In an article on HRZone, Sarah Oliver of UK HR software and payroll solutions specialist Snowdrop emphasizes on the need for integration of HR and payroll and the challenges to the integration process.

Integrating HR and payroll systems will enable companies to increase operational efficiencies by reducing administrative overhead like repetitive data entry, prevent disasters such as paying employees incorrectly and streamlining of day-to-day activity. She points out that “through sharing data with payroll teams, HR benefits from having confidence in all its data, including vital pay-related information, such as salary and bank details, preventing the potential for misleading information that may cause bad or ill-informed decisions.”

As seen in the case of some large organizations, integration is a sound business practice, with a shared services model being a pragmatic way of solving data management issues and thus creating end-to-end processes.

Some key tips that the author lists when approaching integration of HR & payroll systems:

• Discuss separate list of requirements from the two teams to jointly come up with a requirement list that works.


• Avoid developing functionality purely for the sake of adding functionality and do away with anything that will create information overload.


• Constant communication during the software integration testing process.


• Looking upon one another as each other’s customers rather than colleagues can provide a very good perspective.


• Ensure there is considered planning, consistency and focus for the integration process to work.