The magic behind remarkable growth

What the business does

Wizard Staff Solutions is a trusted Early Years recruitment partner, supporting nurseries and childcare professionals across the UK through a dedicated and thoughtful approach to staffing. Founded to provide a more supportive recruitment experience, the company understands the challenges faced by nurseries and the importance of supporting professionals beyond simply filling shifts.

With experience supporting more than 1,000 nurseries and over 500 Early Years professionals, Wizard Staff Solutions connects the right people with the right opportunities. Through care, communication and consistency, the team provides dependable staffing solutions while helping professionals thrive and enabling nurseries to deliver exceptional quality childcare.

Managing growth at pace

As Wizard Staff Solutions continued to scale, the success of the business created a new challenge: managing significant weekly payroll commitments while waiting for client payments to come in. With clients operating on longer payment terms and temporary staff needing to be paid weekly, Hayley needed a funding solution that could support the company’s rapid expansion and growing working capital requirements.

Founder and CEO, Hayley Harnett, explained: “When we were doing £20,000 to £30,000 weeks, it was doable. When we started hitting those big, big weeks, it just wasn’t sustainable. We reached a point where we were paying out £60,000 to £70,000 per week in wages, while the majority of our clients were on 30 to 45-day payment terms. As the business grew, the gap between paying our staff and receiving payment from clients got much wider, and we needed a way to bridge it.”

For a high-growth business, maintaining sufficient working capital is critical. Hayley explained: “As a recruitment agency, you need to have a minimum of five weeks’ worth of payroll costs in your bank at all times, because you have to pay your temps weekly for at least five weeks before you get a penny in. But what growing business has got £400,000 or £500,000 just sitting in their account?”

Finding a funding solution for rapid growth

Wizard had previously used a high street bank factoring facility, but as the business scaled, Hayley found it increasingly limiting and no longer fit for the company’s growth plans. “The larger we got, the more restrictive the facility became. I understood the parameters and red tape that the bank had to work within, but as the business grew, they simply didn’t have the flexibility to move with us.”

Following an introduction through a mutual contact, Hayley connected with FlexABL and Wizard transitioned from factoring to invoice discounting. The new facility provided the flexibility and control the business needed to manage cash flow effectively while continuing to secure new opportunities.

Creating the capacity to thrive

With a flexible invoice discounting facility in place, Wizard has been able to unlock opportunities that previously would have been constrained by cash flow, including supporting nursery groups looking to expand into new geographies. Hayley explained: “We used to feel we couldn’t open up in new areas of the country because of cash constraints, thinking, ‘We can’t do that area because we physically couldn’t pay the temps up there.’”

The facility changed how Hayley viewed the company’s growing wage bill, transforming it from a cost pressure into a measure of progress. “I really didn’t used to want a high wage bill. I found myself having to shift my focus and think, ‘You actually need to increase it because that means your revenue is rising.’”

With FlexABL’s support, cash flow is no longer a concern. Hayley reflected on how much the business has changed: “I remember thinking at one point, we’ve got this VAT bill coming up or PAYE and wages – it was a constant stress. I don’t think we’ve discussed cash at board level for four years. It just ticks.”

With the right funding support in place, Wizard has been able to move beyond managing cash flow and focus on helping its business, professionals and nursery partners thrive.

A partnership beyond funding

For Hayley, the relationship with FlexABL extends beyond access to finance. “The team has been amazing at giving me the top-level overview. I’m very much about bigger-picture thinking in terms of growth and moving the business forward, and they give me that perspective.” She added, “They’re very approachable, always contactable. I can always get hold of someone, and they’ll come straight back to me and deal with it straight away.”

The technology has also made managing the facility simple and transparent. “The system is very easy to use. I can log on easily, see what I need to, and understand what’s happening without needing to ask questions.”

Backing ambition

Hayley’s advice to businesses weighing up invoice discounting against traditional lending is to consider whether their funding solution can support sustainable growth over the long term, rather than simply provide a short-term cash injection.

Hayley concluded: “If you’re looking to grow your business, not just sustain it, don’t be short-sighted. Banks have offered me thousands of pounds in loans. However, with a loan, once you’ve spent that money, it’s gone. And with recruitment, you have a constant need for cash. Challenge your sales team to get that revenue up, and invoice discounting will literally pay for itself within the first few months. We genuinely couldn’t have grown at the pace we have without FlexABL supporting us. It’s made a huge difference to the business – no doubt about it.”