an agency team
One place for pay records, letters of employment generated on request, and holiday entitlement.
We built Fame one place for pay records, letters of employment produced on request, and each person's holiday entitlement, so the ops team stops writing letters by hand and people can see their own holiday balance. Main result so far: 405 payslips and 97 pay records kept in one place.
Who we built it for
Fame is a B2B podcast agency that has been running for six years. Its team finds and books guests, produces episodes and promotes each show for around 100 clients, and Fame Crew finds local videographers for shoots and handles the editing. Team size: about 97 people (estimate), most of them freelancers and contractors. Fame is Forge's own sister company, so we built these tools for ourselves first and still run every one of them.
Who uses it: the ops team, the whole team.
Every letter written from scratch
When someone needed a letter of employment for a mortgage, a visa or a rental, the ops team wrote it by hand from pay details kept in spreadsheets. Holiday balances were worked out on request.
The ops team spent around 16 hours a month on letters and holiday questions (estimate).
Records once, letters on request
Pay records
Each person's pay details in one protected table, visible only to the people who need it.
Letters of employment
Generated from the record and signed by the founder, ready to send.
Holiday entitlement
Each person's allowance and days taken, including days taken before the tool existed.
What the ops team used before
Pay details in spreadsheets and letters written by hand.
Monthly cost of what came before: £0 a month (estimate)
What changed for the ops team
How we look after the payroll records and letters of employment
Forge built this for Fame and looks after it: errors are reported automatically to an error tracker, and anything that stops someone doing their job is fixed the same day.
What it's built with
- Next.js
- Supabase
- Vercel
- PDF generation
Connects to: the team hub, the leave tracker.
What it would cost a client today
Start with the 2-week ops audit ($2,500 / £2,000, credited to your first month). A tool like this then fits the starter plan at $2,000 / £1,600 a month, with this as the first build included. Records and letters are one workflow for one team, so they fit starter.
Plans have a 3-month minimum. AI usage is passed on at cost, and the tool runs on your own accounts, so you own it. See pricing for the full breakdown.
Would this work for your firm?
Any firm that writes letters of employment or answers holiday questions by hand gets that time back. It suits accounting and law firms as much as agencies.
See what we build for law firms, or read about our custom software for small business work.
Questions about building a payroll records and letters of employment
Who can see pay records?
Only the named people who need to. Access is set per person, not by job title.
Can letters of employment be generated automatically?
Yes. Fame's are produced from the pay record and signed by the founder, ready to send.
Do we still need our payroll provider?
Yes. It keeps the records and letters; payroll itself stays with your provider.
Who owns the tool once it's built?
You do. It runs on your own accounts and you pay those tool costs directly; we monitor it, fix it and keep improving it on the monthly plan.
Want a payroll records and letters of employment shaped to your firm?
Start with a 2-week ops audit - $2,500 / £2,000, credited to your first month.