DeepBlue launches revamped package for crew management oversight

DeepBlue, the yacht management platform, has launched a revamped Crewing Package, in which crew contracts, planning and payroll run on a single crew record. Captains, pursers and management companies can now record a contract change, a rotation or a period of leave once and see it carried through to the payslip, without having to enter it anywhere a second time.

"We didn't want to stop at connecting the modules within crewing," said Diego Zanco, COO at DeepBlue. "The difference here is that crewing isn't a world of its own. It starts from the same crew records the rest of the platform already uses, and it ends up in the accounts. That's what stops people rebuilding the same information in three places."

Like every DeepBlue release, the package was shaped by direct feedback from captains, pursers and management companies using the platform, now running on more than 500 yachts worldwide, with over 50 management companies and family offices and 10,000 active users. 

The workflow begins with the contract, which sets the terms the rest of the package works from.

Key features:

• Contracts — created in line with industry standards or from a yacht's own templates, with terms held as structured data and digital signature integration 
• Planner — a vessel-wide, day-by-day view of who is on board, on leave, traveling or on assignment, with absences and allowances feeding payroll
• Payroll — mid-month changes of contract, salary or conditions calculated as separate periods, with paid and unpaid leave, bonuses, cash advances, per diems and reimbursements all included
• Platform connections — crew records drawn from the Basic Package, completed payroll imported into the Finance Package for accounting and budget tracking

Hours of rest remain the part of crew administration that flag state authorities examine. Crew log them on the DeepBlue mobile app, and confirmed hours form the basis of that record. 

^{The DeepBlue Crewing planner view}

"If a contract changes mid-month, payroll should already know about it," added Rok Mavrič, Project Lead at DeepBlue. "If leave is recorded in the planner, it should reach the pay slip without anyone entering it twice. Most of the work went into what happens between those parts, not inside them."

Captains and management companies see a single view of each crew member's terms, leave and pay, from the contract through to the pay slip.