The Challenge
Before implementing Argos, Alvin College’s payroll team relied on an entirely manual review process to validate payroll accuracy each pay period. Staff were required to comb through over 300 pages of green bar payroll reports, scanning line by line to identify discrepancies. The process was time intensive, difficult to validate, and left room for human error.
That risk became reality when more than 20 employees were paid inaccurately due to discrepancies that were not detected before payroll was finalized. With no proactive way to compare payroll values between pay periods, most issues surfaced only after checks were issued. Corrections required additional manual effort, increased workload for payroll and HR teams, and introduced reputational risk for the institution.
The college needed a better way to identify payroll variances earlier, narrow review efforts, and move into payroll approval with confidence rather than concern.
The Solution
Working closely with the Alvin College IT team, Evisions partnered with the institution to design two Argos DataBlocks that together transformed how payroll review and validation are handled.
The first was the Payroll Variance Dashboard, built to compare two payroll periods per employee, typically the current and immediately preceding pay period. Instead of reviewing hundreds of pages, payroll staff now see variances automatically grouped into five clear audit classifications, separating records that require attention from those that do not.
Interactive filters allow users to focus on specific variance groups or apply configurable thresholds such as differences greater than 25 percent. At the employee level, earnings categories like regular pay, overtime, and sick time are displayed side by side, making discrepancies easy to spot. Summary counts highlight where review time should be spent, and export options such as banded PDFs and CSVs support audit documentation and record keeping.
To complement variance detection, a second Argos DataBlock was developed: Payroll Earnings by Date Range. Originally intended as a research and validation companion, it provides a clean, intuitive view of payroll earnings for one employee or all employees across a selected time frame, including associated general ledger codes.
Within days of deployment, the value of this second dashboard became clear. The payroll team used it to respond to multiple auditor requests quickly, without navigating complex Colleague screens or pulling multiple reports.
“I can see myself keeping this dashboard open all day. It’s so much easier to use than Colleague.”
The Results
Together, the two Argos dashboards dramatically reduced the scope and effort required for payroll review. What once involved reviewing 580 total records was narrowed to 355 variance only records, and further refined to just 194 records by applying a 25 percent variance threshold.
Discrepancies are now identified and corrected before payroll is finalized, eliminating hours of post processing cleanup. Audit documentation is easier to produce, traceability has improved, and payroll approvals are completed with far greater confidence.
The impact has been felt beyond payroll. Finance and IT teams have seen meaningful time savings, reduced interruptions, and stronger collaboration around shared, trusted data.
“The Payroll Variance Dashboard will allow our team to catch and correct issues before finalizing payroll, saving hours of post processing work.”
“This report is the most valuable report we have written. It’s amazing. I can’t even tell you how many hours it has saved our payroll department. The team could not stop raving about it. It’s saving us so much time.”
The Future
With Argos in place, Alvin College has moved from reactive payroll correction to proactive payroll confidence. What began as a solution to a specific operational challenge has become a repeatable model for smarter business process reporting.
The Payroll Variance Dashboard approach is scalable across Colleague on premise institutions and adaptable for SaaS environments, allowing other colleges to apply the same methodology based on data refresh timing. For Alvin College, the focus now is on continuing to replace manual review with targeted, automated validation that gives teams time back and trust in their results.
With Argos, payroll review is no longer about searching for problems after the fact. It is about catching them early, approving with confidence, and moving forward with certainty.