Company / Branch
Framatome GmbH / Nuclear Technology & Plant Engineering
Range of services
Framatome GmbH, based in Erlangen, Germany, is a subsidiary of Framatome S.A., one of the world's leading manufacturers in the nuclear industry. With approximately 16,000 employees worldwide, Framatome develops, manufactures and installs components and fuel elements as well as control systems for nuclear facilities and provides comprehensive services for reactors.
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Finding qualified employees is a major challenge for companies in times of a shortage of skilled workers. In order to retain employees and attract skilled workers, new ideas are constantly being developed and incentives created.
Salary extras and benefits in the form of non-cash benefits play a major role here and are indispensable in some industries. Monetary benefits such as company events, company cars or lump-sum meals that exceed the legal minimum are an important instrument of personnel marketing and the retention of employees in a company. This is also the case at Framatome.
However, the calculation and posting in payroll accounting are complex and prone to errors. This is because different tax rules apply depending on the amount and type of benefits. This also posed regular challenges for Framatome's payroll department. With SAP Concur, these processes are now automated and error-free.
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Framatome develops and builds nuclear power plants all over the world and therefore generates the majority of its sales in an international environment. Business trips lasting several months and long-term assignments at locations all over the world are the norm. Recruiting field staff is a challenge for Framatome, even more so than for other companies: Field staff at Framatome often face special challenges: They may be on the road for months at a time, and because they are deployed all over the world, they have to adapt to very different circumstances.
Framatome is therefore keen to make work on business trips and assignments more pleasant and thus to retain employees in the long term. Benefits in kind are an important part of this - and are correspondingly numerous and varied.
For example, Framatome reimburses its employees for gym fees at the workplace as well as additional meal expenses based on actual costs at the workplace and in excess of the statutory tax-free lump sums. For longer business trips, there is a travel budget, e.g. for family visits. If the family moves to the place of assignment, Framatome pays the children's school fees. Framatome also invests in the health of its employees, for example by paying for short stays. But even those who are not in the field enjoy benefits, such as a personal budget for celebrating a service anniversary.
As helpful, appreciative, and pleasant as these benefits are, accounting for them correctly for tax purposes as a non-cash benefit was time-consuming, complicated, and error-prone. This was because the costs for a four-figure number of business trips for several hundred employees were manually entered, reviewed, and accounted for by the HR and payroll departments. Compliance with the three-month rule for additional per diem expenses and the various statutory country allowances is complex.
Many of Framatome's employees in Germany are deployed around the world, often for months at a time. The company wanted a cloud-based, mobile, easy-to-use solution that would allow employees to do most of their own accounting for travel expenses, non-cash benefits, and even small receipts. The solution should also be able to handle the reimbursement of small amounts, such as textbooks or a bouquet of flowers for a birthday or company anniversary.
Since Framatome was already using an SAP solution to manage travel expenses, the move to SAP Concur Expense and Travel was an easy one. Framatome is using the SAP Concur standard. With interfaces to Framatome GmbH's SAP system, SAP Payroll, and the French parent company Framatome S.A.'s SAP system, the solution can even handle complex accounting and tax processes:
Employees can enter their receipts using an app on their smartphones. In Concur, these receipts are automatically and accurately posted and transferred to SAP HCM Payroll via standard interfaces. Taxes are automatically calculated in Payroll. Employees receive a transparent and timely statement of their benefits with their monthly payroll. In this way, they can immediately see what is taxable.
The entire complex process of automatic payroll and taxation is mapped using standard SAP integration. No customizations were required, which facilitated the rollout.
With SAP Concur, Framatome has chosen a solution that has evolved from project kickoff to successful rollout into an integrated solution that can map all complex processes.
The journey to this point took place in several steps: Starting in 2019, after a pilot phase, projekt0708 implemented Concur Travel at Framatome in Germany as a standalone solution. This was followed by Expense and, in early 2022, SAP Payroll.
Since March 2022, Framatome has been using the SAP Concur standard interface with SAP ERP HCM Payroll for automated taxation.
The implementation of the various solutions went smoothly. The only (minor) challenge was the release of an interface to the parent company's SAP system.
The integration of this complex payroll issue of imputed income was possible within the standard SAP Concur solution.
Recording and taxing imputed income and expenses was time-consuming and error-prone. With SAP Concur, these processes are now automated and reliable. This reduces the workload for payroll and HR.
All employees, whether in the office or in the field, have embraced SAP Concur and appreciate the benefits: Benefits are visible in payroll, and all expenses can now be easily processed by the company itself using a standardized process.
The ability to easily add new benefits and perks makes the solution future-proof, allowing Framatome to respond flexibly to the demands of a rapidly changing labor market.
