Microsoft Dynamics GP ERP has US and Canadian Payroll modules, and this accounting application is often used by Payroll outsourcing companies to serve their customers as well as by large corporation to accrue and pay payroll checks, Social Security, Medicare, Federal and State Income taxes, plus W-2 printing and mailing to employees. In order to save on Dynamics GP user licenses, it is common to see simple or complex timecard custom made application on the front, often web based, where employees are logging their time on the daily base after each shift and then this timesheet logging application should be automatically or manually integrated with Great Plains Dynamics GP. In this publication we will review various options to do the job:
1. Dynamics GP Integration Manager Payroll connector. This is sort of user friendly tool, however we recommend IT level involvement, as it requires you to understand such features as Text file parsing, ODBC queries, and Advanced ODBC (where you can base your query on custom SQL View with grouping, filtering and other SQL constructions). Great Plains Integration Manager allows you to add or update employee, set up employee taxes and deductions. Regarding Payroll transactions integration – here you can integrate Hourly Pay Codes to the core US or Canadian Payroll module logic to make them available for batch processing in Great Plains Dynamics GP. GP IM integration could be easily launched by Great Plains User or scheduled (in this case you may need GP IM automatic integration routine, available for purchase from Microsoft Business Solution).
2. eConnect US Payroll integration programming. eConnect is C# and VB .Net programmer friendly SDK, allowing Great Plains Developer to automate US Payroll integration in real time, if desired. If you are on Great Plains Dynamics GP versions 9.0 or 10.0 – please know that Integration Manager can use eConnect connector as the technology base for the integration. eConnect breaks through former limitations on the transaction volume, as eConnect is based on encrypted SQL stored procedures.
3. Third party Payroll integration products and add-ons. In this small publication these are out of scope, here we only stress the fact, that IM or eConnect programming are so simple and cheap in their installation and implementation, that they might be better way to go.
4. Great Plains Business Portal Employee Self Service. If your IT department is strong enough to the level of hosting your Microsoft Sharepoint and .Net website, please review Dynamics GP Business Portal HR Employee Self Service functionality, where you can save on Payroll Check stub mailing postage (as you are required to either mail stub or provide gateway for self service – to read stub out of the web), plus BP HR has other cool features.
