Time tracking with SAP SuccessFactors, S4 & ECP

The importance of tracking time

Time tracking and the evaluation of time plays an important role in connecting business activities, workforce and payroll. It ensures that employees’ effort can be logged and attributed to the relevant project tasks or operational duties, that employees are correctly paid for their work by payroll, and that management has a clear overview of its labour costs.

Today’s working practices place greater demands on time tracking, with a global workforce, dispersed working hours, and hybrid working patterns. It’s not enough simply to log when workers enter and leave a regular workplace, and a modern solution should recognise that each employee’s working hours, activities and location might be different from one day to the next.

Furthermore, employees and managers must be confident that logging such flexible working will not create an additional burden, so self-service time logging should be clear and simple for employees to use, and provide an accurate and transparent view of how the work they do translates into the payments they receive.

Time support in SAP

Organisations running SAP’s ERP HCM solution (on-premise or private cloud) can make use of its well-established Time & Attendance module. For businesses that require sophisticated and integrated time tracking functionality, this module has been a key reason for continuing to maintain an existing SAP payroll system.

In SuccessFactors, Employee Central already provided some time functionality (Timesheet), and the Time Off feature has proved sufficient for basic management of leave balances and negative variations from normal working hours. However, Employee Central Time Sheet, for logging attendance, has limited functionality compared to the Cross-Application Timesheet (CATS), available in ERP HCM. For example, Time Sheet cannot register activity on a project in relation to its work breakdown structure (WBS), translate that time into wage types for payment, or support time off in lieu adjustments, as is possible in the HCM solution. As a result, organisations that rely on integrating time into their wider business operations have been hesitant about adopting SuccessFactors time functionality and as result Employee Central Payroll as well.

SuccessFactors Time Tracking

To remedy this situation, SAP has developed the Time Tracking module for SuccessFactors, which removes some major barriers to migrating payroll from an ERP HCM system.

Time for employees

At its heart, Time Tracking provides enhanced time evaluation possibilities. Employees used to record their time worked via either Employee Central Timesheet. The recently developed native integration with S4 timesheet now allows the connection with WBS codes all in one place as well. The intuitive interface with clock-in and -out functionality provided by a GPS can be accessed through an app at a variety of devices. Making it easy, flexible and quick, minimizing the time they spend administering time.

Employees can also manage their time and earnings, with real-time calculations of overtime and premium payments, and options for choosing time off in lieu of additional payment. Accurate time records are important for both the employee and the business, so Time Tracking provides built-in rules and guidance to clarify the process, minimise errors and reduce the time spent on remedial action.

Time for managers

The workload for managers is also reduced, the new time sheet approval center simplifies the approval of working patterns and allowing selected types of working, such as from home, to be approved in advance. Automated calculations, notifications and reporting also help managers focus their attention on priority topics, and tackle emerging issues before they become major commercial or compliance problems. For example, a pattern of excessive overtime, late starts or short working hours might indicate behaviours that could increase business costs.

Conversely, a pattern of restarting work too soon after a break, or long working hours, could indicate behaviours likely to affect employee wellbeing, which could both impact performance and contravene prevailing workplace regulations. By spotting such behaviour patterns early, managers can take corrective action to prevent bigger problems arising. Configuration options allow organisations and managers to tailor rules and alerts to suit both company policies and local regulations, while dashboards provide clear, visual insights to support planning, decision-making and productivity management.

Time for the enterprise

Time data can be an essential input for managing many business processes, beyond the payroll, so Time Tracking (and SuccessFactors overall) can integrate with other enterprise technologies to break through silos and support holistic management of the whole organisation. In particular, SuccessFactors Time Tracking integrates with SAP S/4HANA, to incorporate time data seamlessly into everyday business operations, including resource forecasting, shift planning and scheduling (SAP Digital Manufacturing). Integration is not limited to proprietary SAP solutions, though, and Time Tracking can integrate with third-party time clock terminals and industry-specific scheduling applications. In cases where prebuilt solutions cannot meet specific business needs, SuccessFactors’ Integration Center allows simple integrations to be created in-house, while more complex integrations can be achieved with the SAP Business Technology Platform.

Time for the world

Around the world, SuccessFactors provides localised features, which ensure both legal compliance and an experience for each employee that reflects their working environment, whether of location or shift pattern. Public holiday data comes as standard for most countries, while cross-midnight time recording makes the process just as easy for night-shift workers as those working within the calendar day. By reducing the effort involved in handling time, Time Tracking enables employees to focus on productive work, enabling a better balance.

Roadmap for innovation and action

SuccessFactors continues to innovate, and some of the key features discussed above are planned for future release, in line with SAP’s roadmap. Cross-midnight time recording is due for release in 2H2024, with other features due to follow. These include clock-in/out functionality, public sector cost accounting, alerts for overtime issues and conflicting attendances and absences.

Deloitte’s partnership with SAP means we know what features to expect, and when, so we can help you understand how SuccessFactors can support your time. We are working together as part of the early adopter program to ensure it fits the functional needs of organisations related to payroll and integration requirements.

If you are curious and want to have a conversation to understand how this can enable your organisation for a future proof workforce management and payroll solution reach-out to Guus Brouwers (gbrouwers@deloitte.nl and/or Gert-Jan Koops (gkoops@deloitte.nl) so we can discuss the possibilities together.