Your largest cost, planned with precision
People are often the largest cost in the organisation. IDU enables workforce planning at the level decisions are made, by grade, by employee, or a combination of both, with changes flowing directly into your financial plan.
Budget by grade or by name. IDU supports both.
Plan by grade where scale matters.
Define headcount and cost at a grade or salary band level. This approach is well suited to larger labour forces where roles are standardised and remuneration is managed on an average basis. Changes to headcount or salary scales automatically update the overall cost.
Plan by name where detail matters.
Budget at an individual level, including salaries, benefits, bonuses, and increments. Model specific hires, promotions, and departures with effective dates, ensuring accurate in-year and annualised cost.
When headcount changes, the whole plan updates.
Workforce costs feed directly into departmental budgets, income statement forecasts, and cash flow projections. Add a hire in Q3 and the annualised and in-year cost impact flows through every connected view automatically. No separate reconciliation.
A 5% uplift on a headcount that has already changed by 15% produces a number that was wrong the day it was approved. Plan at the level decisions get made.
A workforce plan finance, HR, and ops share end-to-end.
Hiring scenario comparison
Run aggressive, conservative, and freeze hiring scenarios in parallel. See the income statement and cash impact of each before committing — not after.
Driver-based remuneration
Salary scales, allowances, statutory contributions, and bonus accruals are defined as drivers. Update a driver and all affected roles recalculate automatically.
Finance and operations, one model
Finance sets the budget framework, while departments plan their teams within it. Both work in the same system, ensuring alignment and accountability.
Source-connected actuals
Actual payroll costs are integrated from your payroll or financial system, ensuring workforce plans reflect real spending and remain aligned to current performance.
FAQs about workforce planning with IDU.
Does IDU plan headcount at position level or just by line?
Both. Position-level detail (grade, location, currency, start/end date) is first-class. You can also plan at aggregate headcount lines where the business doesn’t need position-level detail.
How does IDU handle pay scales, increases, and bonus accruals?
Pay scales, allowances, statutory contributions, and incentive structures are defined as drivers. Increases, bonuses, and adjustments are applied automatically across affected positions.
Does workforce planning integrate with our HR or payroll systems?
Yes. Position data, employee records, and pay structures can be integrated from your HR or payroll system on a defined schedule, ensuring the plan remains aligned to operational data. At the start of the budgeting process, the latest pay run can be used as a baseline and loaded into the system. From there, changes such as increases, new hires, promotions, and role changes are captured within the model, without the need to recreate the full dataset.
How is sensitive salary information secured?
Access to workforce data is controlled at a detailed level. For example, a cost centre manager can be given access to plan and submit headcount without visibility of individual salary details, or may only be able to add new positions without seeing existing remuneration. Access rights are fully configurable to match organisational policies.
How is system access controlled?
IDU uses role-based access to ensure users only see the data relevant to their responsibilities. Administrative access is restricted and controlled, providing an additional layer of governance.
How is workforce data protected?
Data is securely stored and encrypted within the database, ensuring sensitive payroll and employee information is protected.
Non-financial managers across dispersed entities found budgeting frustrating. IDU simplified the process — faster reporting, greater accountability.
For the first time we have been able to include more people in the budgeting process, increasing involvement and transparency.
Built for line managers. Trusted by the CFO.
See IDU plan headcount and remuneration in one governed model — grade or employee level, driver-based pay, live ERP integration. Book a session and see IDU in action, live.