How HR and controlling benefit from modern personnel cost planning with SAP

In medium-sized and larger organizations, personnel cost planning is often the responsibility of the HR department or financial controlling. On the one hand, budget specifications from the corporate strategy or production planning needs to be taken into account in personnel cost planning. On the other hand, the topic is driven by central HR function and line managers. The focus here is on how divisions, departments, or teams can plan and develop their personnel structure as effectively as possible for their business purposes.

9 tips for your personnel cost planning with SAP

Do HR and controlling adjust their approaches?

Usually, the results from HR planning are passed on to financial controlling. Sometimes, however, financial controlling plans personnel costs and capacities completely independent from the HR department. In some cases, the planning assumptions are partially harmonized; sometimes, the assumptions are not harmonized at all. In such cases, the HR department and financial controlling are almost diametrically opposed.

But why is this the case? In addition to cultural factors relating to the delineation of competencies and subject sovereignty in organizations, the understanding and transparency of the calculated figures often also play a role. However, it doesn’t make sense to tackle the same topic in parallel and come up with different assumptions and results.

Integrated process creates transparency

So how can it be done better? The answer can only be to establish an integrated process that provides individual planning scenarios and budget specifications on the one hand and ensures transparency with regard to the calculated key figures on the other. And, of course, the results of personnel cost planning must be transferred to the financial controlling department with the same personnel capacities and identical financial amounts. Only the granularity of the individual employee should be reduced in the data transfer so that the reference to the individual employee is no longer available in financial controlling. Nevertheless, the totals for cost centers, cost types, and employee groups must be consistent and fit together.

The solution: Personnel cost planning with SAP

Within modern SAP planning applications, companies are able to present integrated personnel cost planning scenarios and establish them in the organization. The software can reliably feature the requirements for an employee or job-oriented personnel planning with the necessary authorizations and, at the same time, use the capacity and cost specifications from the finance department into account. The result: complete transparency in this important core process of modern corporate management.