How Criterion HCM is Simplifying HR for Companies Using Procore

If you’re a Procore user, you know the power of the construction software’s project management, workforce planning, and design features. Construction teams of virtually any size can use Procore to manage their projects and teams with an incredible user interface — and much more.

But to manage any construction project successfully, you need to be able to track timesheets and pay your employees on time. While Procore offers excellent features for managing teams and projects, it isn’t necessarily built to run payroll effectively. What’s more, running payroll for construction teams involves several unique considerations. Even some of the best HCM (Human Capital Management) software products on the market not only lack the necessary fields but also the configurability required for time tracking and payroll management in the construction industry.

That’s why Criterion has partnered with Procore to develop an integration that makes payroll easy for Procore users. The Criterion/Procore integration automates much of the payroll process, streamlining time tracking and record keeping for business owners and employees alike to achieve greater efficiency.

Let’s take a detailed look at how the combined power of Procore and Criterion can make payroll easier for your team.

What Is Criterion?

Criterion HCM is a cloud-based HCM platform that pairs robust enterprise-level functionality with mid-market pricing, beautiful design, and extreme configurability.

Unlike some other Human Capital Management products on the market, the construction industry has always been a key target consideration as we’ve developed our software. We know that every construction business is unique in what it needs, and we provide custom solutions to accelerate your HR processes.

By integrating Criterion’s payroll module with your Procore account, you can streamline your payroll process with fewer errors and zero payment delays.

The Challenges of Running Payroll Manually

Without a proper HCM solution, running payroll manually can be a serious challenge. While you can track your time in Procore, you’ll often need to manually export that timesheet data to a spreadsheet and process payroll with another software. You can do a lot of things with spreadsheets, but these programs (Excel, Google Sheets, etc.) are only built to store and organize information. They don’t have the proper functionality to categorize or work with payroll information the way an HCM provider like Criterion does. To make it work, you’ll need to do heavy customization on the spreadsheet, but it still won’t be a good solution.

You’ll need to manually calculate wage rates and exceptions —  including overtime, employer and employee tax rates, and union pay rules (which all vary by state). If you have projects and contractors in different states, calculating all of this while remaining in full compliance with various laws can be a major headache. You’ll also need to allocate a lot of labor hours for a payroll manager to process this for your entire roster of employees.

In other words, payroll is too complicated to run efficiently using spreadsheets or any software not built specifically for that purpose.

Besides that, there are several tedious admin tasks related to payroll, including labor cost allocation and other accounting processes. These will all need to be done manually, unless you have a dedicated HCM software that automates them.

What Can You Do With the Criterion/Procore Integration?

Through the integration of Criterion and Procore, you can solve all of these problems and make your payroll process vastly more efficient and accessible. You can also see a list of features available with the Criterion integration on the Procore marketplace.

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Let's look at some of the most important features.

Sync Timesheets Bidirectionally

With this integration, employees can track their time in the native Criterion interface. Once they log that time, timesheets are automatically synced between Criterion and Procore in real time, so that data is available for whatever you need.

In Criterion, this timesheet data is housed in a single database with specific fields for cost codes, projects, and locations for different jobs. This even works for cross-country operations, whether you’re working in the United States, Canada, or the United Kingdom.

Once you set up your team information in Criterion, the HCM software automatically calculates wage rates, taxes, and union rules for each employee. This way, you don’t have to concern yourself with the abundance of rules and compliance standards. Employees can simply track their time, and the software will ensure that everyone is paid accordingly.

Sync Project Data from Procore to Criterion

Procore has powerful project management tools for construction businesses. But running payroll effectively is essential to accurately calculating labor cost. With this integration, you can set up and manage your project details in Procore and sync that data to Criterion for labor cost allocation. With user-friendly self-service features, employees can track time and various expenses for unique projects themselves. This cost data can then be configured and allocated to specific projects with data from Procore.

Sync Employee Data from Criterion to Procore

Since Criterion is built for managing people, it’s the perfect place to house employee data. Once you update employee details in Criterion, you can automatically sync that data to your Procore interface. This helps you gain complete visibility over who is available to work on your project, based on qualifications and certifications, location, available hours, and allocated labor cost. Once you assign these employees to a task, those details (location, pay rate, demographics, etc.) will be available in Procore.

What’s more, Criterion already has employee’s profile information linked to their time tracking interface. So, processing payroll for each employee is automatically customized to account for their location, tax rate, and union affiliation.

What Else Can Criterion Do For You?

For any growing construction company, a great human resources department is a key component to success. HR isn’t just about dealing with internal disputes – it’s about managing your team more effectively to help everyone reach their goals. 

Criterion HCM is designed to do just that, with several customizable solutions crafted to work within the construction industry. Aside from our powerful payroll module, our HCM software also helps you optimize your human resources department and boost talent engagement to meet company goals. All of this is accessible through a user-friendly mobile app for easy on-the-job use as well.

Human Resources Module

With a custom-built HRIS (Human Resources Information System), your HR department can be tailored to drive growth in your organization. Our Human Resources module can help align employee management systems with business strategies and automate several HR tasks to help you meet your goals faster.

The software also handles a lot of complex tasks to help you remain in compliance with employment laws. This way, you don’t have to spend countless work hours (or mental energy) figuring out how to follow all the rules.

Part of the strength of this module is the self-service approach, in which employees have greater control over the processes that actually affect their day-to-day workflow such as viewing pay stubs, updating their benefits information, or communicating with fellow employees.

Talent Engagement Module

Your construction business relies heavily on hiring skilled workers for your team. To keep those highly-skilled employees satisfied and engaged with doing their best work for your company, you’ll need to do more than just pay them. Criterion’s talent engagement module is designed to help you provide a competitive and consistent employee experience in several areas.

With this module, you can create personalized employee hiring and onboarding sequences as well as ongoing learning experiences for each team member. You can also design specific, custom workflows for different teams, track their KPIs, and create incentive programs to boost performance. By using Criterion’s built-in communication tools, you can encourage more engaging dialogues between employees and keep track of that correspondence for more accurate records.

All of this is backed up with access to powerful HR analytics, which help you make strategic people management decisions driven by real data from your team’s activity.

See The Criterion / Procore Integration Live

Construction companies looking for a more effective way to run payroll can find the perfect solution with Criterion. If your company is already using the Timesheets and Portfolio (Projects) tools from Procore, why not make payroll and project management easier by integrating Criterion with your Procore account? You only need the Payroll module from Criterion to start running payroll with fewer errors and zero payment delays.

Execute your construction projects and payroll process with seamless operation. To see the integration live and learn more about what Criterion can do for your business, book a demo today!