The business
CR Brick & Stonework deliver large housing developments across Northamptonshire and the surrounding area, working for Bellway, Dandara and other national housebuilders. The team has grown fast — close to 150 people in five years.
That growth is what broke the old way of working. Paper forms and WhatsApp groups are manageable at thirty people. At 150, across multiple live developments, for clients who audit their supply chain, they stop being manageable and start being a risk.
“We'd grown fast and we were still running on paper and WhatsApp. Vyce has completely changed how we operate. We're far more confident in our processes and our compliance, and it's become a genuine part of how we tender — we can show a housebuilder exactly how we manage our people rather than just telling them.”
Vyce Teams
Housebuilders of Bellway and Dandara's size expect their subcontractors to evidence compliance on demand, not eventually.
Teams holds every card, qualification and right-to-work check against the person it belongs to, with expiry tracked automatically. When a client asks who's on site and whether they're compliant, the answer takes seconds rather than an afternoon of phone calls and photographs on WhatsApp.
Vyce Time
Clocking in and out happens on phones. No hardware on site, which matters when you're running several developments at once and don't want a box on a wall at each one.
Supervisors see attendance in real time. Hours go to payroll as recorded, not as remembered.
Vyce Price Work
Price work across a large housing development is where the margin is won or lost, and it's usually tracked in a spreadsheet that one person understands.
Price Work tracks it properly — what's been done, at which plot and stage, and what's owed for it. One live picture across the development instead of a reconciliation at the end of the month.
What's next
CR are moving onto Vyce Pay, bringing CIS verification, deductions, payments and monthly CIS300 returns into the same platform as the rest of their workforce operations.
The part nobody expects
Most subcontractors come to Vyce to reduce admin. CR found something more valuable.
Being able to evidence compliance properly — not claim it, evidence it — turned out to matter in tenders. It's now part of how they bid, and it's helped them win work.
That's the argument for getting this right. Compliance isn't only a cost you're trying to reduce. For a subcontractor pitching to a national housebuilder, it's a reason to be chosen.