Soon after implementing a new ERP system in 2003, the Prince George's County, Maryland, school district processed the regular payroll for its 19,000 teachers, administrators, school bus drivers, and other employees. Of those 19,000 paychecks, 1,400 were incorrect. In some cases, teachers were paid only 50 percent of what they were owed. In other cases, teachers were paid more than they were owed, and had to return the overage. This is an extremely high number of errors for payroll, and employees get very upset with such errors. The school district had just implemented a new $9.5 million integrated accounting software system from Oracle®. However, after an investigation, it was determined that the payroll errors were not hardware or software problems, but problems with people and processes.¹

The problems were related to the steps that employees used to submit time cards for payroll—in other words, payroll processes. The processes in this case that were faulty included a time-consuming policy of assigning timekeepers at each school, who had to personally review each time card before submission. Prince George's County also had payroll employees who were inadequately trained in the use of the new payroll module.

A similar payroll debacle occurred at the Los Angeles Unified School District when it implemented the payroll function of its ERP system in 2007. In mid-2010, the district was still trying to recover $9 million of the $60 million in overpayments that were made because of glitches in the system and errors made by employees. An extensive investigation found several problems that led to these payroll problems (both overpayments and underpayments), one of which was inadequate training for employees who operated the payroll system.