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Personio acquires Circula to bring employee benefits, payroll and expenses into one platform

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European HR technology company Personio has acquired spend management platform Circula, bringing payroll, employee benefits and business expenses together as it expands its workforce management offering.

The acquisition will integrate Circula’s expense management, corporate cards, accounts payable and tax-optimised employee benefits capabilities with Personio’s existing HR and payroll technology.

The companies said the move would create a more connected approach to managing workforce-related expenditure, reducing administrative complexity for HR and finance teams.

The deal also reflects a wider shift in the HR technology market towards integrated platforms that connect employee data, payroll, benefits and financial processes.

Munich-based Personio provides HR and payroll software to more than 16,000 European organisations employing approximately 1.6 million people. Circula, founded in Berlin in 2017, serves more than 3,000 businesses and 250,000 users.

The companies have worked together for several years, with hundreds of shared customers already using integrations between their systems.

The acquisition will allow them to develop deeper connections between employee records, payroll calculations, expenses and benefits administration, including the tax treatment of workforce-related expenditure.

Hanno Renner, CEO and co-founder of Personio, said: “Spend management is one of the capabilities our customers ask us for most, and it’s complex to get right in Europe. Just as with payroll rules change at every border. Over the past 9 years Circula has already solved that complexity in an intuitive and powerful way.”

The combined offering is intended to give employers greater visibility of spending on salaries, benefits, expenses and corporate cards while reducing the need to manage information across separate systems.

As organisations seek to offer more personalised and flexible benefits, HR and reward teams face growing demands to coordinate employee entitlements, financial information and reporting requirements.

Integrating these functions could help reduce duplicated administration and improve the accuracy of employee-related financial data, although the companies have not published independent evidence quantifying the potential savings.

The acquisition also highlights the growing convergence between HR technology and employee benefits platforms, as providers seek to offer employers a more comprehensive view of workforce investment.

Nikolai Skatchkov, CEO and co-founder of Circula, said: “Joining forces with Personio today changes that. For our customers, DATEV stays, the existing integration stays, and expertise that Circula built stays. What changes is that HR, spend, and now payroll are designed to be one.”

Financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. The transaction adds to the consolidation of workforce technology capabilities as employers look to simplify HR operations and better connect the financial and employee experience elements of workforce management.

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