It’s good to talk
SAP users have clearly been one of the biggest groups affected by this change. Here at the UK&I User Group we have been in regular contact with SAP to ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible. To support the successful deployment SAP participated in a twelvemonth pilot with HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC). During the pilot, SAP was in regular dialogue with HMRC and a sample of its customers, from across the public and private sector, to share experiences and provide feedback. This has helped enable everyone to identify and overcome issues that were always likely to arise before going live. As with the rollout of any major software update, there are always some bumps along the road and with RTI it hasn’t been any different. Whether you are a SAP user or not, our message for all users of payroll systems is be proactive and get closer to your software provider. Ensuring that you are compliant is essential but so is usability – so being able to influence your provider and give feedback is vital.
Certainly one way is to join a user group as it can provide users with much greater access to software providers and their product roadmaps. For example, SAP’s global user groups are now working closer than ever before with the company to help shape its future product roadmap. Furthermore users can take advantage of the opportunities that a user group membership opens up for dialogue to learn from and share experiences with other members.
Engaging with, collaborating with and getting feedback from end users through user groups can be advantageous to payroll software providers too, because it creates a way for them to proactively engage with users during the product development process. This streamlines the process because feedback is received along the way, reducing the number of changes required once the product comes to market and in turn improving the user experience and saving the software provider valuable time and money.
Clearly RTI has driven a lot of customer engagement over the last twelve months. However, product improvement should be an ongoing process, so whether you are an end-user, software provider or even the HMRC, it is always good to talk.
Fred Rennison
Payroll SIG chair, UK & Ireland SAP User Group
