Feature insight - Payroll software implementation
Successful payroll implementation
Sandra Walker, pre-sales consultant at Frontier Software plc, provides tips for making the move to a new system pain free and effective as possible
W hen your current payroll system is reaching the end of its useful life or support is being withdrawn by the provider, you will be faced with the challenge of what to do next. Planning ahead is a solid foundation and the system budget and timeline for implementation should be discussed on day one, with agreement from all affected parties sought. Replacing a payroll system without documenting your requirements and planning the project are likely to result in costly mistakes that you will live to regret. To ensure that cost savings and efficiencies are recognised from the outset, smooth deployment of and transition to a new payroll system is critical. ● Get your staff involved – Consider getting together all affected staff to discuss current payroll issues. It is essential (yet often overlooked) to involve payroll staff in the process to ensure that they are supporters and willing adopters of the selected system. Ask your payroll team what works and what needs improvement. Ask managers to help define the system requirements that are needed to meet operational needs. It is important to help potential users view the new system positively and for you to demonstrate the many and varied ways that it will improve their working day. ● Identify and document your processes and requirements – Manual and paper- based processes are open to error or abuse. Important information kept in paper files is costly to store and liable to loss. It is essential to identify manual processes that a new payroll system can automate saving your staff time and your organisation money. If you identify these in advance, the new system can be configured to your requirements from day one. Get a payroll system provider on board. Ask if they can help at the planning stages with
documentation containing all the right questions to ensure the system is both leading edge and compliant. Remember their consultants configure and implement payroll systems for a living and may have some useful hints and tips from other projects. ● Clean house – Invest time on data cleansing. An audit of your data at this stage to verify that it is both accurate and up-to- date will reap rewards in the future, avoiding costly payroll mistakes and time wasted resolving errors. ...ensure that they are supporters and willing adopters of the selected system If you have records already stored in a payroll and/or human resource system, check if it can be easily imported to the new system. Some products, such as Frontier Software’s ichris, include tools for data import that can save hours extracting and re-keying information. Migrating data doesn’t have to be a time-consuming exercise that drags down the entire project. ● Check for compliance – A new payroll system should not only support all current statutory payroll legislation, the provider should also offer the facility to update automatically as regulations change including tax codes, National Insurance bands and other statutory information. Any system that has been tested and recognised by HM Revenue & Customs’ PAYE Recognition Scheme is a good place to start. ● Put the software through its paces and check references – Once you’ve drawn up
a short list, view the software of at least two to three providers to enable comparisons. Again, don’t forget to include end-users in system presentations; after all, it is their job to work with the system daily. Don’t be dazzled by the demonstration. Ask for reference sites to see the system at work, preferably in an organisation similar to your own. Talk to end-users about ease of use, processing times, reporting output, customer service etc. An impressive interface isn’t needed to process payroll – a reliable payroll engine is! A system provider should be able to provide telephone references or site visits; if they can’t, ask why not. ● Don’t forget to test – Before rolling out your chosen software to all users, it is vital that you test every aspect of the system. You should be confident that the data is accurate, payroll runs complete successfully and the system really does improve operational efficiency. By testing the software in advance, you can identify and fix issues before they adversely affect operations. System testing and successful parallel running will raise confidence in the efficiency and benefits of the new system. Avoid going live until every detail has been taken care of. Payroll mistakes can be costly and can dent staff morale. ● Encourage and respond to feedback – Throughout the entire process of selection and implementation, the project team and users will be giving feedback. It is wise to pay attention and respond to the feedback. By involving and responding staff and any concerns they may have, you will build a committed and enthusiastic project team. Negativity and resistance are the enemies of a system implementation; the injection of energy that is missing when the team are not engaged with a project can result in failure. n
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Issue 29 | April 2017
| Professional in Payroll, Pensions and Reward |
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