Leverage More ERP Sales with HCM Integration
Leverage More ERP Sales with HCM Integration
Improve the Efficiency of Critical Everyday Processes for your Clients.
It goes without saying that ERP sales can be a lucrative business. The powerful and strategic business processing management tools available can be used to manage data, automate manual process, generate impactful reporting and more for any organization. Business owners and leadership stakeholders love the functionality of these systems because it allows them and their employees to focus on more meaningful projects for the company. However HCM integration is often overlooked.
ERP consultants should be offering ERP systems that are strong in scalability as the company’s requirements change over time, as well as have established integrations between other SaaS technology platforms to offer increased functionality offerings to their clients such as access to human capital management and payroll processing technologies.
Allowing HCM integration to other partnering third-party vendors will allow your clients to provide better insight into the inner working of their operations, allowing leadership to make strategic business decisions with data to back up their plans.
ERP and Human Resources Solutions What is Human Capital Management (HCM)? What are the differences between an ERP System and an HCM Platform? ERP and HCM Integration What are the benefits of ERP and HCM Integration? What core functions can HCM software add to ERP systems? Time & Attendance Workflows Surveys Reporting
ERP and Human Resources Solutions
As you know from your experience in ERP consulting, the systems you are offering to your clients are built around numerous applications and tools that help all areas of an organization communicate with one another more effectively.
For example, with data shared among departments within an organization available in real-time, an HR department would hypothetically be able to access, review and utilize any data from customer success if they needed access to any related information from them. This sharing functionality between departments empowers employees to make quicker, more informed business decisions.
ERP systems collect and store data into a centralized location from the following areas of business operations:
- Human Resources (HR)
- Payroll Processing
- eCommerce
- Finance and Accounting
- Customer Relationship Planning (CRM)
- Warehouse Management
- Supply Chain Management
- Business Intelligence
- Production Management
- Point-of-Sale (POS)
As you can see bolded above, HR is a pivotal piece within the ERP realm because data between the two often overlap.
A cloud-based, human capital management (HCM) platform is a crucial component of ERP. One which has yet to be tapped but is a growing product year-over-year for many organizations who are finding out about the potential capabilities of one.
An HCM platform and its various modules help HR administrators and end users by automating the most important functions of HR-related tasks.
For example, administrators of the product have built-in automated tools that help reduce the amount of steps it takes to set up rules for payroll, time management, eligibility requirements, data sharing, and more. While the automated tools help end users of the product access their time, PTO, benefits statements, surveys, various workflows, documentation and more.
The point is, with the addition of cloud-based HCM and payroll technology added with your ERP offering, you are decreasing the amount of time significantly in operating some of your most important organizational tasks. This results in happier employees, less hours wasted overall and money saved by the employers in nearly every facet of the organization.
With all this said, not all businesses use a human capital management (HCM) solution or really care to enhance their potential capabilities because they are not well-informed enough to see how HR is more than just processing payroll, recruiting and benefits management. HR data holds a treasure trove of information that can be shared among departments and staff to create a more efficient work environment.
What is Human Capital Management (HCM)?
A Human Capital Management (HCM) platform is designed as a growth-minded solution for companies with the purpose to develop and retain top talent by automating human resources administrators’ and end users’ tasks.
Quality HCM platforms will allow HR managers, department leadership, managers and employees to navigate payroll processing, benefits, performance management, workflows, hiring and onboarding more efficiently and seamlessly.
Comprehensive HCM solutions include the following components:
- Payroll Processing
- Employee self-service (Employee Portal)
- Benefits Management
- ACA Compliance
- Recruiting Applicant Tracking
- Time and Attendance
- Reporting
- Performance Management and Feedback Delivery
- Online Learning Management
- Succession Planning
- Employee Onboarding
- Surveys
- Job Posting and more
An HCM platform and its various modules help HR or business operations professionals by automating their most important, but tedious tasks they are required to do for their jobs. Through this technology, it gives them more opportunity to focus on more impactful projects for the organization.
What are the differences between an ERP System and an HCM Platform?
An Enterprise Resource Planning platform, or ERP system, manages critical components within an organization such as:
- Payroll
- eCommerce
- Finance and Accounting
- Customer Relationship Planning (CRM)
- Warehouse Management
- Supply Chain Management
- Business Intelligence
- Production Management
- Point-of-Sale (POS)
Organizations love the functionality of these systems because they are used for automating and streamlining those tedious HR tasks that have traditionally been done manually.
By automating these job duties, employees become more in-tune and productive in their roles because they are not thinking about those administrative tasks that can be extremely time consuming to do.
The software also provides real-time insights into the inner workings of company operations, allowing leadership to make strategic business decisions with data to back up their visions.
While some ERP systems can hold a few HR data elements such as personal record keeping, payroll, and a job description database—they are not constructed to screen applications, identify talent, onboard new employees or keep top talent to name a few.
At its core, an ERP system is primarily used as a financial system to track goods, expenditures and revenue. Some companies will attempt to rely on their ERP platform in place of an HR platform. With functionality that focuses on saving time, eliminating manual processes and error through automation, a dedicated HCM solution will outperform an ERP system any day regarding the needs of what a typical HR department is looking for.
ERP and HCM Integration
Partners looking to integrate an HCM platform with their ERP sales offerings should make sure that the product they are attaching their names with is as dependable and reliable as they are.
A strong HCM platform will have the following quality traits:
Scalability: Regardless, if your client has 10 or 10,000 employees, offering a scalable solution that has been designed to provide the best user experience for administrators and end users is what your clients are looking for. Something that offers scalability and flexibility for clients to add functionality to their platform when their requirements change as they do.
Opportunities for ERP/HCM sales will expand as administrators and end users are blown away from the varying modules they can access as their list of integration-demands grow.
Security: It’s in the news constantly. Hacking, extortion, spying and viruses are all real threats that anyone can face while navigating the internet during this digital age. Businesses of all sizes are at risk to these nefarious factors; especially as essential job duties take place over the open web.
ERP consultants should be on the lookout for an HCM platform that provides the best and latest platform and data security technology. They should be able to rest easy, knowing that their cloud-based, automated platform will protect their clients’ most sensitive information. A good HCM platform will offer the following security features:
- 2-Factor Authentication
- SOC 2 certification
- HIPAA-compliance
- Experienced network and security engineers who monitor and support infrastructure
- 24/7 monitoring and intrusion detection
- Technologies to counter emerging security threats
- Online infrastructure redundancy
- Disaster recovery plans in line with industry-standard best practices
Integrations: Consultants looking to leverage more ERP sales should have an HCM partner that can handle this aspect for them and their clients. A platform to connect with a myriad of 3rd party technology vendors to help give consultants more solutions to offer to their clients.
Acumatica—The Cloud ERP—is a popular automated platform many consultants like to work with. These consultants should be on the lookout for an HCM platform that can integrate with ease to Acumatica or system like it.
The list below illustrates the benefits of integrating Acumatica ERP with a scalable, automated HCM platform:
- Company/employee-level fields populate directly from Acumatica into the HCM platform of choice it is integrated with it
- Then, data is pushed in real-time back to Acumatica—updating new hires, changes in demographics, terminations and more
- A quality HCM platform will automatically build any electronic data interchange (EDI) files to insurance carriers for employee benefits if needed
Support: Unless the partner wants to own this aspect of the relationship, the partnering HCM platform’s company should be able to assist them with marketing, troubleshooting, implementation and other areas of support.
Finally, a quality, scalable, automated HCM platform helps organizations save money by:
- Cutting down on the time administrators must spend managing new hires, changes and terminations, thereby reducing paperwork and the number of bodies needed to oversee documentation (Reducing administration time)
- Providing reports that show areas of potential overpayment
- Eliminating the need for managers to fax, email and enter benefits data since the HCM platform connects to the top insurance carriers and more
- Eliminating inaccurate deductions because it handles payroll processing, or can connect with other payroll providers
- Alerting administrators to issues such as over-age dependents
- Featuring a lower price-per-user than its competitors
What are the benefits of ERP and HCM Integration?
The need to combine systems is apparent. Integrating HCM solutions into your ERP offering improves the efficiency of critical everyday processes for your clients.
The benefits of integrating ERP and HCM technologies include:
- Removing the requirement to rekey data
- Significantly increasing the accuracy of data
- Automating the onboarding and open enrollment processes
- Managing, tracking and administering HR and payroll processing tasks within a single-system
- Integrating from payroll to general ledger file is automated
By automating core HR and payroll job functions for your clients, these professionals will have extended time to work on more business-impactful projects; setting the stage for the HR administrators and the overall employee population to have an even bigger role in shaping the direction their organization operates.
What core functions can HCM software add to ERP systems?
Companies have seen an increase in productivity within the human resources department due to them moving from a manual process to an automated orientated one. Simple tasks like PTO approval or checking available balances move faster due to automation technology.
In the past, a PTO approval might have been completed by a time consuming manual process. Usually involving a document or email chain which at times could take multiple days or weeks to approve. Because of the efficiency of an employee and manager self-service function within an automated HCM solution, data has shown that it frees up more time for HR personnel to focus on strategic company initiatives instead of those mundane, administrative manual tasks.
Time and Attendance
Time and attendance requirements are significantly different based on each companies’ requirements and the industries they specialize in. Most recent trends are showing a strong indication that time and attendance vendors must have a flexible mobile app that include multiple features such as punching in/out, geofencing and IP restrictions.
Workflows
The utilization of workflows has shown to significantly increase productivity amongst multiple departments. With the ability to approve a workflow within an automated HCM solution, companies can provide a date and timestamp from the approver, while also moving it to either the final approval process or to the next step in the workflow process.
Organizations who have moved to an automated workflow process have provided feedback that they can approve or deny requests within minutes of receiving the request, compared to sometimes taking days or even weeks due to their previous manually-run process not being as efficient.
Surveys
Automated HCM systems can create and conduct surveys seeking critical feedback from:
- Specific divisions
- Groups, and/or
- Departments
- The entire employee population
- Locations
In many cases, the survey data needed will be reported or shared with key stakeholders or the entire employee population.
Organizations who use this function within an automated HCM solution removes the need for them to rely on a 3rd party survey solution. This will provide them with a more streamlined way of collecting and analyzing data.
Reporting
The need for companies to access their data within an HCM solution has never been greater. Some HCM providers offer a built-in report writer, or access to already existing reports which is a benefit itself compared to not using any system.
However, aside from those two functions, a growing trend within HCM vendors is to offer analytical and business intelligence reporting tools, either developed in-house or the integrations are created from an existing solution. These enable companies to harvest and present data in ways they could not previously provide to key stakeholders when mission-critical personnel-related decisions are required.
As you can see, there are many different facets to payroll and HR requirements based on real-world demands. No two companies’ share the same requirements.
With that said, when selecting the correct automated HCM solution, one should search for a scalable system that fits into many different company structures and requirements.
