With around 1,400 employees, Nolte Küchen produces high-quality kitchens with the promise of quality “Made in Germany”. In the HR area, the company has introduced Centric's Audit & Compliance tools to ensure the consistently high quality of payroll accounting and master data from SAP HCM. The audit is carried out without third-party tools - in the familiar SAP environment.
Before the Centric solutions were implemented, the payroll accounting for the Nolte Kitchens and Express Kitchens divisions involved many manual steps. The clerks looked through the payrolls in their area of responsibility individually. However, errors and gaps in the master data could often not be detected in this way. For example, whether the conversion of a fixed-term employment contract into a permanent one was entered in SAP is not visible in the remuneration statement.
Focus on correct master data
Head of HR Services Julia Ehrke therefore attached great importance to a professional quality check that ensures correct master data as the basis for error-free payroll accounting and up-to-date reporting. Together with the Centric tools PLK and PLX as a control system for payroll accounting in SAP HCM, the master data audit program MADAP PA was therefore also introduced to check the HR master data.
Intuitive audit tools for SAP
Centric's tools were the first choice for Julia Ehrke because she had already had good experiences with them at her previous employer. She highlights the intuitive operation of the IT solutions as a key advantage:
"Durch ihr SAP-Look&Feel sind die Centric Add-ons für uns einfach zu handhaben."
Julia Ehrke, Leiterin Personalservice
Simple introduction with Centric inspection tools: A quick start in practice
The HR team at Nolte Küchen introduced the Centric testing tools without any major project effort. Immediately afterwards, the team started using them in practice to see what information the testing tools provided during the first runs. The initial experiences were then gathered within the team and the set of rules provided by Centric was gradually adapted to the company-specific requirements. The team first decided which of the 850 or so checking rules supplied by Centric could be deactivated and then went on to formulate their own checking rules.
Centric tools against inconsistencies: Comprehensive plausibility check
Two key users are responsible for defining free checking rules. In the MADAP correction and checking tool, they can store generic checking rules for verifying HR master data and facts in SAP HCM or customer-specific infotypes and tables. With the help of MADAP PA, the HR master data is checked on this basis before each payroll run. Julia Ehrke passes on one of her team's experiences:
“Centric uncovers inconsistencies between infotypes that we wouldn't have noticed otherwise.”
Julia Ehrke, Head of Personnel Services
In combination with the PLK/PLX control system, this provides a complete picture of the error messages right down to the master data. The personnel master data in SAP HCM can then also be corrected from the standardized PLX user interface by jumping directly from the notes.
Successive optimization of master data
In order to process the initially concentrated error messages, the project team decided to take a step-by-step approach and work through the messages successively with each subsequent test run. Julia Ehrke estimates that it took around three to four months to process the old cases in addition to the current notifications.
The project manager can also pass this tip on to other users: With the introduction of Centric tools, not everything has to change overnight, but you can, for example, gradually optimize master data quality as part of the regular check runs alongside day-to-day business. Julia Ehrke notes:
“We have improved our HR master data month by month with the help of Centric tools and can now rely on top data quality.”
Julia Ehrke, Head of Personnel Services
Payroll with Centric: Automated check runs
The Payroll team prepares and checks around 1,700 payroll runs per month. The head office in Löhne is responsible for Nolte Küchen, while the HR department at the Melle-Bruchmühlen site is responsible for the subsidiary Express Küchen. The automated check runs are started on the 10th and 20th of each month. A major advantage of this is that the check no longer takes place shortly before the payroll run, as was previously the case. This means that errors are detected at an early stage and the information can be processed evenly throughout the month.
Positive feedback from the auditors
Stress and the potential for errors due to concentrated work processes at the end of the month are now a thing of the past. The Head of HR Services, Julia Ehrke, always has an overview of the status of the overall process thanks to the traffic light display of her team's processing progress. The HR department is now also on the safe side in terms of the required transparency and compliance: the introduction of the automated control system has been well received by the auditors at Nolte Küchen.
“With the Centric tools, we have achieved a major improvement in the quality of our master data, without the need for third-party tools in the familiar SAP environment.”
Julia EhrkeHead of Personnel Services, Nolte Küchen GmbH & Co. KG
