HR software subscriptions: what to check about data ownership, export and exit before you sign

Check three things before you sign any HR software subscription: that the agreement says the data is yours, that you can take a full export in a usable form whenever you want, and that leaving is a defined process with dates rather than a negotiation. All three are easy to agree before signing and harder to obtain afterwards, because by then your records are inside the system.

Most buyers spend the evaluation on features and price, which is reasonable, and leave the exit until the day they need it, which is not. An HR system holds the employment history of every person who has worked for you. Losing access to part of it is not something you can easily work around later.

Ask the vendor to list what a full export contains, and compare it with the list below. The fields on the employee record are the easy part. The rest is where exports tend to fall short.

• The employee master record for current and former employees, including every field you configured yourself, not only the standard ones.
• History, not only the current value. Past designations, salary revisions, reporting lines and transfers, each with its effective date. An export that gives only today's values loses the story of each employee.
• Transactions. Attendance, leave applications and balances, regularisation requests, payroll input packs, appraisal records and training records, for every period you have run.
• Documents. Letters, acknowledged policies, uploaded certificates and identity documents, with the link to the right employee kept intact.
• Approvals and the change trail. Who approved what, when, and who changed a record. This is often the part you need later to show how a decision was reached.
• Configuration. Leave rules, approval routes, letter templates and report definitions. You will rebuild these in any future system, and a written copy saves a great deal of reconstruction.

OWNERSHIP
 1. Does the agreement state that our data belongs to us?
 2. Do you use our data for anything beyond running the
    service for us? If so, what, and can we refuse?
 3. Who at your end can see our employee data, and why?

EXPORT
 4. Can we take a full export ourselves, at any time,
    without raising a request?
 5. In what format? Show us one from a sample account.
 6. Are documents included, and still linked to the
    right employee?
 7. Are history and approvals included, or only
    current values?
 8. Are there any limits or charges on exports?

EXIT
 9. How much notice do we give, and how long do we
    keep access after that?
10. Do we get a read-only period to check the export?
11. When and how is our data deleted, and do we get
    written confirmation?
12. What happens to our data if the product is
    discontinued or the business changes hands?

None of these are hostile questions. A vendor that expects to keep customers by being useful can answer them without difficulty. Hesitation, or an answer that moves straight to features, is itself worth noting.

Do not accept a description of the export. Ask for a sample file from a demo account during the evaluation and open it at your own desk, with the person who will run the system day to day.

1. 1

   Check it opens in ordinary tools

   A spreadsheet or a common data format your team can open without the vendor's help. A file that only the vendor's own software can read is not really an export.

2. 2

   Follow one employee end to end

   Pick one record and trace it through: joining details, a past salary revision, last year's leave, a letter. If any of it is missing, ask where it lives and how it comes out.

3. 3

   Check documents are matched

   If documents arrive as a folder of files, confirm each file can be traced to the right employee without someone matching names by hand.

4. 4

   Check the codes make sense

   Exports often use internal codes for departments, leave types or statuses. Ask for the reference list that translates them, and make sure it is part of the export rather than a separate request.

The time to agree how a relationship ends is when both sides want it to begin. Ask for the exit terms to be written into the agreement in plain language, rather than referred to a policy page that can change without notice to you.

• The notice period on both sides, and what happens to your access during it.
• The export you receive at exit: what it contains and in what format, matching the sample you checked.
• A period after the end date during which you can still read the data and confirm the export is complete.
• Deletion of your data from the vendor's systems after that period, with written confirmation.
• What happens to the data if the product is discontinued or the vendor's business changes hands.

A full export is not only for leaving. Take one every quarter and keep it in your own records, outside the system. It protects you if access is ever interrupted, and it shows whether the export still works as the product changes. An export that has never been tested is an assumption.

It also helps with ordinary work. Finance may want headcount history in its own model, someone may ask for leave records from a past year, or a new manager may want a team's history. When the export is easy, those requests take minutes rather than a ticket.

Make one person, usually whoever owns the HR system, responsible for the data. Their job is to keep the list of what the system holds, take and check the quarterly export, and know where the exit terms are written. When the subscription comes up for renewal, they confirm that nothing in those terms has changed.

This is the same discipline that makes an implementation work. A system configured around a clear process, with named owners, is easier to stay in and easier to leave. If you are evaluating GullyHR software, ask these questions in the demonstration exactly as you would of any other product, and check that the answers appear in the proposal before you sign. The wider set of selection questions is in the HRMS buying checklist, and bringing data into a new system is part of HRMS implementation.