How to choose HR and payroll software in Sri Lanka: a scripted demo that exposes the weak vendors

Every HR software demo in Sri Lanka looks the same: a dashboard, a leave calendar, a mobile app, a slide about EPF. None of that tells you whether the system will get the C-Form right on the 25th. The only way to find out is to make every vendor run your data through your script. Here is the script.

Before the demos

Export one complete month from your current process:

1. Raw attendance punches from your devices, including at least one overnight shift and one public holiday if you have them.
2. The salary register with basic, allowances, overtime and no-pay for every employee.
3. Your last C-Form and ETF schedule.
4. Your last APIT monthly schedule.
5. Your last bank salary file.

Send the same pack to each vendor a week ahead. Tell them the demo will be on this data. A vendor that refuses or says "we will show it on sample data" has told you something.

The nine checks

1. C-Form total. Their C-Form total for the month must equal yours to the rupee, or they must show you exactly which employee differs and why. This catches wrong earnings bases (allowances left out, overtime included).

2. Top three APIT figures. Take your three highest earners. Their monthly APIT must match the IRD Table 1 computation. Then ask them to add a LKR 200,000 bonus to one of them and show the Table 2 deduction.

3. One overtime employee. Pick someone with overtime. Ask the system to compute it from the punches, not from a typed figure. Check the divisor and the 1.5x rate. If you have Wages Board and Shop and Office staff, pick one of each.

4. One overnight shift. A punch in at 22:00 and out at 06:00 the next day. Watch whether the hours land on the right day and whether the OT after 8 hours is computed.

5. One no-pay day. An unauthorised absence. Confirm the deduction and confirm the EPF base fell with it.

6. One leaver. Terminate an employee mid-month. Ask for the final settlement with pro-rated salary, leave encashment, gratuity if eligible, and the part-year T10.

7. The bank file. Open it in a text editor. Compare the layout to the file your bank accepted last month.

8. The audit trail. Change one salary. Ask who can see that it changed, when, and by whom. Ask how payroll is approved before it is released.

9. The table update. Ask when the APIT tables last changed and show the release note or update that applied it. Ask who is responsible next time.

Scoring

Checks 1, 2 and 7 are pass or fail. A vendor that fails any of them is out, however good the mobile app. Score the other six from 0 to 3 and add them up.

Then, and only then, look at price at your headcount. The size pages on this site give the estimated monthly cost for each vendor from their published lists, so you know what a fair quote looks like before you receive one.

The parallel run

Shortlist two. Ask both for a parallel run: a full month in their system while your current process runs as normal, then a line-by-line comparison. A vendor that will not do this before signing is asking you to take payroll accuracy on trust. Do not.

A note on rankings, including ours

No ranking, including the ones on this site, should decide your purchase. Rankings shortlist; the script decides. If the vendor we rank first at your headcount fails check 1, 2 or 7 on your data, cross it off. That is the point of the script.