HR and payroll - what ever happened to this module

imurphy · 2008-08-27

I have a PDF of an old ver 3.60 manual called Human Resources & Payroll, 1998, ISBN 87-7849-345-5

This describes varios modules for handling payroll, employees, payments, etc.

Now, I only have version 5.0 and my copy of Cronus does not have anything remotely like this, nor does any of my documentation refer to how to handle payroll payments in Nav.

What ever happened to this 'module'? Did it just get dropped? Is it something you only get with some special version? Does it only get released in some countries?

Other than manually making the accounting entries, how do people go about tracking the salary payments made to employees?

Other ERPs typically have third party entitys suchs as Clients, Suppliers Creditors and Employees, among others. Thus you make a payment to EMP0001 and not G/L account number 123456, which is the only way I can see of handling this in NAV 5.

Before anyone brings it up, I know Payroll is a complex business - I'm only looking at the salary payments part, not social security, nor anything else. Payments.

Regards

Ian

Alex_Chow · 2008-08-27

Yes, Microsoft has stopped releasing the payroll granules. It's been outsourced to a company called Serenic Softwares.

KAdamsInCo · 2008-08-27

North American payroll / human resources management is sold by Serenic Software, Inc. based out of the Denver Colorado area. We use several of their modules.... they have been a really good organization to work with.

Info on their HR suite can be found here:

http://www.serenic.com/hcm/default.aspx

imurphy · 2008-08-28

Thanks guys. One of the trainers here in the office asked me how to handle salays payments in NAV and I immediately thought of the 3.60 docs I had flicked through and assumed the basic funcionality had to still be there somewhere in NAV.

Seems incredible that you can't use the built in employees as third parties in the G/L - it would seem to make sense to pay salaries, dividend payments, expense payments, etc to employee entities rather than against a G/L account number.
It doesn't require much - just the ability to use an Employee like a client.

Well, never mind, thanks for the info

Ian

ssingla · 2008-08-28

We define employees as vendor with a seprate vendor posting groups. Though this does not suffice all the requirements but useful to lot of extent.

CobaltSS · 2008-09-15

HI all,

I just looked at a Cronus version 4, and there's no HR forms in there either. I don't want to do payroll, but just keep a list of training, skill sets, review periods, etc. attached to HR. Why would this stuff have been taken out?

cheers,

imurphy · 2008-09-15

I presume someone concluded that the navision funcionality was poor and it was better to drop it in favour of a third party solution.

That way you can only say that it does not have this functionality rather than it does it badly..... who knows?

Ian

ara3n · 2008-09-15

imurphy wrote:

I presume someone concluded that the navision funcionality was poor and it was better to drop it in favour of a third party solution.

That way you can only say that it does not have this functionality rather than it does it badly..... who knows?

Ian

Have you actually used the HR module before making the statement.
I thought the solution was well done and companies that used them liked it.
There was one issue with making sure salaries were kept secret, so security was a challenge.
HR is not supported and sold Ceneric (sp?). You have to ask them to send you the objects.
MS strategy is provide a horizontal solution ERP.
Solution centers would provide the vertical solution. HR is one of the vertical. Thus removing it from 5.0

Actually I like the decision. Less tables to deal with. Most companies don't use it.

djswim · 2008-09-15

ara3n wrote:

Actually I like the decision. Less tables to deal with. Most companies don't use it.

Bingo. The payroll module is really good, but the setup and maintenance involved make it so that it's not really worth it except on large implementations in my experience (or organizations with complex pay structures... I once did an implementation for a place that worked w/ three different unions, each with their own rules. :shock: )

Also, when it first was run by a company outside of NAV it was called VisionPay, I think Serenic bought VisionPay.

imurphy · 2008-09-15

No I haven't - hence the 'I presume'.
I had seen the old docs for version 3 and wanted to use some of the hr bits - it seemed ok in the docs. A very basic HR system to keep track of training etc.

It does seem a bit odd removing it but I can only suppose that they had to make a decision to concentrate on the areas that were more valued and HR must have been seen as not so important and better to hive it off into a third party vertical as you say.

You say

You have to ask them to send you the objects.

Does that mean we can get hold of the old objects from Ceneric?

Ian

ara3n · 2008-09-15

Seneric maintains the objects and they release new version for every NAV version. Yes get in contact with them and they wills send you the 5.0 objects.

NASi · 2008-09-15

Hi imurphy : I don't know if is that you are looking for but there is a Spanish Navision Partner that has built a powerfull and competitive solution for HR and Payroll with Dynamics NAV. See www.summar.es

themave · 2008-09-16

ara3n wrote:

Seneric maintains the objects and they release new version for every NAV version. Yes get in contact with them and they wills send you the 5.0 objects.

but seneric only supports the latest version, so like us, we are on 4.0 without any service packs. and they will not support the software, although they will charge the support fee. No tax updates, nothing, unless you are the current release of the software. if the W2 form changes, they will not issue you a new report ect.

Here is a little blurb we received on the subject.

On top of all of this, Serenic will not provide updates for what they consider “non-supported” versions of Microsoft Dynamics NAV. Currently, this means that you need to be on either Version 5 or Version 4, with Service Pack 3 applied – which is two “versions” from Serenic’s perspective. Because Serenic has taken a different stance on this than Microsoft, this means that if you want to continue to use payroll and are not currently on one of these versions, you will have to upgrade more frequently; they have not confirmed whether or not they will support Version 4, Service Pack 3 at the end of the year, as Service Pack 1 for Version 5 has been released and Version 5 & Version 5 SP1 may be considered two “versions” also

imurphy · 2008-09-16

We didn't want much - just something ready built where we could record among other things the salary paid to each employee, expense claims, training history and have the HR module generate the accounting entries.

Otherwise the user has to manually generate gl entries against a load of gl accounts which have no relationship with the employee record.

Ian

ara3n · 2008-09-16

You could use Vendors for the Employees.

imurphy · 2008-09-16

You could but it seems rather a waste to have to duplicate employees as vendors when there are already Employee records

While I could write something to automatically syncronize the list of employees with vendors of the same name it would seem to be better to take advantage of something which already exists if it costs nothing.

Ian

ara3n · 2008-09-16

It's an additional granule,and it costs.

themave · 2008-09-16

It is an additional granule and it does cost, and you need to keep current on Navision to be able to get support from Serenic.

But, the program works really well, we have used Navision payroll for 8 years, at first it was supported as if it was a Navision product. we got the updates from Navision, ect. then MS bought Navision, and payroll support switched to Vision pay, and now Serenic. the only problem I have with Serenic, is we don't do every navision upgrade. ie every service pack. so even thought we are on Nav 4.0 we don't get any support for payroll since the only version of 4.0 they support is 4.0 sp3 and 5.0, once 5.0 sp1 comes out, they will only support 5.0 and 5.0 sp1. So you either keep current on Navision, or you don't get payroll support. I update the tax tables each year manually, and use the form editor to tweek the W2 forms ect. since they won't provide a form if it changes. unless you are a current Nav release.

Mindie · 2009-01-05

We have 2 clients that have paid Serenic their yearly fees but Serenic won't release the tax updates to them because their old NSC is no longer Serenic cetified. With only 2 payroll clients it's not cost effective for us to get certified.

Does anyone have that text files that list the controls that need to changed. I can just make the manual changes.

DenSter · 2009-01-06

Mindie wrote:

We have 2 clients that have paid Serenic their yearly fees but Serenic won't release the tax updates to them

Are they getting their money back then, or is that a scheme (I almost said scam :-$) to get your company to want to certify for their product?

generic · 2009-01-06

DenSter wrote:

Mindie wrote:

We have 2 clients that have paid Serenic their yearly fees but Serenic won't release the tax updates to them

Are they getting their money back then, or is that a scheme (I almost said scam :-$) to get your company to want to certify for their product?

It's called milking existing clients (vars) with licensing and certifications.

Mindie · 2009-01-06

No they won't give them their money back. They won't even return our phone calls or emails.

Alex_Chow · 2009-01-06

The last option would be for your client to contact Serenic directly and ask them which NSCs are able to help them.

Murray9046 · 2009-01-07

A lot of functionality has likely been added since the 2.6 version. My guess is that Microsoft didn't want to deal with the complexities and constant changes that go on in payroll. Who wants to keep up with the government changes anyway? When Microsoft worked with the product it was a 14 million range object. It is now in the 37 million range. I have been to Serenic training and am currently working with the product with about a dozen customers. Running it is pretty easy and flexible. I haven't had a scenario yet it couldn' accomplish. You can certainly use it to calculate only the Pay Controls (Salary, FIT, SS) or as much or as little as you want. The HR part is ok- nothing too exciting there other than the standard stuff you would expect to see. I find most customers don't use that part. The payroll part works pretty well for us and Serenic support has been good. They answer the phone when I call and are always helpful quickly. You do have to know something about payroll to pick up the functionality quickly. They provide more current documentation of their software which like Microsofts is ok in the helpful department. I would mention though that you should be on a newer version of the software to reap the benefits of updates which your client needs anyway to stay current on Microsoft enhancements in general. You would have to make modifications to old verisons. I would call and see what you think for yourself. I am sure they would be happy to demo...

For more info the contact is:
Aaron Kesteloot | HCM Channel Manager | Serenic Software |
303-980-6007 Ext. 107 | Fax 303-379-7453 | akesteloot@serenic.com | http://www.serenic.com
for more info.

themave · 2009-01-07

Murray9046 wrote:

A lot of functionality has likely been added since the 2.6 version. My guess is that Microsoft didn't want to deal with the complexities and constant changes that go on in payroll. Who wants to keep up with the government changes anyway? When Microsoft worked with the product it was a 14 million range object. It is now in the 37 million range. I have been to Serenic training and am currently working with the product with about a dozen customers. Running it is pretty easy and flexible. I haven't had a scenario yet it couldn' accomplish. You can certainly use it to calculate only the Pay Controls (Salary, FIT, SS) or as much or as little as you want. The HR part is ok- nothing too exciting there other than the standard stuff you would expect to see. I find most customers don't use that part. The payroll part works pretty well for us and Serenic support has been good. They answer the phone when I call and are always helpful quickly. You do have to know something about payroll to pick up the functionality quickly. They provide more current documentation of their software which like Microsofts is ok in the helpful department. I would mention though that you should be on a newer version of the software to reap the benefits of updates which your client needs anyway to stay current on Microsoft enhancements in general. You would have to make modifications to old verisons. I would call and see what you think for yourself. I am sure they would be happy to demo...

For more info the contact is:
Aaron Kesteloot | HCM Channel Manager | Serenic Software |
303-980-6007 Ext. 107 | Fax 303-379-7453 | akesteloot@serenic.com | http://www.serenic.com
for more info.

I am an end user, who has used it since 1999, there has been very little added or changed since 2.6, payroll itself is unchanged since at least 2.0, in 2.6 they add some human resource management stuff, which hasn't changed since it was first added. this is not a product that has been improved or even maintained above the most basic level, which is sad, because way back in 2.0 it was a great product. it just hasn't changed any since then. As far a staying current with versions, your nuts, sorry, but when even an install of a service pack, cost up to 10,000, (do to having a modified database) you don't install many of them, just program the criticle fixes the sp addresses. so we have a 4.0 database, with the fixes we need, but not the service packs applied, so we Serenic says we are un an unsupported version and won't even give us a W2 form, even though we are current on our support with them. Serenic is a terrible company who thinks nothing of there users. but that is just my opinion. I am sure Serenic would be happy to demo the program, and even sell it to you, but don't be supprised if you quickly find yourself unsupported.

matttrax · 2009-01-07

I've never worked with the company myself, but I'm very surprised that they won't even give you the objects. If you are paying a maintenance fee you have the right to any code changes regardless of the version you're on. It's up to the customer if they choose to implement an add-on on an "unsupported" version.

I'd just say I was on the current version. Update my license to support 5.0, even if I was still on 3.7 or whatever. Or say I needed the objects to test for an upgrade. Surely they don't expect a customer to go-live with everything else and then re-implement their solution. There have to be ways around it.

Sounds like a shady company to me.

Alex_Chow · 2009-01-07

If no one complains to Microsoft about it nothing will result from complaining on this forum.

Alex_E · 2010-12-08

I am new on this forum and I am finding any information about payroll in NAV in foreign countries for my student diploma and one of my clients ask me about this module for his native county.

And I am surprised this strange situation with Human Resource and payroll module in NAV which you were discussing above. By the way in my country NAV has this functionality in the local granula. And it was full changed for NAV2009 so I believed that it was new changes for all countries. In Russian a lot of small and medium companies would like to have one system for all departments.
I am not sure how well it fit for other countries. But for Russia needs it quit flexible (new design) and even have own analytical reports forms (something like Account schedules for payroll transaction). But salary payments are still organize via Vendor Cards (by the way).
May be there is reason to suggest to Microsoft consider this functionality for future versions if at least one country have this module . Does anybody know some news about this module?

HR and payroll - what ever happened to this module

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