Why this framework works
Payroll is one of the few business processes where a mistake is immediately visible to every employee. Mercans builds the framework around one principle: verify before you trust. We don't assume your data is correct. We don't assume our configuration is right because it matches a checklist. We don't ask you to sign off on anything without showing you exactly what we tested and what we found.
Nine phases. Six gates. One committed date.
Typical durations are a guide — your project timeline is confirmed at kick-off based on scope, country complexity, and data readiness. Orange diamonds mark the formal sign-off gates.
Every engagement — Managed Service payroll, an HR Blizz™ HCM add-on, or a SaaS implementation — follows the same nine-phase framework. Scope and depth are tailored to your engagement; the discipline, sign-off gates, and quality checks stay constant. Change management runs continuously across every phase.
What six months looks like
The standard timeline for an entity with more than 1,000 employees is about six months. Workstreams overlap deliberately — while discovery finishes, interfaces are already being specified; while configuration completes, testing is being prepared. Your timeline is confirmed at kick-off based on complexity, data availability, and the number of parallel runs.
Illustrative timeline for a single entity with more than 1,000 employees. The timeline varies with implementation complexity, data availability, and the number of parallel runs — parallel testing runs a minimum of three cycles before go-live.
Your legacy system stays in charge until we've proven ours
Data migration runs inside a short, controlled freeze window — and your legacy system remains the system of record throughout testing and parallel runs. Changes made after the freeze are captured and synchronized at unfreeze, so nothing is lost and nothing is duplicated. Only at go-live does the system of record switch to Mercans.
Employee master data migration requires careful planning and execution — the freeze window is kept short, your payroll never stops, and the system-of-record handover happens once, at go-live, after parallel runs have proven the Mercans platform against your legacy output.
Parallel testing: we prove it before we run it
Mercans runs your payroll on our platform using real historical data and compares every result, line by line, against your legacy system's actual output. Every variance is explained to you in plain terms — not just a number.
Statutory calculations are independently verified, and every payroll report is cross-checked against your bank file, general ledger, and payslips for full consistency.
Wave by wave. Never big-bang.
For multi-country programs, Mercans phases delivery in waves: the smallest country goes first to prove the model, the highest-complexity countries follow with dedicated leadership per wave, and every country enters hypercare on a managed schedule. Waves overlap to compress the timeline — with a dedicated PM per wave and named SMEs per country.
Illustrative example only — your wave plan, country sequence, and timeline are designed at kick-off around your entity complexity, headcount distribution, and business calendar. Waves overlap deliberately: while one wave runs parallel testing, the next is already in discovery.
A blueprint per country before configuration begins — wage type mapping, integration design, and a test plan, typically built over a six-week discovery.
Waves overlap to compress the timeline, with a dedicated PM per wave and named SMEs per country — never a single stretched team.
A minimum of three parallel payroll cycles per country, proven against your legacy output before go-live — no exceptions for "simple" countries.
A dedicated support team for a minimum of two payroll cycles per country — hypercare ends when the exit criteria are met, not when the calendar says so. Detailed in the Go-Live & BAU tab.
How we keep the project honest
All tasks, milestones, and dependencies live on a single centralized project board, shared with your team from kick-off — the same live view of progress, upcoming milestones, and any item awaiting your input or sign-off.
A named Project Manager and Implementation Consultant are your primary contacts throughout. Regular status updates flag any risk to the go-live date plainly and early. Every working session produces formal notes fed back into your project documentation, so decisions are never lost.
Scope is defined in your signed agreement and the BRD. Any request beyond it follows a formal Change Request: documented, impact-assessed, and approved in writing before proceeding. You will never see unplanned cost or schedule impact without this conversation first.
Your responsibilities. Our responsibilities.
Under Instalaunch, Mercans staffs and runs your side of this plan too — data readiness, coordination, and sign-off tracking move to us, and your involvement narrows to decisions and approvals. See the Instalaunch tab.
We do not move forward until the gate is met
Who shows up, how the two organizations stay aligned, and where issues escalate.
