Organisation and approval

Departments and cost centres from HR to the ERP

Department and cost centre from Personio, Workday or SAP SuccessFactors reach the employee in Microsoft Dynamics 365, Oracle NetSuite, Exact Online or Unit4 through a fixed translation table, so hours and expenses land on the right cost centre. If a code does not exist in the ERP yet, KoppelHet creates it where allowed, as in Exact Online; in Business Central and 4PS the employee comes in without that code and finance gets a notification.

Last updated: 9 November 2026

Discuss your integration All about HR to ERP

What it is

In HR a department is often a tree with teams below it, and an employee can be split over several cost centres. In the ERP a department is a dimension value in a flat list, with one default value per employee, and a department sometimes carries exactly one cost centre.

Without a translation hours and expenses land on the wrong cost centre, or an employee gets stuck because their department does not exist in the ERP.

How the integration handles it

A translation table converts every HR department and cost centre to the code in the ERP. Finance can view that table.
If an employee is split over several cost centres in HR, the one with the largest share becomes the default in the ERP. With an exact fifty-fifty split KoppelHet does not choose, but reports it to finance.
Unit4 has its own cost allocation for employees. KoppelHet puts the Personio percentages there, so payroll costs and hours follow the same split.
Exact Online lets an integration create cost centres; Business Central and 4PS do not. There the employee comes in without the new cost centre and the missing code is shown on the platform.
If every department in the ERP carries one cost centre, as in Exact Online, KoppelHet reports an employee whose HR department and cost centre do not match, before hours land in the wrong place.
With Personio and Business Central, which both only allow cost centres to be read, a list goes to finance every night with codes that exist in one system but not the other.

Edge cases we handle

In NetSuite a department can only be used with the subsidiaries it is linked to. If the cost centre is not linked to the right subsidiary, the employee comes in without a department and on a list for finance.
Teams change more often than accounting wants to follow. By default only the department goes across; a team as a second dimension can be added later as an extension.
S/4HANA rejects the whole replication of a person if more than one default cost centre arrives for the same period.
Department and job title come from HiBob as a list value ID. KoppelHet first translates it to a name and then to the code in the ERP.

What KoppelHet does

KoppelHet drafts the translation table with HR and finance, maintains it on the platform and reports new departments and cost centres before they become a problem. If the cost centre has to go the other way, from the ERP to payroll, that belongs to payroll to finance and we build both streams on the same table.

Common integrations

Personio → Microsoft Dynamics 365

Personio to Dynamics 365 integration: employees, cost centres and entity from Personio in the ERP

Personio → Unit4 ERP

Personio to Unit4 integration: employees with cost distribution and relations in Unit4 ERP

Personio → Oracle NetSuite

Personio to NetSuite integration: employees on the right subsidiary, with department and supervisor

SAP SuccessFactors → Exact Online

SAP SuccessFactors to Exact Online integration: cost centres and employees of the Dutch subsidiary

HiBob → Microsoft Dynamics 365

HiBob to Dynamics 365 integration: employees from Bob in Business Central, with department and approver

Visma Raet YouForce → SAP S/4HANA

YouForce to SAP S/4HANA integration: employees and cost centres from HR as workforce in the ERP

BuddeeHR → Oracle NetSuite

BuddeeHR to NetSuite integration: the Dutch employees from Buddee as employees in NetSuite

SAP SuccessFactors → Unit4 ERP

SAP SuccessFactors to Unit4 integration: Employee Central employees in Unit4 ERP, with department and cost centre on the effective date

HiBob → Unit4 ERP

HiBob to Unit4 integration: Bob employees as employees in Unit4 ERP, per employer in the right company

Frequently asked questions

Can the integration create a new cost centre in the ERP?

Usually not: Business Central and 4PS do not allow it through the standard API. A new cost centre starts with finance; the integration reports what is missing.

What if an employee is split over two cost centres?

Then the largest becomes the default in the ERP, or the full split goes across if the ERP supports it, as Unit4 does. With an equal split finance decides.

Do salary and BSN go to the ERP too?

No. The integration only requests work data, such as department, cost centre and manager. Salary and BSN stay in HR and payroll.