Glossary

Created-at — when an entry was written, as distinct from the period it covers. The field that distinguishes a contemporaneous record from a reconstruction, and the most valuable one in a dispute.

Cutover — the point at which the old system stops being updated. Distinct from switching it off, which should happen much later.

Effective dating — applying a rule or rate from a date forward without repricing history. Its absence is why a rate change in April silently changes January.

Exit export — the extract you take at termination. Should be specified before signing and tested annually while the relationship is good.

Fixed, configurable and scriptable engines — the three shapes of rule engine. Fixed has a hard ceiling; scriptable is a maintenance commitment presented as flexibility.

Parallel run — operating old and new systems together and comparing results. Three periods, compared line by line per person, not by total.

Reconciliation — comparing what one system sent against what another received and what was paid. The control that turns a silent integration failure into a Tuesday morning email.

Rule version — the identifier of the rule that produced a calculated value. Without it, a two-year-old payroll question cannot be answered.

Sandbox tenant — a non-production environment. Needs refreshing, needs the same access controls as production, and belongs in the contract.

Seat-based pricing — per named or per active user. The headline figure, and rarely the whole bill.

Vendor lock-in — here, the cost of reproducing configuration, integrations, reports and habit. Not the data, which is exportable.

Terms used loosely by vendors

"Fully configurable" usually means settings exist for the common cases. Ask for a demonstration with your own awkward rule.

"Integrates with payroll" frequently means a CSV export exists. A file export is a manual step with an owner and a failure mode.

"Compliant" describes a deployment, never a product. A vendor cannot make your configuration lawful.

"Real-time" needs the question: real-time to what.

"Unlimited users" means something else is metered. Find out what, because it is the thing that grows.

How to read these notes

Start with requirements if nothing has been chosen, particularly the note on what you are actually buying.

Start with the rule engine if you operate in more than one jurisdiction.

Start with implementation if the product is chosen and the date is set.

Start with common failures if a project has stalled.

Nothing here is legal advice, and the notes say so where it matters.

On the absence of numbers

A note on how to treat any figure here.

No prices are quoted, deliberately. They vary by region, module, volume and negotiation, and a figure from elsewhere predicts nothing about your quote.

No implementation durations are given, because they are dominated by your rule count rather than by the product.

Where a relationship is stated — that rule discovery determines the timeline, that one parallel period is not enough, that accuracy falls with delay — that is the part worth relying on.

Every number worth having is your own.

Definitions must survive integrations

Terms such as campaign, project and activity can mean different things in connected systems. Compare the glossary against this example before mapping fields.