I-Technology Inc. is a private Ontario software think tank. Our focus is improved software creation methods, and we believe we have made important progress! To test our new software approach, we looked for the largest software challenge around. We chose the Phoenix Payroll debacle.
- How can a payroll project become so costly?
- How can it be so error-prone?
- How can progress be so slow?
- What might be done to recover from the damage done?
To demonstrate the power of our new software methods, we decided to create a Pay Reconciliation Application. Its goal was to take the hours worked by an employee and calculate the take-home earnings after withholding taxes, etc. And to compare these amounts with the direct deposit payment scheduled for every second Wednesday. Then we calculated interest and penalty amounts due to short-payments and over-payments.
This Reconciliation Report spans the period since early 2016 when Phoenix went live. We analyzed several Collective Agreements and distilled out the money clauses. Happily, the policies for overtime, vacation, sick leave, etc. are rather standardized over dozens of contracts. We calculate tax withholding amounts for every province.
Our Pay Reconciliation Application was written from scratch. (We did not begin with an existing payroll program.)
The Pay Reconciliation program is not finished, but it is an effective proof of concept. We hope to work with the Government to achieve certification of our reports, in order to speed up the settlement with its 300,000 employees.