iwis is one of the world's leading companies in the industry and is regarded as the technology leader for high-quality chain drive systems for automotive and industrial applications. As a global system and development partner for the automotive industry, mechanical and plant engineering, the packaging, printing and food industries as well as for industrial applications in the field of conveyor technology, iwis works together with its customers as a team to constantly develop new powerful or even delicate solutions for every challenge. iwis has 50 locations worldwide and is the market leader in each of its four divisions: iwis antriebssysteme, iwis mobility systems, iwis smart connect and iwis mechatronics.

Strong support from Centric

In the course of consistent digitalization, the holding company has introduced several Centric audit & compliance tools in one go: PLK and PLX as a control and security system for payroll accounting, plus the master data audit program MADAP PA/OM, the comparison and calculation tool VBT2 and BTC for batch input from data files to HCM.

In his search for an HCM-internal control system, Andreas Eppeneder received a recommendation from the network of “payroll accountants in Upper Bavaria” that he had founded. After looking at the Centric tools, it was clear to him that the user-friendly and practice-oriented tools were also the right solution for iwis.

The Payroll Manager finds the direct jump from the HCM start menu to the customer area of the Centric Service Center particularly helpful, where extensive documentation on the tools, information on the status of his own Centric programs or the right contact persons are available for retrieval - collected in one place and without cumbersome searching on the Internet.

“Centric offers a future-proof, modular, scalable product portfolio and is a reliable partner for our journey into the cloud.”

Andreas Eppeneder, Payroll Manager iwis SE & Co. KG

Automated control system

The payroll team prepares and checks 3,300 payroll statements for all German iwis companies. Before the implementation, the payrolls were checked manually within two days in random samples using the dual control principle. The Centric modules now ensure an automated and complete check based on the rules stored in PLK. iwis adapted the set of rules together with its Centric consultant: The approximately 850 rules contained in the standard were viewed, for the most part adopted and supplemented with some individually defined checking rules.

The payroll team is currently implementing the control system in the holding company. The rollout of the PLX tool for decentralized error processing at the locations is planned for the medium term. The responsible clerks will then automatically receive their respective worklists in the PLX tool, assigned according to SAP areas, departments or cost centers.

The team also checked the master data in detail with MADAP and created a catalog for systematic master data cleansing in order to ensure a permanently high level of data quality

“The Centric tools make complete control over payroll accounting very easy.”

Andreas Eppeneder, Payroll Manager iwis SE & Co. KG

Saving time every day with VBT2 and BTC

BTC, which supports the automatic transfer of external data to the SAP system, is also used on a daily basis. For example, the payroll team uses it to transfer change contributions from the company collective agreements at the various locations, travel expenses, e-mail addresses or other adjustment data for payroll accounting into the HCM system. Andreas Eppeneder particularly appreciates the fact that he can flexibly define the batch input himself without programming. Another major advantage is that the data transfer sequence pattern can be saved in BTC and retrieved at the touch of a button. As the transmission path does not have to be re-entered each time, the payroll team saves a considerable amount of time in their daily work.

“I am delighted with the VBT2 program. It allows me to easily access SAP data and create up-to-date reports for the management at any time.”

Andreas Eppeneder, Payroll Manager iwis SE & Co. KG

iwis is fit for the future

Andreas Eppeneder will continue to expand the use of Centric tools in the company and still sees a lot of potential for further optimization of HR processes. Above all, it is important that the HR department is ideally positioned for the introduction of S/4 HANA and the continuous further development of the agile group of companies with Centric's future-proof modules.