Where to Start

Most selections in this category start with a demonstration. The order that works starts with the rules, because the rules decide which products are viable.

The sequence

One: rule discovery. List every pay rule you actually operate, with its source.

Two: the four sizing numbers — people, entries, rule sets, history.

Three: requirements, including the ones that start with "not".

Four: consultation, where it is required, before procurement.

Five: longlist against the rules, which removes most of the market quickly.

Six: trial, configured by you, with criteria written first.

Seven: references, then contract.

No demonstration before step five.

The first ninety days

Weeks one to four: rule discovery with payroll and HR. This is the longest phase and it is the one usually skipped.

Weeks five to six: sizing and requirements.

Weeks seven to eight: consultation and longlist.

Weeks nine to twelve: trial with two products, on your hard cases.

A decision at the end, which may be to keep what you have.

Rule discovery, practically

Start from payroll configuration, which is where most of them are encoded.

Add collective agreements and individual contract variations.

Ask payroll what they do by hand every period. Manual steps are undocumented rules.

Ask the longest-serving person what the exceptions are.

Expect contradictions and rules nobody can justify. Resolving those is an organisational decision and it sits on the critical path, not on the software one.

A written rule list is valuable regardless of whether you buy anything, which makes this the phase that cannot be wasted.

What to avoid early

Buying from a demonstration.

Shortlisting on features before the rules are known.

Letting the vendor configure the trial, which measures their team rather than the product.

Treating a trial as exempt from notice and consultation where people are recording real time in it.

Setting a go-live date before rule discovery is complete, which is how the configuration phase gets compressed into the parallel run.

What ninety days should produce

A written rule list, owned and maintained outside any product.

The four numbers.

Requirements including explicit exclusions.

Two products trialled against your own cases, scored against criteria written first.

A recommendation, which may be that the current arrangement is adequate — a legitimate outcome that a project scoped as a procurement can never reach.

The rule list is the deliverable

The one artefact that is valuable whatever you decide.

A written list of every pay rule you operate, with its source.

Useful if you buy: it determines which products are viable and shortens configuration.

Useful if you build: it is the specification.

Useful if you do nothing: it is what payroll has been carrying in their heads.

Which makes the discovery phase the part of the project that cannot be wasted, even if the procurement is cancelled.

See the workflow before scoring it

A written requirement should become a demonstrated scenario. To understand one possible capture-to-report flow, see how it works, then ask every shortlisted vendor to perform the same scenario with your test data.