For those that are using HCM, are you also using Epicor payroll? We are in the process of going from 10.2.200 to the latest version of Kinetic. We have been using the payroll module for a long time and it has never been great but worked ok until the changes to the US federal W4 in 2019. We have found ways around it but just going through the screens in Kinetic and searching Epicweb, it doesn’t look like that have added any functionality.
With a single HR person, I really think we would benefit from moving to an outside company for payroll, employee portal, processing tax payments, etc. but have been asked to find out what is available first.
The future plans for HCM are disseminated to everyone, but they usually keep up with the legal changes. Although it might not be until the very last minute. I’d put a support ticket in and ask for an update. I can get you a name to reach out to if you don’t get any information via Support.
And while I can’t answer your question directly, I will say that when you are ready to look for another system feel free to reach out. We just spent a long 6 months evaluating HR/Payroll companies and in the middle of our first payroll with one now. We’ve decided to move off HCM for all of the obvious reasons
Thanks Mike. I just got an email back from my new Epicor account manager and he said they “no longer provide the HCM functionality”. I guess that make the decision easier.
“Unfortunately, Epicor no longer provides the HCM functionality. I would recommend continuing to evaluate the outside payrolls. Once you have a chosen vendor it is almost guaranteed Epicor can seamlessly integrate to that functionality. From there I would be happy to talk through that integration process. Would you mind telling me who you are currently considering?”
We are looking at a company called CBI Business Systems, that is a regional company. We have pitched a couple of the big names and got shot down. The decision makers just don’t have an understanding of the difficulty or running payroll through Epicor and how difficult the lawmakers have made it to stay up to date on the rules. CBI is much less expensive but cover the features important to us.
We’re also in the process of going from 10.2.200 to Kinetic 2023.1 and we also use Epicor Payroll. We’re also currently running HCM 2013 and have been told that we need to upgrade HCM if we want to keep it integrated with Kinetic. So, we’re planning to upgrade to HCM 2023 in mid-November, but that definitely will be our last HCM upgrade because our parent company is consolidating all subsidiaries to a common HRMS platform. Are you faced with the same HCM upgrade and that’s why you’re considering other options? Did you confirm what your CAM told you with any HCM personnel? Your CAM’s statement obviously doesn’t bode well for getting solid support for HCM 2023, and especially not well for getting fixes for bugs.
You can ignore my first question… after rereading your original post, I realized that you aren’t currently using HCM and you’re just looking for feedback about it. Putting it bluntly, I’d say don’t go there, even if Epicor isn’t shutting it down. Follow up with Mike Gross instead! With hindsight, it seems ludicrous that Epicor acquired Spectrum in the first place.
I am curious what other think of the Epicor payroll? It hasn’t been updated/changed since we started using it 30 years ago. I haven’t dug into Kinetic payroll yet but first at first glance it seems the same. Am I the only one struggling with it not keeping up with tax law changes?
I think you will have greater potential for getting good feedback if you remove the “with HCM” from the topic title and you re-categorize the topic from “Epicor HCM” to “Kinetic 202X”. There isn’t much interest in HCM topics in this forum, plus your interest really pertains to the payroll module in Kinetic anyway. The HCM application doesn’t even have any payroll functionality for you to investigate.
As far as payroll itself is concerned, we have used the module since going live with ERP 10.1.500 in 2017. AFAIK, it has worked fine, generally speaking, but I really don’t know any details about how our HR and finance personnel handle the tax forms/filings.
Thanks Scott. I have asked the question in the past and not gotten a response so I thought I would ask while some people are engaged in the conversation.
We use Epicor Payroll. I’m not aware of any legal issues aside from the change from deduction/exemption units to a flat number, which the system supported. What are you running into?
I must be missing something with the flat number. I will check with our HR/Payroll person.
When the new 2020 W4s came out, there was no documentation on how to change the employee withholding for anyone with a new W4. I did a lot of calculating and digging to find out how the new formula should work and once I got it working, support asked me for the document I created.
