90-Day EWA Pilot Plan for Businesses

A 90-day EWA pilot should be divided into three phases: days 0–30 for preparation; days 31–60 for controlled operations; and days 61–90 for assessment and the expansion decision. The objective is not to generate the greatest possible number of transactions, but to prove that the full approved-attendance–limit–disbursement–payroll–accounting chain works correctly, that workers understand their rights and risks, and that risks remain within the business's acceptable threshold.

EWA — Earned Wage Access is commonly understood as a solution that lets workers access a portion of wages already earned before their regular payday. Because EWA directly connects HR, timekeeping, payroll, payment and finance data, a pilot must be a cross-functional project, not merely an app trial.

> Terminology: EWA (access to wages earned from days worked) · pilot (trial implementation) · UAT (user acceptance testing) · RACI (role matrix: Responsible – Accountable – Consulted – Informed) · KPI (key performance indicator) · ROI (return on investment) · go-live (formal launch into operation) · soft launch (small-scale trial launch) · project charter · risk register · playbook · dashboard · Go–Adjust–Stop.

Why pilot before rolling out enterprise-wide?

Documents, demos and UAT can only test part of the solution. A pilot using real data enables a business to verify:

• Whether approved attendance updates correctly and quickly enough (under the Lương Ngày process).

• Whether the limit formula creates period-end discrepancies.

• Whether transactions are duplicated, held, or sent to the wrong account.

• Whether payroll and accounting can reconcile down to each transaction.

• Whether workers understand fees, limits and remaining wages.

• Whether support teams can handle attendance errors, termination and transaction tracing.

• Whether total costs and benefits are close to the business case.

• Whether personal data and access rights are controlled in live operations.

Expanding too early can turn a small error into a broad discrepancy (see risks of EWA implementation). A pilot limits impact, enables learning from data, and allows processes to be corrected before scale-up.

Is the business ready for an EWA pilot?

The start date should only be set once the foundational conditions are in place.

If any mandatory condition is unmet, the business should remain in preparation rather than use real workers as a test environment.

How to select the pilot scope

Select an appropriate unit

Prioritize a plant, region or group that has:

• Relatively stable timekeeping data.

• Clear attendance approvers and HR points of contact.

• Payroll able to separate reporting for the pilot group.

• Managers ready to cooperate.

• Enough workers to generate real scenarios.

• No simultaneous change to too many major policies.

What scale is appropriate?

300–1,000 workers can be a reference range for a large employer, but it is not mandatory. Smaller businesses can pilot fewer people; businesses with unstable data should start with a narrower scope.

The scale must meet two requirements:

1. It is small enough to stop and resolve incidents.

2. It is large enough to test load, usage behavior and exceptions.

Define the eligible group

The pilot group should be filtered by approved criteria, for example:

• Has an active employment relationship.

• Has a correctly matched employee ID.

• Has approved attendance.

• Has wage data that can serve as a basis.

• Has a valid receiving account.

• Is not in a terminated, temporarily locked or attendance-dispute status.

• Has completed acknowledgement of terms and the data notice.

Do not open the service to an “all employees” list and then resolve missing data afterward.

90-day timeline overview

Phase 1 — Preparation from day 0 to day 30

Week 1. Finalize objectives and scope

• Prepare the project charter.

• Select the project owner and project team.

• Select the unit, worker group and pilot period.

• Finalize one primary objective and supporting KPIs.

• Establish baselines for attrition, advances, attendance, payroll and costs.

• Identify budget and funding.

• Create the initial risk register.

Deliverable: approved scope, KPIs, budget, accountable owner and project schedule.

Week 2. Legal, policy and data

• Define the transaction structure and funding-flow diagram.

• Review contracts, rules and worker terms.

• Finalize the fee model and fee-bearing party.

• Prepare the data map, processing roles and access matrix.

• Define retention/deletion periods and incident processes.

• Finalize eligibility, limits, reserves and program caps.

Deliverable: approved legal–policy–data documentation set.

Week 3. Integration and business testing

• Match employee IDs across HR, timekeeping, payroll and EWA.

• Test attendance statuses.

• Test the limit formula.

• Test changes to receiving accounts.

• Test duplicate-transaction prevention.

• Test successful, failed, trace-pending and refunded transactions.

• Test terminated workers, attendance errors and period closing.

• Test reconciliation from transactions to payslips/accounting entries.

Deliverable: UAT record, defect list, responsible fix owners and retest results.

Week 4. Training and go-live approval

• Train managers who approve attendance.

• Train HR, Payroll, Accounting, IT and support teams.

• Communicate with the pilot group in clear language.

• Conduct a pre-activation comprehension survey.

• Finalize on-call schedules and support channels.

• Rehearse incidents and the pause mechanism.

• Hold a Go/No-Go meeting.

Deliverable: final eligibility list, go-live checklist and approval record.

Phase 2 — Controlled operations from day 31 to day 60

Days 31–37. Soft launch

The full pilot group does not need to be opened on day one. Activation can proceed in small waves to check:

• Successful registration/verification rate.

• Correct display of approved attendance and limits.

• Correct display of fees and remaining wages.

• Delivery of transactions to the correct account.

• Correct reduction of the limit after a transaction.

• Operation of logs, notifications and support tickets.

Reconcile daily and hold a short end-of-day meeting during the first week.

Days 38–45. Stabilize the process

• Expand gradually within the approved scope.

• Monitor attendance awaiting approval and limit-update time.

• Classify every ticket by root cause.

• Resolve serious defects before increasing scale.

• Review repeated withdrawal behavior and remaining wages.

• Check funding capacity on peak days.

Days 46–60. Test load and exceptions

• Run anticipated scenarios under live operating conditions.

• Monitor peak days, weekends and times near the period close.

• Check terminations, shift changes, unpaid leave and attendance adjustments.

• Assess support effectiveness and handling escalation.

• Prepare the first payroll reconciliation.

Conservative limits during the pilot

There is no universal safe ratio. During the pilot, businesses should:

• Calculate only from approved attendance.

• Use a lower access ratio than the expected post-expansion level if needed.

• Keep reserves for attendance adjustments and valid obligations.

• Set caps per person, day, unit and program.

• Pause when funding or data falls below a threshold.

• Never relax limits merely to increase transaction volume.

Phase 3 — Assessment from day 61 to day 90

Days 61–75. Complete one payroll period

This is a required milestone for checking the complete lifecycle:

1. Close attendance data.

2. Determine the final status of every transaction.

3. Post amounts received early into payroll.

4. Match each person and each transaction.

5. Reconcile statements and accounting.

6. Resolve discrepancies.

7. Issue easy-to-understand payslips.

8. Close the period and retain records.

A pilot should not be considered successful if it pays correctly but cannot demonstrate end-of-period reconciliation.

Days 76–85. Measure experience, impact and risk

• Survey users and non-users.

• Interview managers, HR, Payroll, Accounting and support.

• Compare KPIs with the baseline and comparison group.

• Calculate total costs, preliminary benefits and ROI.

• Review fees, complaints, remaining wages and usage behavior.

• Update the risk register and assess controls.

Days 86–90. Make the decision

The project team prepares a final report and recommends one of three decisions:

• Go: expand according to the roadmap.

• Adjust: extend or adjust the pilot.

• Stop: pause, redesign the model or discontinue.

RACI for the EWA pilot project

Legend: R – performs the work; A – ultimately accountable/approves; C – consulted; I – informed.

The RACI must be tailored to the organization. Each item should have one clear A role to avoid having nobody ultimately accountable.

90-day pilot KPI dashboard

Data and eligibility group

• Number/rate of eligible workers.

• Rate of profiles correctly matched to employee IDs.

• Successful receiving-account verification rate.

• Rate of attendance approved within SLA.

• Number of people without a limit because of missing data.

Usage group

• Activation rate.

• User rate.

• Transactions per person per period.

• Average amount received.

• Ratio of amount received to wages earned.

• Expected remaining wages after the transaction.

Operations group

• Transaction success rate.

• Transaction processing time.

• Failed/trace-pending/refunded transactions.

• Duplicate transactions or those blocked as suspected duplicates.

• Number and value of reconciliation discrepancies.

• Ticket-close time.

Experience group

• Rate of correct understanding of EWA, fees and remaining wages.

• Satisfaction level.

• Complaints per 1,000 eligible people.

• Reasons for not activating/not using.

• Rate of people who want to continue using it.

HR and finance group

• Manual advances before–after.

• HR/Payroll time saved.

• Attrition at 7/30/60/90 days.

• Absence/shift abandonment.

• Pilot cost and cost per eligible person/user.

• Converted benefit, net benefit and preliminary ROI.

Risk group

• Payments exceeding actual wages.

• Losses caused by data errors/fraud.

• Security/personal-data incidents.

• Material SLA breaches.

• Number of people with remaining wages below the internal warning threshold.

Go–Adjust–Stop criteria

Go — ready to expand

• At least one payroll period is complete and reconciled to every transaction.

• No unresolved material discrepancy remains.

• Approved attendance and data meet the SLA.

• Transaction error rate, tickets and risks are within approved thresholds.

• Workers correctly understand fees, limits and remaining wages.

• Costs are within budget and there are reasonable signals of benefit.

• Legal, data, funding and security have no issue blocking expansion.

Adjust — continue, but adjustments are required

• KPIs have not been achieved, but causes and a plan are clear.

• Attendance approval is slow or activation is low because of communications.

• Integration still has manual steps but remains controllable.

• The fee model, limits or SLA needs adjustment.

• ROI is not yet positive because of one-off costs or a small pilot scale.

Stop — stop or redesign

• Reconciliation with payroll/accounting is impossible.

• Incorrect/duplicate payments or uncontrolled loss occur.

• Funding is not assured.

• The legal nature or party responsibilities remain unclear.

• A serious data incident occurs.

• Workers misunderstand the service or experience significant negative effects without an effective remedy.

Go-live checklist

Legal and policy

• [ ] The model and funding flow have been described and approved.

• [ ] Contracts, rules and worker terms are aligned.

• [ ] Fees and the party bearing them are clearly disclosed.

• [ ] There is a mechanism for termination, insufficient wages and attendance disputes.

• [ ] Messages on loans, CIC, interest/fees have been reviewed.

Data and technology

• [ ] Only approved attendance is used to calculate limits.

• [ ] Employee IDs and transaction IDs are unique.

• [ ] Duplicate prevention, retries and pending transactions have been tested.

• [ ] Access control, encryption, logging and alerts are in place.

• [ ] There is a mechanism to lock terminated workers.

• [ ] A rollback/pause plan exists.

Finance, payroll and accounting

• [ ] The limit formula and reserves are approved.

• [ ] Funding and program caps are ready.

• [ ] UAT has been run through payslips and accounting entries.

• [ ] A three-layer reconciliation file and process exist.

• [ ] Refund, correction and period-closing processes exist.

Workers and support

• [ ] The eligibility list has been checked.

• [ ] The interface displays fees, net amount received and remaining wages.

• [ ] The FAQ and guidance on attendance/transaction errors are ready.

• [ ] Support channels, on-call schedule and SLA have been published.

• [ ] A comprehension survey is in place before go-live.

Ten common EWA pilot implementation mistakes

1. No baseline: After the pilot, no one knows what results are better or worse than.

2. Choosing a unit with weak data: All time is spent fixing attendance instead of validating EWA.

3. Opening too broadly on day one: A small error affects too many people.

4. Testing only the happy path: The team does not know how to handle termination, attendance errors, held transactions or refunds.

5. No accountable project owner: Departments wait for one another to decide.

6. Making transaction volume the main objective: This can encourage excessive use.

7. Not completing one payroll period: The full lifecycle is unproven.

8. Overpromising in communications: Promising “money anytime” or “no cost” contrary to the conditions.

9. Not counting internal costs: ROI is inflated.

10. Expanding before defects are closed: Technical debt and discrepancies grow with scale.

Worker communication plan

The message must answer six questions:

1. What is Lương Ngày/EWA?

2. Who is eligible?

3. Which attendance is used to calculate the limit?

4. What are the fee and net amount received?

5. How will end-of-period wages change?

6. Who should be contacted when an error occurs?

Use multiple formats: short videos, posters, FAQs, in-app guidance and training for direct managers. Content must be consistent across every channel.

Pilot report template for the CEO

1. Executive summary

• Objectives, scope and timing.

• Main results.

• Risks and incidents.

• Go–Adjust–Stop recommendation.

2. Operational results

• Eligibility, approved attendance, transactions, SLA and reconciliation.

3. Worker experience

• Correct understanding, satisfaction, complaints and qualitative feedback.

4. HR impact

• Recruitment, attrition, absence and comparison group.

5. Finance

• Costs, benefits, ROI and three expansion scenarios.

6. Risks and controls

• Risk register, discrepancies, incidents and open actions.

7. Next plan

• Expansion scope or adjustment list.

• Budget and resources.

• Next decision milestone.

Conclusion

A 90-day EWA pilot validates a cross-functional operating system. Success is not simply sending money quickly; it must ensure:

The right person → the right approved attendance → the right limit → the right account → exactly once → the right payroll → the right accounting → the right experience.

Businesses should prepare thoroughly in the first 30 days, open in a controlled way for the following 30 days, and use the final 30 days to complete payroll, measure KPIs, calculate ROI and make an evidence-based decision.

Businesses can receive a Lương Ngày pilot plan tailored to their scale, timekeeping data, payroll and HR objectives at Lương Ngày for businesses.

> Note: This article provides a general implementation framework and does not replace legal, financial, accounting, security or project-management advice for a specific business.

References

• Labour Code No. 45/2019/QH14

• Law on Electronic Transactions No. 20/2023/QH15

• Personal Data Protection Law No. 91/2025/QH15

• Decree No. 356/2025/NĐ-CP detailing certain articles of and measures to implement the Personal Data Protection Law

• Decree No. 52/2024/NĐ-CP on non-cash payments

• ILO: Earned Wage Access – A Global Study on Benefits and Risks

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Author: Nguyễn Tấn Lộc — Strategy Department Specialist, Công ty TNHH Cung Ứng Nhân Lực Nhân Kiệt.

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