For those of you that have upgraded to payroll 7, did your payroll person need training on the differences between 6 and 7? If so, classroom, online, or consultant? Thanks.

Are you having a class on Nov. 7 for PY 7.0.? Thanks, Marlene

When we upgraded to Payroll 7, we attended the classroom training in Charleston. The class does a good job at showing you the new version and it's features, but it does NOT prepare you for a full payroll processing cycle. I strongly recommend that you set up a stand alone workstation, install The Financial Edge, and attach a copy of your database. Run the conversion on that test box, and process at least two pay periods in tandem with your live version 6 database. This will show you exactly what to expect when you upgrade, what data converts and what doesn't, and what elements you will need to set up manually in version 7 (like pay type schedules, for example). Yes, this is a pain, but it's the best "training" you can give your staff. Having said that, if you can afford it, the classroom training is very helpful. If not, printing and reading the version seven user guides will teach you essentially the same things as the classroom training. If you cannot set up a stand alone workstation to test the new version, and having done the conversion myself, I would recommend hiring a consultant to walk you through it. And by the way, I've seen a lot of dire warnings about Payroll 7 on the forums. While it can still be challenging, version 7.7 has eliminated most of the "gotchas" we found in the original release. It is a better product than version 6, and well worth upgrading. Good luck. Brad Swafford Donor Services / Database Manager Boys & Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay, Inc.

Brad, How many checks do you produce in a month? We had a contract at the beginning of this year it was two phases 1st upgrade to FE, 2nd upgrade to payroll 7. When it came time to do the upgrade to payroll, BB then told us they were putting us on hold. Due to the fact that when they did the test conversion and tried to run just one of our biweekly check run calculations on a stand alone machine it came to an almost stand still. They stated that since we print over 1500 checks a month and do 4 checks runs they could not give us the go ahead without figuring how to make it work faster. I agree with them, I fully believe that we are the largest users of their payroll system. I am not saying don’t upgrade to any body, we here were being fully pushed and it was not until I said do a test conversion on our database then do a demo to see what we would gain. And that is when they realized that they could not support a huge payroll operation.

1500 checks? Wow! We only run about 300 or so a month here, so we don't run even a fraction of what you process. Running around 150 calculations takes approximately 20 minutes or so, so I can see where processing five times more would be an issue. I will offer that we also upgraded to version 7.7, and moved our database onto a dedicated server running SQL 2005, which did give us a noticeable boost in speed in Financial Edge. I do not think the boost we got would be enough to offset your processing, based on that many checks. How many checks an organization processes is an interesting point to consider, though. I wonder what the "cut off" point would be for number of checks processed vs. acceptable processing times. I hope Blackbaud can speed things up for you! Brad Swafford Donor Services / Database Manager Boys & Girls Clubs of Tampa Bay, Inc.