A Follow-Up to the New Payroll

It's all great!

I'm not supposed to blog about work but this is different - I'm blogging about a tool that helps me do my job - in fact it makes it enormously easier. Ceridian's PowerPay product was okay to a point. The point was reached late fall and continued to drop like a stone. It just got worse and worse. Admittedly, when I began using the PowerPay in October 2005 (they had it there since 2002) I was totally new to payroll and it took me time to master this. But by January 2006 while I was nowhere near the proficiency with it as I was two weeks ago, I definitely knew something was wrong with the performance. It would take hours to process a tiny payroll as we have in January.

At some point that late winter, Ceridian got all new servers and the performance issues all cleared up.

Unfortunately, they could not keep it up and it also occurred to us that we were being constantly nickeled and dimed for all kinds of things.

And then the mistakes began.

I also was calling them and asking for explanations on new fields that showed up and I was quite surprised that no one seemed to be able to explain them. There were other issues coming up as well and amazingly once explained some things made sense, but had they communicated with us to begin with, maybe we would not have switched. On the other hand, they had terrible service - I hate not having one contact and dealing with all different people - it became apparent that they really could not appropriately service our account... and the majority of people I spoke to there understood nothing of the normal taxation process.

I'm not really that difficult to work with, but I want to know the answer to everything. And why shouldn't I? I don't want to just do things and not understand or question it. And I realised more and more that they did not have any answers.

So last week we switched to Balance Point.

It is all that Dave said it would be (and not to badmouth sales people but as Luis always explains to me, sales people promise the world when programmers may not be able to give the prospective client everything that they want), and more. The process was painless and easy and the transition of data from the old system to the new was great! We worked out all the little tweaking that needed to be done prior to running the actual payroll and even with all that little stuff, it was completed by 1400! HOLY COW!

It worked perfectly with Genesis Professional, our timekeeping system, just as promised.

I loved it. Once I am accustomed to process, it will be so easy. And it is the little things - all the employees are listed on one long page so that it is all easy to see and access, instead of 6 different "pages". The totals to all the columns are right at the bottom and visible just by scrolling down, instead of having to go to a separate page. The changes happen as I make them. The program, Evolution, is incredibly user-friendly and has all kinds of information right there for me to see.

The reporting side is excellent. It is all easy to use, it is all in the program and has made a lot of the process paperless, something I thought I'd never see! And where Ceridian only ever allowed me to access 8 weeks of history, this program will keep it all - payrolls, employees, etc! That means that I won't have to look up much in the actual physical files. I love that. I can't wait to use the HR side of this program.

The reporting is also much more detailed than the Ceridian was and I am all about the details.

And they put in separate fields for me to put in what we call catch-up amounts - delightful!

And the paychecks arrived and I selected four different employees to compare the old checks to the new so I could put together a memo (that no one will read, ha, ha) explaining all the differences. The staff at Balance Point really puts their all into understanding taxation and sent me all kinds of great and helpful information regarding the various taxes and what maximums there are and what exactly gets taxed.

All that, and the price is right. No nickel and diming. It is invaluable.

It has been a great ride for the three days I've been using it and will only get better.