Red Clay Consulting (RCC) co-implements Oracle software for electric, water, and gas companies. The Atlanta-based consulting outfit used to focus on helping domestic utility providers modernize their services. But last year, RCC expanded its global footprint during the last years working opening new operations across Colombia, Canada, and the Philippines.

But hiring highly-specialized consultants abroad has its complexities. An important percentage of RCC Global employees have some sort of work visa, which means the HR team has to keep careful track everything from the type of sponsorship needed to when authorizations expire, what employees’ citizen status is, whether they have any dependents, and how much it’ll cost to sponsor and manage every individual visa. 

RCC Global used to log all this visa information in spreadsheets, but things got messy. Admins had to endlessly scroll to check visa statuses and manually update any changes. “It was overwhelming,” said Susana Ojeda, a Manager, Internal Operations. “When someone needed information right away, they didn’t know where to go.” She needed to constantly set alerts to update the list and remind managers to check it. She also drained time sourcing lists of immigration expenses from the accounting department, and often spent days on end cobbling together immigration reports RCC Global needed to track budget and renewals. 

The clunky system meant RCC Global was at risk of falling out of compliance with immigration authorities—or missing a renewal date and spending around $2,800 on expediting a visa application. 

“We don’t want to fall out of status,” Susana said. “This is people’s livelihood. Last thing we want to do is tell someone, ‘hey, your work permit expired and now you can’t work.’” RCC Global needed a better visa tracking system that was both easy-to-use and cost-effective.

In 2024, RCC Global switched HCMs from Paylocity to Rippling. According to Susana, the company wanted to join a platform that better supported its growth and was easier for employees to use.

Our executive team decided to move to a better platform that was more self-serving for employees. After looking at several options, they decided Rippling was the best one.

Susana Ojeda

Manager, Internal Operations at RCC Global

When the company couldn’t find an immigration tracking app that fit its needs, it turned to its Rippling implementation manager to see if its new HR platform could help out. After a handful of “amazingly helpful” sessions, RCC Global designed a Rippling Custom App that gave the company everything it needed to effectively manage all its work visas and permits.

RCC Global’s new Rippling Custom App lets the company track all its visa and work authorization data from a single source of truth. This includes active and inactive information for every type of visa or work permit, including H-1B visas, H-4 dependents, people in the Green Card pipeline, people who recently graduated college with Optional Practical Training (OPT) authorizations submitting to the H-1B lottery, and more. 

The system also lists job titles, when active visas expire, costs associated with renewing statuses, the law firms helping process visas, the employee’s primary work location, and the employee’s citizenship status.

With this new app, RCC Global can look at a big picture view of all its visa and work permit holders. Admins, managers, and executives can also drill into individual employee details to access documentation like approval notices and application numbers. They can add attachments like invoice receipts and ID files, and even include timestamped comments to the system, which helps RCC Global keep track of changes.

With this new custom app, Susana and her colleague, Morgan Davis, RCC Global’s Immigration and International Offices intern, don’t need to rely on the accounting department to look at immigration expenses. Now that the revamped tracking system lists all the fees, they can manage costs and set budgets more confidently—and 10 times faster than with their prior spreadsheet headache. 

“Getting information right away has been a game-changer for us,” Susana said. “It gives us a better idea on how to budget for immigration.” Managers can quickly access all the needed information when it comes time to renew an application, while executives can decide whether sponsoring a new prospective hire jibes with their budget.

Now that RCC Global is more organized and can access all its immigration data quickly, its ops team can work ahead of schedule. Susana and Morgan configured the Custom App to start the visa renewal flow six months before authorizations expire, allowing them to reach out to the employee and lawyers well before visas expire. This helps RCC Global stay compliant and avoid costly expedition fees. 

The system also allows Susana and Morgan to track employees’ primary and secondary workplaces so the company doesn’t break visa compliance. What’s more, RCC Global integrated its Custom App with a Rippling workflow that automatically reminds employees to re-upload their I-9 verification when it’s about to expire.

With all its employees’ work permit and visa data at RCC Global’s fingertips, the Global Corporate Services (GCS) team can near-instantly create reports. “Rippling Custom Apps is a great tool for tasks that require running reports on numbers, dates, or statuses of employees,” Morgan said.  

Days faster than it took pre-Rippling, Susana shares these high-viz reports with executives, who in turn use the pull-outs to figure out how to allocate resources most effectively. “Based on the information we give them, executives can make better decisions on how to place different people on different projects,” Susana said.

• Time saved: RCC Global tracks immigration expenses 10 times faster, runs budget reports in a few minutes instead of 6 days, and can access data instantly instead of manually poring through a spreadsheet. 
• Cost savings: RCC Global doesn’t have to worry about paying a $3,000 fee to expedite visa renewals, or pay fines for falling out of compliance with authorization requirements. It can also use its new reporting to make more cost-effective staffing decisions.
• Enhanced employee experience: Now that RCC Global knows visas won’t accidentally expire, it can provide a better service to its talented employees, who don’t have to worry about their immigration status, which boosts retention.