The payroll expert and HR interim manager was deployed as project controller before & during a merger of the company's business transfers to ensure payroll accounting with all preliminary and follow-up activities for the payroll runs with SAP. The client was the Valmet Automotive Group, headquartered in Finland. Valmet is a global automotive supplier and partner in the field of engineering, manufacturing and consulting services with more than 5,500 employees in Finland, Germany, Spain and Poland. In Germany, Valmet Automotive currently employs around 1,000 people in the engineering division. In 2017, the company generated global sales of €550 million. The Interim Manager Payroll HR reported directly to the HR Director at the Bad Friedrichshall site.
Payroll strategy
The initial situation for the assignment was that the previously commissioned interim manager was to be replaced because he was unable to provide specialist expertise in SAP HR. In addition, the current payroll specialist/accounting manager left the company at short notice and a merger was imminent. This resulted in a transfer of operations within the company.
In order to enable the upcoming outsourcing of payroll cases to a BPO service provider, a requirements and functional specification, milestones and acceptance tests as well as test runs had to be defined. In turn, a benchmark had to be created in advance as a basis for the decision on the future payroll strategy (outsourcing, partial outsourcing or leaving it completely in-house).
Taking over the entire payroll process
The most important task was to take over the entire payroll process. This included:
- Productive organization of all preliminary work with ongoing and recurring payments and deductions
- Special payments such as Christmas bonuses
- Pay slips and downstream functions with SAP and queries
- Reporting, variance analysis and JSOX checks according to internal quality criteria
- General error correction, checking inconsistencies and interfaces such as account determination to FI/CO.
In addition, there was a time management sub-project for which the interim manager was also responsible for controlling. The project "SAP HR interface programming in SAP ERP" also included training support for the introduction of the e-timesheet in time management with ESS/MSS Service (Manager & Employee Self-Services) with posting in SAP.
Successful transfer of payroll cases to new BPO service provider
The goal of productive organization and implementation as well as follow-up of ongoing payroll accounting and reporting was successfully achieved. The account determination and the interface of the digital representation in the ESS/MSS service of time management were successfully optimized. The merger and the transfer of operations with outsourcing of payroll cases to a new BPO service provider were successfully completed and handed over.
