A standard integration customized: how Personio and Nmbrs work together at an international aid organization

The challenge

This well-known aid organization specializes in mental health support for children growing up in war zones. The Dutch branch uses Personio for HR administration and Nmbrs for payroll processing. “Personio and Nmbrs each have their own strengths,” explains digital HR consultant Remco Schenk from worldofwork™. “Personio is flexible to set up as an HR core system, while Nmbrs excels at Dutch payroll. The challenge is making those two worlds work together smoothly, so data always stays in sync.”

What you don’t want as an organization is manually maintaining data in two separate systems. “That takes a lot of time and comes with a high risk of errors,” says Remco. “Especially with contract and salary details, you need to be really precise. Every small change has to be handled correctly.”

The solution

worldofwork™ has now set up integrations between Personio and Nmbrs for more than forty organizations. Remco: “We have a standard integration, but we build in room for customization. We look not just at the technology, but also at the processes. How does an organization record data in Personio, what choices do they make there, and how do those fields line up with Nmbrs? That way, we ensure the integration fits the customer’s way of working.”

For the Dutch branch of the international aid organization, the integration was configured for part of the team – about a hundred employees. “We tailored it to their own Personio setup, from addresses and contract details to salary components,” says Remco. “So they could keep working the way they were used to, while Nmbrs automatically applies the right payroll logic.”

A key tool in making this happen was a workbook that worldofwork™ developed as a standard part of its approach. “The workbook lists all the required fields needed to connect the two systems,” explains Remco. “Using that, we worked with the aid organization to figure out any extra data to include and how it was set up in Personio and Nmbrs.

”The next step was the ‘mapping’: a precise translation of fields between Personio and Nmbrs. In some spots, a bit of extra logic was needed. “For contract data, the integration always pulls the most recent contract, for example,” Remco says. Recurring salary components, like allowances for phone, travel, working from home, internships, company fitness, and bike plans, were directly linked to the correct payroll codes in Nmbrs.

After setting up the mapping and logic, the aid organization tested the integration themselves, using scenarios from the worldofwork™ workbook. The whole process moved super fast. Remco: “All in all, the integration was live within a month and a half.”

The result

With the integration in place, the aid organization no longer has to maintain HR and payroll data twice. “That saves a ton of manual work,” says Remco. “Personio and Nmbrs exchange data automatically, so everything goes faster and errors have less chance to slip in.” All the data now in Personio, from cost centers to details on managers responsible for financial approvals, gets pushed automatically to Nmbrs for payroll and reporting.

After running payroll, payslips become visible right in Personio. Remco: “Employees only need to use one system.” The integration also builds in some transparency. “If something doesn’t transfer correctly, HR gets an immediate alert. That lets you fix it right away and prevents data from falling through the cracks.”“The great thing is that Personio stays the leading HR core,” notes Remco. “Organizations can keep working the way they want, without adapting to Nmbrs’ payroll logic. The integration handles that translation for them: efficiently and without mistakes.”