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. 12 platforms built 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-compliant Daily.co video for telehealth and AES-256-GCM encryption + 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.
Is the platform HIPAA-compliant?
Yes. Telehealth runs on Daily.co (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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