Payroll Software

The Vendor is required to provide payroll software that effectively supports the district’s payroll operations for its approximately 150 employees, across the functional areas of; payroll, payroll reports, and benefits.
- Security: the software includes all of the following:
1. Data protection and recovery:
• Maintain a comprehensive ransomware and data loss recovery plan, including daily backups of client data stored securely.
• The plan must specify recovery point objective (RPO) not exceeding 24 hours and recovery time objective (RTO) not exceeding 4 hours.
• Implement and document data retention and secure disposal policies, ensuring data is retained only as long as necessary and disposed of in accordance with privacy standards.
• The hosting infrastructure must support full disaster recovery and redundancy, ensuring minimal downtime and rapid restoration of services in the event of failure.
2. Incident response and monitoring:
• "the respondent must provide a formal incident response capability, including:
• Customer notification within 12 hours of a confirmed security breach
• Detailed disclosure of the breach, including categories of data affected
• Post-incident follow-up outlining resolution steps and future mitigation"
• Conduct regular security audits and penetration testing to proactively identify vulnerabilities and ensure software integrity.
• All software components must be kept up-to-date with the latest security patches and updates, with documented patch management procedures.
3. Access control and authentication:
• The software must support single sign-on (SSO) integration via Microsoft entra id (SAML, OAUTH, OpenID connect) for district of lake country staff.
• The software must support segregation of sensitive data zones based on user role, department, or access level, ensuring least-privilege access and data compartmentalization.
• The software must support role-based access control (RBAC), allowing admins to securely assign, modify, and revoke user roles and permissions ensuring appropriate access to system functionality and data
- Technical architecture and user experience requirements:
1. Responsive design and device compatibility:
• Built using responsive web design principles to ensure seamless functionality across all screen sizes, including desktops, laptops, tablets, and smartphones.
• Mobile access on both android and iOS platforms, enabling payroll staff and employees to interact with the platform for time entry, approvals, and pay stub access.
2. Performance and user experience:
• Robust out-of-the-box capabilities that meet core payroll requirements with minimal customization.
• Preference will be given to platforms that support configuration over custom development and provide pre-built modules aligned with municipal payroll operations.
• Maintain a responsive user experience, with form loading, saving, and data retrieval completing within 3 seconds under typical operating conditions (defined as up to 50 concurrent users and datasets of up to 500 employee records).
• Fast load times and secure access for all user roles (employees, supervisors, payroll administrators), even as data volume and user traffic increase.
3. Scalability & modern architecture:
• The software must be delivered as a hosted software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, with vendor-managed infrastructure, updates, and support.
• The system must be accessible via secure web interfaces and not require on-premises hosting or maintenance by the district of lake country.
• Built using modern, scalable technologies, such as cloud-native architecture, restful apis, and modular components, to support maintainability and integration.
• Scalable to accommodate increased user load, expanding datasets, and evolving workflows without degradation in performance.
• The respondent must maintain a development roadmap that supports emerging technologies, standards, and interoperability with future software systems.
• The software must maintain high availability with a minimum of 99.9% uptime, measured and reported monthly.
• Scheduled maintenance windows must be communicated at least 48 hours in advance and excluded from uptime calculations.
• Service credits or remedies for non-compliance with uptime SLA must be specified in the contract.
4. Data storage and integration
• Include automated integrity checks between integrated modules to ensure data consistency and reconciliation.
• Integrate with the district's financial accounting system (Microsoft dynamics GP, which currently also handles payroll processing) to ensure seamless posting of payroll journal entries and GL transactions.
• Integrate with the district's banking institution to enable secure direct deposit processing for all employee pay.
• The software must record each payroll transaction with appropriate GL codes and produce a csv file that conforms to Microsoft dynamics GP input criteria for journal entry import.
• Accessible data to provide a token and web URL for power bi analytics integration for payroll reporting and workforce analytics.
• The software must include the following core modules: payroll processing, time & attendance, employee self-service portal, tax management (federal & provincial), benefits administration integration, and reporting & analytics.
• The software must include additional modules: year-end processing (t4/t4a generation), workers' compensation reporting, and pension administration integration
5. Employee groups & pay schedule requirements
• Support bi-weekly payroll processing for exempt and union employees, including a user interface for time entry and supervisor approval workflows.
• This functionality will replace the current HRIS my way time entry and approval system.
• Support monthly payroll processing for council members, including appropriate tax treatment and remuneration tracking for elected officials.
• Monthly payroll processing for paid on-call firefighters, including the ability to accept an upload file (csv or similar format) containing payroll information from the fire department's scheduling/call tracking system.
• User-friendly web-based interface for bi-weekly employees to enter time worked, including regular hours, overtime, vacation, sick leave, and other leave types.
• The employee should be able to request future leave, and submit it for approval.
• The interface must allow employees to save progress and submit for approval.
• Interactive approval workflows with configurable routing based on department, employee type, and approval hierarchy.
• It shall support multi-level approvals where required and provide clear notification of pending approvals.
• Employees and payroll administrators to manage employee payroll information, including direct deposit authorizations, supporting documentation, and other required payroll forms.
• The software must support employee direct deposit allocation to multiple bank accounts based on employee-defined fixed dollar amounts and percentage allocations with appropriate validation and security controls
• Way for employees to attest or electronically sign their timesheet submissions, confirming accuracy of reported hours.
• Employees when their pay stub is available and when any changes are made to their payroll profile.
• The software must allow employees to access current and historical pay stubs, t4s, and tax documents online through the employee self-service portal.
• Confirmation receipts for timesheet submissions, approval actions, and profile changes.
• Accessible help content and guidance specific to payroll functions, available through the employee portal and administrator interface.
• Real-time status indicators showing timesheet submission status, approval status, and payroll processing status.
• Visual history trail of payroll transactions and timesheet changes.
• Display pay period deadlines and processing schedules for each employee group (bi-weekly, monthly).
• Multiple concurrent pay groups with independent payroll configurations, including different pay frequencies (bi-weekly for exempt/union, monthly for council and paid on-call firefighters), standard hours and work schedules (e.g., 70, 80, and 84 hour pay periods), and different processing rules.
• Secure messaging between employees and payroll staff for inquiries about pay, deductions, or benefits.
• Employees to set communication preferences (email, SMS, portal alerts) for receiving payroll notifications.
• New employees during onboarding to set communication preferences (e.g., email, SMS, portal alerts) for receiving payroll updates.
6. Core capabilities - payroll processing (all employee groups)
• Generate and support electronic submission/upload of payroll documents including pay stubs, t4s, t4as, records of employment (roes), and other payroll documents using pre-defined templates, automatically pulling data from the system.
• Year-end payroll processing, including year-end updates, rollover of payroll data into the new calendar year, application of legislative changes, and validation of updated payroll parameters prior to processing the fist payroll of the new year.
• Configurable earning and deduction codes with standard descriptions to ensure consistency in payroll processing.
• Support the creation, modification, and adjustment of pay codes to accommodate various earnings and payroll scenarios, including irregular earnings, premiums, retroactive pay calculations, termination or retirement payments, allowances, callouts, and other employee-specific compensation requirements with configurable calculation, taxation, and reporting rules.
• Configurable benefit plans and deduction rules, including employer-paid, employee-paid, and shared-cost benefit arrangements.
• Accomodate different benefit configurations, including taxable benefits, with appropriate calculation, reporting, and payroll integration capabilities.
• Configurable workflows to reflect the district of lake country's internal payroll processes, approval hierarchies, and pay schedule requirements.
• Allow authorized users to add, remove, or modify workflow steps based on employee type, department, or specific payroll scenarios.
• Payroll staff to add notes (internal and visible to employee) and update processing stages on payroll records.
• Send reminders for pending timesheet approvals, approaching payroll deadlines, and overdue submissions.
• Automatic actions triggered by system events (e.g., timesheet submission, approval completion, pay period end, or other defined conditions).
• The addition of custom data fields to employee records, timesheets, and payroll screens as needed.
• Payroll staff to route payroll items to departments for approval, verification, or correction, and generate reports for department budget review.
• Supervisors and approvers to submit comments, approvals, or return timesheets for correction directly within the platform.
• Automatically calculate gross pay, deductions (statutory and voluntary), taxes (federal and provincial), and net pay based on complex rules including union agreements, overtime calculations, and configurable parameters.
• Enable management of pay rates, step progressions, shift differentials, and union-negotiated wage scales to support automatic pay calculation by employee type and classification.
• Administration and tracking of employee entitlement balances, including vacation, wellness, overtime banks, earned time banks, lieu time, and other employee specific banks or accruals.
• The software must support configurable earning rules, payout options, balance tracking, and adjustments based on employee group, employment type, and applicable collective agreements or organizational policies.
• Authorized users to approve payroll runs based on predefined criteria and completion of all required approvals.
• Generate pay stubs and payroll registers using configurable templates with automatic population of employee and pay details.
• Secure document features including watermarking for confidential payroll documents.
• The software must securely issue pay stubs to employees via email or through their employee self-service portal.
• Master employee data management to ensure consistency and accuracy across all payroll modules and integrations.