PRIMEPAY vs. PAYCOR

Robin Waldinger

Which way did you go?

Jay Cole

We went with PrimePay because we were "almost" signed up with IOIPay when we learned of the business shenanigans that occurred. Since Blackbaud was still partnering with them and most of the employees moved with the good part of the business, we felt comfortable proceeding. We did not hear of nor evaluate Paycor. We have appreciated PrimePay...no major complaints so far after nine months of usage.

Kelsey Emerick

How was the implementation process? Did you have any struggles with getting the payroll linked to the GL? Also are you currently using the API?

Robin Waldinger

It's been frustrating for us (PAYCOR) . Implementation was sloppy. Even though they asked for our last payroll to run a payroll and compare, I'm skeptical that they did because there were so many differences when we went live. We are a month in and have little contact on getting the GL entry even started. They are now saying ti will be two weeks before that is even started and my monthly financials are due to my board in week 3 of the month (this will throw them way off). FRUSTRATING!

Jay Cole

The implementation process starting PrimePay was very smooth for us, in my opinion. We provided the GL codes, employee data, etc. and they set it all up. There was quite a bit of back and forth of paperwork as we signed authorizations that allowed them to complete payroll on our behalf. They provided a couple online training sessions where they walked us through how to complete a payroll and get around on the website. Since then, we've found a piece or two of information we failed to give them originally, so we had to ask them to setup additional GL accounts. Their customer service department has been very responsive.


I don't believe we're using the APIs, although that was promoted as a benefit of using PrimePay when we were sold on them. Currently, our accountant exports a GL report from PrimePay, copies that into Excel, and uses the Journal Entry Batch Creator to import into FENXT. She said it works very smoothly. BTW, we both LOVE the Journal Entry Batch Creator! It makes like simpler being able to copy repeating cells and importing vs. having to copy/paste text inside the actual Journal Entry screen in FENXT. I will be asking PrimePay about setting up the APIs, because I'm all about saving steps if possible!

Jody Goetz

We went with Paycor and it was a disaster. The implementation was a mess and after 6 months we are still trying to get things straight with them. They have told us that they could not create the export for us to import to Blackbaud. Not sure what that was all about. Looking at going to Primepay, so following this to see what other responses you receive.

Robin Waldinger

We started implementation with Paycor in December and had our first "live"pay January 7. Going live did not include GL integration - they have a separate "team" for that. I have had to manually construct the journal entries for January and February. I got an email from the GL integration team at the end of February telling me what information they needed to get started.


For us, GL integration was a big part of picking Paycor (I was also won over by the fact that they had an app for the employees), but if I had to do it again I'd consider all of the providers that do not have GL integration since I'm doing it anyway.


Frustrating!

Robin Waldinger

UPDATE: It's May and we still don't have the information to do the GL import directly from Paycor to FE. I will freely admit that I have held up a portion of the GL account assignments simply because there is one of me and I had timelined GL implementation to be complete in Jan/Feb 2021. Now that I'm in our budget cycle it's more difficult to dedicate the time to check and recheck the account assignments, send corrections and review again.

Mariah Abel

Jody Goetz Did you ever decide to stick with Paycor or switch over to PrimePay? We are having some of the same issues… very frustrating! After putting in so much work though, I'm not sure if we should cut our losses or continue in this direction.

Jody Goetz

Mariah Abel,

We are cutting our losses. However we are thinking of moving a system that will handle our municipal needs as well as the payroll in one bundle.

Cece Jernigan

Jay Cole Seriously looking at terminating our Paycor Service and Considering PrimePay. I noticed you mentioned you've been with Primepay since Feb 2021. Any issues so far?

Shannon Simmons

We are with Primepay and want to leave them! Lately they have been terrible!!

Cece Jernigan

Thanks for the feedback. My only issue with Paycor is the GL importing support. That's been a nightmare. Frustrated ?

Jay Cole

Frankly and unfortunately this is a moot issue now. PrimePay informed us in February they were discontinuing accounts like ours and transitioning them all to ADP. It was surprising and I have not researched whether any Blackbaud clients are still with PrimePay, but it wasn't a choice for us. So, ADP gave us 18 months “same price as PrimePay”, which translates to 76% discount! We certainly won't be able to afford to pay that much more so we'll be switching again in about a year! ? We have that long to shop around and find a replacement payroll service! Ugh.

Robin Waldinger

Thank you for that information. While I am lukewarm about Paycor (we have been with them 14 months now) it does what we need it to do, and the feedback from our people that do payroll has been mostly positive. I was able to rebuild a Paycor report to more closely match the FENXT journal entry export add-in in Excel and have gotten to the point where I trust it to be accurate. I'm happy to share that build if anyone wants it.

Daniel Weaver

Are you using Paycor for time off tracking as well? We used to track vacation and sick time off requests in Blackbaud's payroll system, and this process has not translated very well to Paycor. The rest of Paycor is meeting our needs.

Jerry Infausto

We have been using Paycor for about two years now. The payroll processing has always been smooth with no problems. Their system also tracks vacation time earned and used; and also sick time earned and used. We also had to implement Washington Family Leave using percentages and that went well with Paycor doing the reporting.

The only issue has been with the GL integration. It seems to work well for anywhere from two to six weeks and then there is nothing. We have to call and re-explain to customer service what it is that we are expecting and they act like this is something new. Eventually they figure it out again and post to our FE GL and everything will go well for any number of weeks again. But, it does always get worked out.

Daniel Weaver

Jerry Infausto:

The only issue has been with the GL integration. It seems to work well for anywhere from two to six weeks and then there is nothing. We have to call and re-explain to customer service what it is that we are expecting and they act like this is something new. Eventually they figure it out again and post to our FE GL and everything will go well for any number of weeks again. But, it does always get worked out.

In my experience, the file will not post to the GL when there is a new deduction added that doesn't have an assigned GL account number. i.e. if I have a child support deduction get added for a new state because I hired a new employee that receives the request, then the GL integration breaks unless I remember specifically to assign a GL account code to the new deduction in advance. You might see if there is something like this that is breaking the integration.

Emily BC

We are also in Paycor, migrated in 2021. The rollout was a nightmare (we had to threaten to leave after six months of being blown off by support before they fixed an issue with timesheets not accurately reporting), but now things have pretty well settled into place.

I have two issues that I haven't been able to work around and I'm curious if anyone else has solutions?
1) related to job costing and reporting: The job costing system doesn't record salary staff wages to the job codes they select - it only allocates their costs on a percentage. So job costing can give us reports on hours, but not cost, which… isn't job costing.
2) related to timing: we do semi-monthly payroll in order to have pay periods end at month end, so we can get reports that work for billing our government contracts. Has anyone else who does cost-reimbursement Federal contracts figured out how to be able to do bi-weekly payroll in Paycor and still get that dated information sufficient for billings?