FRS Celebrates 20 Years Providing Technology Solutions to the Background Screening Industry

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - Nov. 5, 2013 - PRLog -- Imagination Technologies/FRS provides seamless background screening solutions to Consumer Reporting Agencies (CRAs) and Criminal Research Specialists (CRS) which strongly support Human Resources departments across the nation, with the critical information they require in their quest to prevent “bad-hires”. Through advanced technology and well refined software systems and processes, FRS connects a vast network of highly reliable research sources for the background screener to provide the largest research network available in the industry.

The company started in the home of the founders and owners Phil and Lynn Chapman in Monroe, NC.  The first official software release was delivered to Guaranty Research Services (GRS) which was then operating out of the metro-Atlanta area.   GRS, now located in Lebanon, Tennessee, is still a proud client of FRS.

The story of how this company started is pretty interesting.  In 1992, ABC's Primetime Live did an investigative journalism project on the Food Lion grocery chain, headquartered about 40 miles north of FRS headquarters in Salisbury, NC.  In this exposé, ABC News had undercover reporters obtain jobs at Food Lion under false pretenses and these reporters went to work with hidden cameras.  The basic reporting focused on the practices within the meat department.  This story, which aired in November of 1992 was a huge embarrassment for Food Lion.  In the following months, there was a large amount of discussion regarding how undercover reporters lied and cheated to get these jobs.  A private investigation firm in Monroe (whose owner was a good friend of the Chapman's) saw an opportunity and approached the Food Lion security department about doing background checks on all of their new hires.  This PI contracted the Chapmans to write the software to manage this new service he began offering to Food Lion and FRS, the "Flexible Research System", was born!

Today, FRS employs 13 full-time team members and is located in the tranquil setting of Unionville, North Carolina, a bedroom community of Charlotte, NC.  The company continues to grow and expand the operations center which is located on its 4.5 acre campus.  Despite the overall economic situation in the U.S., the business has grown rapidly. FRS has realized a growth rate of 127% over the past 4 years and inclusion on the prestigious Inc. 5000 list of the Fastest Growing Private Businesses for 4 of the last 5 years.

President and founder Phil Chapman attributes FRS’s successes to tremendous blessings from God, his dedicated family, an extremely talented staff, as well as an excellent group of clients and industry business partners.  FRS is a founding member of the National Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS), has a very healthy footprint in the industry and dominates a large portion of the background screening technology market with more than 200 active clients.  Several of the CRAs who run their business with FRS technology are regular recipients of recognition in the annual HRO Today’s Baker’s Dozen and Workforce Management's Hot List of screening providers listings each year.  Mr. Chapman believes that solid, feature-filled and user-friendly technology along with the ability to customize quickly and provide great customer support are why FRS continues to grow and attract new business.

“Over the past 4 years, we have been blessed to see our business grow by leaps and bounds. The background screening industry requires frequent and numerous software changes to stay in synch with federal and state legislation, therefore a technology provider must be able to change and adapt very quickly.  The status quo of taking 3 to 6 months to build a software release is no longer acceptable in this environment. There are still many opportunities out there, but we must continue our quest for agile development and the quick delivery of customizations for our forward-thinking clients. We are realizing great traction by giving our clients what they want, when they need it so that they can quickly differentiate their business offering from their competitors”, said Chapman.

As a key player in the background screening industry and provider of technology to the leading CRA and CRS organizations, FRS feels a great sense of accomplishment knowing that the offerings it brings to the industry play a major role in keeping our workplace and communities safer.

About FRS

As the background screening industry's most widely used technology, FRS offers our B2B clients with a foundation of rock solid background screening solutions that allow them to attract and maintain top customers who demand accuracy and speed when screening individuals. The FRS suite of technology solutions has been expertly crafted over two decades to assist the users of FRS as they cater to their clients whether they are screening prospective employees, current employees, contractors, students, volunteers or potential tenants. FRS offers a comprehensive suite of flexible products and services for consumer reporting agencies (CRA), criminal research specialists (CRS) and provides the proven network that pulls all of the pieces together for their clients, the HR professionals. FRS is Powerful, is Proven and is the Preferred technology solution of the background screening industry. For more information, visit our website at www.frssoftware.com.