Replacing 8+ SaaS Tools for a Multi-Location Wellness Company
By Colter Mahlum, Founder & CEO of Mahlum Innovations — published 2026-01-15.
Colter Mahlum architected and shipped this case study end-to-end. Mechanical engineer turned AI builder, based in Bigfork and Kalispell, Montana. 11 production AI systems shipped across healthcare, wellness, legal, wealth management, fitness, and consumer apps.
How Elysian Consolidated Payroll, Scheduling, Tax & HR Into One Unified Platform
App: Elysian Operations Platform (Time Warp + Nexus Wellness) | Industry: Wellness / Healthcare Operations | Client: The Elysian Institute — multi-location wellness, spa, and integrated medicine company (Montana) | Company size: Mixed workforce: hourly clinicians, salaried staff, per-session therapists across multiple locations | Duration: Multi-month engagement, live in production with active daily use
Summary
All-in-one workforce, payroll, wellness, and tax-compliance platform that replaces 8+ separate SaaS tools with a single unified system.
The Challenge
Before this build, the team was juggling separate tools for time tracking, scheduling, payroll, banking, HR, document management, telehealth, and spa POS — each with its own login, double-data-entry, and reconciliation pain. Multi-pay-code therapists were nearly impossible to pay correctly, and tax filings were tracked outside any system.
Our Approach
- Built a Mountain-Time DST-aware time engine with multi-pay-code timesheet generation and scheduled-rate-change auto-apply (with pre/post-rate hour-splitting on payroll exports)
- Integrated Plaid (banking + direct deposit), UKG Ready (payroll), TaxBandits (real-time tax e-filing via webhooks), EFTPS, and DoseSpot (e-prescribing with EPCS)
- Layered an OpenAI RAG-based AI assistant + AI-powered tax reporting on a private knowledge base
- Shipped a React Native / Expo mobile app with biometric authentication, secure credential storage, and kiosk verification using WiFi BSSID + PC name
- Implemented HIPAA-aligned Daily.co video architecture for telehealth and AES-256-GCM encryption with HMAC-SHA256 signature verification across the stack
- Built role-based multi-portal access control with intelligent auto-scheduler and ICS calendar import with smart name-merging
Outcomes & ROI
- 8+ — Tools Consolidated: Time tracking, scheduling, payroll, banking, HR, telehealth, document management, and POS all in one platform
- ~70% — Payroll Prep Time Reduction: Corrections, multi-rate splits, and exports are now automated
- Real-time — Tax Filing: TaxBandits webhook integration replaces what was a multi-day manual workflow
Eliminated double-data-entry between scheduling, payroll, and accounting. Mobile clock-in adoption across all field/clinic staff via biometric login. Zero-touch daily time recap emails to every employee who clocked in.
Technologies Used
React + TypeScript + Vite, React Native / Expo, Node + Express + Drizzle, PostgreSQL (Neon), OpenAI RAG, Plaid, UKG Ready, TaxBandits + EFTPS, Daily.co (HIPAA video), DoseSpot (EPCS), Postmark
Key Takeaways
- Mixed-pay-code workforces (hourly + salaried + per-session) are the single biggest source of payroll errors — solving them properly requires a custom time engine, not a SaaS configuration
- Real-time tax e-filing eliminates an entire category of compliance risk that most small-business platforms ignore
- HIPAA telehealth + EPCS e-prescribing are achievable in a custom build when you treat encryption and signature verification as first-class architectural concerns
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you handle therapists paid both hourly and per-session?
We built a multi-pay-code timesheet generator that splits hours pre/post any scheduled rate change, then exports a payroll file UKG Ready can ingest directly — no manual reconciliation.
How is the telehealth architecture designed?
Telehealth runs on Daily.co with a HIPAA BAA, data is encrypted with AES-256-GCM, webhooks are verified with HMAC-SHA256, and access is governed by role-based multi-portal controls with full audit logging.
How does mobile clock-in work?
The Expo mobile app supports biometric login (Face ID / Touch ID), and kiosk-mode verification uses WiFi BSSID + PC name to ensure clock-ins happen from authorized locations.
Related Services
About the Builder
Mechanical engineer turned AI builder. Colter personally architected and shipped Elysian Operations Platform (Time Warp + Nexus Wellness) end-to-end — strategy, model development, and the production MLOps work — alongside 10+ other AI systems across manufacturing, wealth management, healthcare, and consumer apps. Read full bio · LinkedIn.
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