Neller logoLEADING AUSTRALIAN HR SOLUTION NOW THREE WAYS BETTER
Neller is Australia’s leading AS/400 provider to the Human Resources and Payroll sector. Over half a million people get their salary paid using Neller’s software. Neller’s customers include Coles Myer and Woolworths, who are the largest retailers in the region with thousands of shops, supermarkets and warehouses in Australia and New Zealand. Other customers include Pacific Dunlop, Wesfarmers and Van Leer.
To improve customer service, maintain market share and expand into new market segments, Neller selected LANSA to enhance its HR & Payroll flagship product Preceda People in three major ways. A self-service web extension empowers employees of large decentralized companies, Visual LANSA is being used for high volume data entry at large centralized companies and Neller has recently launched a web-based Application Service Provider (ASP) offering called EzPay for small companies that do not need their own hardware and software. Neller historically targeted companies with over 500 employees, but EzPay is attractive for both small and large companies.
“What really stands out about Neller is its desire and ability to support our relationship, keep up to date with legislative changes and keep abreast of industry and product functionality,” says David Brackenbury, Remuneration and Systems manager at Woolworths.
What really stands out about Neller is its desire and ability to support our relationship, keep up to date with legislative changes and keep abreast of industry and product functionality.
The Challenge
Andy Brown, Managing Director of Neller, explains the challenges facing employers. “Many of our customers have their employees spread over a large number of locations. For example, Woolworths employs 100,000 staff in over 600 supermarkets, food stores and liquor outlets. HR departments in large companies get an enormous number of standard employee inquiries that may take up to 30% of staff’s time.”
“We decided to offer our customers a solution to empower their employees to access their own leave balances, pay slip, personal and contact details. In a decentralized environment, local managers need to access employee data of their own department or shop. So we built PrecedaNet Selfservice with LANSA for the web to meet this need. The intuitive browser interface seemed the perfect solution for this.”
“By allowing employees to access their own data, this extension empowers employees and helps decentralized organizations with widespread staff. Customers will save significantly on administrative costs and improve the accuracy of employee related data.”
“At the same time we wanted to hedge our bets. A browser interface is not ideal for high volume data entry, at least not at this stage. While some of our customers want to decentralize, others want to keep the HR function in their head office and need a high volume client server GUI solution. So with Visual LANSA we are enhancing the Preceda People user interface with high volume data entry modules as well as browser based modules for other tasks.”
“The third challenge we face after twenty years of leadership in the high end HR/Payroll market is market saturation. Traditionally we target companies with 500 or more employees, but we wanted to widen our market to include small companies as well. We envisioned that a web-based bureau service that does not force a company to purchase any hardware or software would be the answer. We have recently launched EzPay, a new web-based Application Service Provider (ASP) offering that allows managers to enter and process payroll data using a browser interface.”
The Solution
“By empowering employees to do their own inquiries and by decentralizing the management function to local managers, companies can save significantly on their administration costs. Transferring ownership directly to the employee and their local manager improves the accuracy of the data tremendously.”
“Our customers don’t want us to distribute and support code in hundreds of locations. This would create too much opportunity for mistakes and problems. Moreover, some locations may be very remote. Client server is just not practical in large decentralized environments. The advantage of LANSA for the Web is that we can offer an intuitive user interface, but don’t need to install and maintain client software at all the customer’s outlets.”
Andy continues “We selected LANSA for the Web because we needed to move forward from our RPG and ODBC client server solution. Whatever we chose had to work on the AS/400 and be web-based. We also feel sure LANSA for the Web and the AS/400 are secure.”
“We see that the future of payroll and HR in particular is a intuitive web interface that can be managed centrally. Not only have we built a browser based self-service extension, we are replacing all the user interfaces of Preceda People with LANSA for the Web.”
High Volume Windows GUI in the head office
“But, we are still not happy that the web is mature enough for high volume situations,” says Andy. “So we re-developed a subset of Preceda with Visual LANSA for high volume data entry.”
“These Visual LANSA modules were installed at Coles Myer earlier this year. Coles Myer is one of our customers that prefer a centralized HR/Payroll environment. The modules we have selected to re-develop with Visual LANSA are the ones that require intensive data entry, such as Time Card entry and Employee Hire and Maintenance.”
“You can imagine that for a company of the size of Coles Myer this is seriously high volume business. In the period just before Christmas, in the super market division alone they hire an extra 1,000 seasonal employees each week. It is a major effort to handle this peak season.”
Sam Xydias, development manager at Neller says, “Visual LANSA met all of our objectives. The powerful repository both significantly improved productivity and reduced QA with better quality of code. Visual LANSA’s thin client architecture significantly reduced machine load compared with ODBC based tools.”
Greg Irvine, Coles Myer payroll and superannuation administrator says, “Neller helped us move from disparate payroll systems to a shared service environment. Neller provides a proven payroll operation with an integrated system and we have the opportunity to move with other components down the track if required.
Neller helped us move from disparate payroll systems to a shared service environment.
Web based payroll bureau service
Neller has recently launched a new Application Service Provider (ASP) offering. “We call this bureau service EzPay,” explains Andy. “We took the Preceda product and made it simpler by scaling it down and automating procedures. Preceda is a high end product, with a rich functionality and a wide variety of options. With EzPay we simplified matters, because it is targeted a smaller companies.”
“Traditionally when companies outsource their payroll to a bureau, you would enter the data entry yourself, but you don’t have control over the processing. You don’t get a chance to review what you have entered until it is processed and you receive the reports and pay slips from your service bureau. By that time its too late and any errors must be corrected manually.”
“With EzPay you not only do the data entry yourself, but you also press the ‘Process’ button. You print the reports and pay slips yourself and can make corrections when required and then simply press the “Process” button again. As well, you are not locked into the time frame of the bureau. You can enter and process your payroll data whenever and from where ever you like. You could even do it from home in the weekend.”
“EzPay is also a good stepping stone for companies that want to start small, but may need the more complete version later. The AS/400 is a very scalable platform and small companies, that considered an NT solution a few years ago, may now want to start with one of the AS/400 entry models. It is the same Preceda database underneath and would require no conversion effort to move up to the full solution later.”
The Benefits
“We wanted a tool that would seamlessly integrate with the AS/400 and RPG based core functionality of Preceda. We also required one tool that would allow us to develop AS/400 server side processing, web applications with a browser interface and fast high volume client server applications. These requirements narrowed down the field of tools that we could use significantly.”
“LANSA came out the best. I think it is an excellent tool. We also like the fact that it is an Australian product. Moreover we like the company and its international presence.”
“LANSA was easy to learn for our AS/400 developers with an RPG background. We did not have to recruit new web or client server specialists and could use our existing people who already have extensive HR industry knowledge. We love LANSA’s single skill-set approach and plan to gradually replace the entire code with LANSA.”
We selected LANSA for the web because we needed to move forward from our RPG and ODBC client server solution.
Company and System Information
- Neller Pty Ltd has provided Payroll and HR solutions for over twenty years and employs over 70 staff in their Australian offices in Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane and Perth. Neller is currently expanding its business into South East Asia.
- Customers include retail giants Coles Myer (140,000 staff and 2000 shops) and Woolworths (80,000 staff and over 760 supermarkets and shops). Other blue chip companies include Van Leer, Coca Cola Amatil, Pacific Dunlop, Commonwealth Bank of Australia, BRL Hardy and Wesfarmers.
- To learn more about Neller and for a demonstration of PrecedaNet Selfservice and the EzPay bureau service visit
www.neller.com.au
