What are the priorities of the UKISUG GB Payroll Focus Group?

Payroll is a core function in every organisation. Without it, salaries don’t get paid.

 

As a result of the custom complexities of payroll processing and ever-changing UK payroll legislation, our GB Payroll Focus Group remains one of our most well-supported and best attended communities. In this blog, Adam Frank, co-chair of our GB Payroll Focus Group along with Rachael Boardman, looks at two of the key focuses for SAP payroll professionals: managing legislative change and overcoming the S/4HANA and SuccessFactors migration challenge.

These both carry wide-ranging implications around how payroll teams engage with and use SAP products. Read on to find out more.

 

Legislation is one of the topics that remains at the forefront of the payroll teams’ minds. There are often 2-3 major updates each year – including changes to National Insurance, tax rates and court orders – and teams must stay on top of how these will impact their existing payroll processes.

 
Payroll professionals need to understand how changes in legislation will impact their use of SAP. Will SAP be releasing specific updates or will they be required to build custom solutions to address their specific scenarios? Visibility into product roadmap and update reschedules is essential if payroll teams are to plan effectively. SAP has started to take great strides forward in providing documentation for UK&I organisations – providing teams with much greater clarity. What’s more, at our events SAP representatives are typically present, providing a direct link to the SAP UK technical team, developers and HMRC.

At the same time, with each organisation taking its own approach to payroll, SAP understandably can’t cater for every customer requirement. However, as legislation never stands still, the GB Payroll Focus Group is working to address this challenge by providing a forum where payroll professionals can network and learn from each other to solve common problems. 

 

As the 2027 maintenance deadline for ECC 6.0 comes ever closer, each function that uses SAP is having to assess its readiness for S/4HANA. In payroll, this migration isn’t a simple “lift and shift,” and the move from ECC 6.0 into S/4 and SuccessFactors will, more than likely, involve a multi-year transition in many cases. At a time when many organisations are looking to adopt a ‘clean core’ approach, payroll teams can find themselves in an interesting position, due to the number of customisations they have introduced over the years.

Rather than sticking with the status quo, the move to these current options offers the chance for teams to re-evaluate their processes. Part of this involves deciding whether organisations need a custom solution or if they can adopt a standard one – allowing them to get closer to a truly clean core. As part of our commitment to enable customers to make informed decisions, we will continue to work with SAP to share information needed to understand their migrations.

Ultimately, payroll teams must think about their transition to S/4 and SuccessFactors, even if there are hard conversations to be had internally. But as a Focus Group we can help provide organisations with the real-world insight they need to make their transformation a success.

If you’re a payroll professional looking for support from our community, reach out to us at [email protected].