A letter that signals the end of the game
In mid-May 2026, a message circulated among Cegid's partner firms. The Lyon-based vendor announced that its Cegid HR Sprint solution would not be able to incorporate all the upcoming regulatory changes, notably those related to the payroll triggering event ("fait générateur"). The conclusion is unambiguous: the migration of the customers concerned must begin now.
The recommended path is named explicitly. It is Silae, presented as the "target solution" under a "strategic partnership" between the two vendors.
The schedule is tight. The instruction given to partners is threefold: identify the customers in the HR Sprint base, contact them to present the path, and begin the transition steps. Invoicing will follow the movement: issued by Cegid as long as the customer is still running HR Sprint in production, issued by Silae as soon as the actual switchover happens, with the simultaneous termination of the Cegid contract.
Presented as an effort at transparency and kindly support, this letter is in reality a commercial marching order. Cegid's partners are mobilized to migrate their portfolio to another brand. With no particular compensation for the operation. With no choice given to end customers.
And above all, not for free. The cost of the migration project will be borne entirely by the end customer: data migration, configuration of collective agreements, team training, post-go-live support, subscription fees for the new solution. The bill can represent several months, even several years, of HR Sprint subscription. The customer pays to change software because of an investment choice they did not make, for the benefit of a vendor they did not choose.
The triggering event, a technical pretext for a capital decision
The triggering event is a very real regulatory issue. Introduced by decree no. 2017-858 of May 9, 2017, rolled out gradually and enforceable from January 1, 2027, it requires payroll vendors to rework their calculation mechanisms, in particular the ability to reopen and recalculate an already closed payslip. It is a structuring requirement that demands a suitable software architecture.
But the triggering event did not fall from the sky. It has been known and anticipated for eight years. Claiming that a solution active in the French landscape cannot incorporate it amounts to publicly acknowledging a lack of investment in the product. It is not a mishap. It is a budget allocation choice.
When a vendor decides to stop evolving a product line rather than invest to bring it up to standard, it is no longer a technical question. It is a portfolio decision. And that is precisely the keyword of this case.
Silver Lake: the blind spot that official communication carefully avoids
Here is what the May 2026 letter does not say.
Cegid and Silae belong to the same majority shareholder.
Silver Lake, an American technology investment fund based in California, entered Cegid's capital in 2016 through a public tender offer led with AltaOne. The fund has remained the majority shareholder since that transaction and was joined in 2021 by KKR as a minority shareholder, on the occasion of a valuation raised to 5.5 billion euros. Christian Lucas, head of Europe at Silver Lake, currently chairs Cegid's board of directors.
A few years after its investment in Cegid, the same Silver Lake bought Silae, a French vendor specialized in SaaS payroll. The transaction was presented at the time as a bet on the French payroll market, then in the midst of consolidation. Christian Lucas had then stated that there was no plan for a merger or combination between Silae and Cegid.
Six years later, the message changes. The May 2026 letter confirms a commercial orchestration between the two brands. The "recommended migration" takes place between two companies owned by the same fund. The end customer, for their part, changes software, signs a new contract, pays for a new switchover. For the benefit of the same ultimate owner.
This information is public. It appears on Cegid's corporate website, in KKR's official press releases, in the specialized business press. But it is carefully absent from the letter sent to partners.
The role imposed on integrators
The situation is uncomfortable for partner firms.
On one side, they are tied to Cegid by distribution contracts, revenue commitments, sometimes certifications. They cannot ignore the vendor's letter. Nor can they leave their customers without an answer in the face of an announced end of product line.
On the other, they are placed on the front line to orchestrate a migration whose economic timetable and future pricing conditions they do not control, nor the strategic next steps of the fund that owns both brands. They become the sales agents of a transfer internal to the Silver Lake portfolio, with no clear outlook on their own added value in the medium term.
A legitimate question: when a partner firm pushes a customer from Cegid HR Sprint to Silae today, what happens tomorrow if Silver Lake decides to unify the two brands under one platform and take over the customer relationship directly? The earlier promise of independence between Silae and Cegid lasted six years. How long will the next one last?
There is another path: Openpaye
No regulatory obligation forces a Cegid HR Sprint customer to switch to Silae. The letter presents it as the target path. It is not the only one.
A French, independent, open alternative exists. It is called Openpaye.
Openpaye is a collaborative payroll solution designed for accounting firms, in-house payroll departments and multi-site organizations. Its calculation mechanisms are designed to meet the requirements of the triggering event, including reopening and recalculating closed payslips without technical contortions. The vendor is autonomous; its shareholding is not backed by a fund that simultaneously owns a competitor. The product evolves with the regulations, and users remain masters of their data and their schedule.
ANOR's role: connecting Odoo to payroll
ANOR does not position itself on demonstrating or integrating Openpaye. Our business is Odoo. Our added value on the payroll file is the connection between your ERP and your payroll solution.
We developed in-house the Openpaye ↔ Odoo synchronization module. Employees, contracts, variable items, journal entries: data flows in both directions, with no extra layer, in real time. No more double entry. No more intermediate file to orchestrate. No more uncertain automated processing. No more dependence on a single vendor to manage the entire HR, accounting and sales chain.
The result for the customer:
- An Odoo ERP that runs the business end to end: sales, purchasing, inventory, projects, accounting, customer relationships.
- An Openpaye payroll that produces payslips in compliance with the law, with a stable, committed vendor team.
- Unified accounting where payroll entries are automatically posted to the Odoo accounting journal.
- Dashboards that cross-reference payroll costs, project margin and customer invoicing, with no re-entry and no manual reconciliation.
- A sovereign infrastructure whose architecture can be modified, extended or dismantled according to the company's needs and not according to a fund's roadmap.
Who is this path relevant for
The Openpaye + Odoo alternative fits almost every context. Openpaye handles most French collective agreements as standard, which covers the vast majority of sectors, company sizes and contract types. From retail to construction, from services to industrial production, from the accounting firm to the multi-site holding company: the solution can be deployed without contortions.
The profiles most directly affected by the HR Sprint path announced by Cegid:
- Accounting firms that manage a base of customers on Cegid HR Sprint and are looking for a controlled replacement solution, without locking themselves into a single fund's portfolio.
- SMEs and mid-sized companies whose payroll is currently on Cegid and who want to take the opportunity to rethink their information system: unifying payroll, accounting, sales and operations management in a coherent whole.
- Finance and HR directors who want to regain control of the evolution schedule of their tools, without being subject to the decisions of a fund whose trade-offs are not consistent with their business reality.
- Executives sensitive to data sovereignty and to the resilience of their information system in the face of their vendors' mergers and acquisitions.
How a project unfolds
Each player works in their own area of expertise. The split of roles is clear and readable for the end customer.
For a company (SME, mid-sized company, finance department, HR department)
The demonstration and integration of Openpaye are handled by our partner VMGSoft, integrator of the solution for the corporate market. VMGSoft takes care of qualifying the payroll need, demonstrating the product, configuring collective agreements, migrating data from Cegid, training payroll teams and post-go-live support.
ANOR handles the ERP side: Odoo audit, deployment or migration, setting up the Openpaye ↔ Odoo synchronization module, configuring accounting flows, and training Odoo users.
For an accounting firm
The demonstration and deployment of Openpaye are handled directly by the Openpaye vendor, which has sales and implementation teams dedicated to the accounting-firm market. Pricing conditions and support arrangements are defined directly with Openpaye.
ANOR steps in for firms that run Odoo for their internal management or want to offer their own clients the Openpaye + Odoo combination: deployment of the synchronization module, configuration of accounting flows to client files, training.
In all cases
ANOR remains your single point of contact for the connection between payroll and the ERP. We orchestrate the introduction to VMGSoft or Openpaye depending on your profile, we ensure the consistency of the complete chain, and we guarantee the quality of the integration.
The choice is still possible
The May 2026 letter was written to give the impression of an obvious course. The HR Sprint to Silae path is presented in it as the logical next step of the market, as a partnership forged between two distinct vendors. The capital reality is easier to understand once it is named: an American fund reorganizing its French portfolio by reassigning its customers from one brand to another, mobilizing its partner network to carry out the move.
This reorganization may suit some organizations. For others, it is the opportunity to ask the fundamental question again: who owns the vendor of my payroll software, and what trade-offs is that owner likely to make over the next three years?
The French business software ecosystem is not reduced to two brands under the same shareholder. Openpaye exists. Odoo exists. The combination of the two, with the ANOR synchronization module, is a complete, sovereign, chosen infrastructure.
The choice is still possible. It is simply a matter of making it.
You are a chartered accountant, a firm manager, a CFO, an HR director or a business owner. You received the Cegid letter of May 2026. You want to assess a credible alternative before committing to your migration path.
Contact ANOR to arrange an introduction to the right contact and to scope the Odoo part of your project.