News and Blog
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Payroll errors are an extremely important component of the payroll process. They allow pay technicians to resolve problems with complex setup quickly. However, if there are too many errors, pay techs can get bogged down or overwhelmed, glossing over potential problems. That is why we like to get customer input when creating or modifying payroll errors. It is important that the errors are useful and timely. Recently, we conducted a poll about several new payroll errors. We would like to thank the 29 individuals that took part in the survey. Their input is essential to great software! |
The responses came from districts and counties, new customers, long-term customers, Escape Online and Escape Classic users. All responses were tracked through Survey Monkey and attached to CR 9510, scheduled for release 10.05, due out to customers later this year.
There were five questions concerning new payroll errors.
Background: STRS retirees are not allowed to work in a classified position unless it is as a classified aid in a classroom with a high pupil-teacher ratio OR as a one-on-one instructor for remedial or underprivileged students. The classified earnings would not be reported to CalSTRS, but would be reported as nonmember earnings to CalPERS.
Proposed Change: If the object code of the position account begins with a 2, and the retirement system is STRS with an assignment code of 61, then report an error.
The majority of respondents would like this error to be added. A little over 40% abstained. There was one vote against adding this error message.
We had two comments concerning the implementation of the STRS Retiree Error. One of the respondents that voted to add the error commented, “This is one of the areas in retirement which is not well known to Personnel/Payroll offices. Having an error identify it will be helpful.” The other comment was an explanation for the vote against adding this error, “Being a COE, we have retirees that return and put on contract with the STRS limitation being the step on the salary schedule. We wish to monitor differently.”
Background: PERS retirees are not allowed to work in a "permanent" classified position, part-time or full-time.
Proposed Change: If the person's PERS member type is R and they have an assignment, then report an error.
The overwhelming majority of respondents would like to see this error added. Again, there was a single vote against adding the error. The comments for adding the error message ranged from thinking it should be handled before hiring to allowing that the economy is driving retirees back into the workforce without full knowledge of the rules. The vote against adding this error message agreed that this situation should be monitored but they prefered to accomplish this through their processes as opposed to creating an error message.
Background: The current pay compute error #24 (Active payroll setup retirement record could not be found) is checking for an employee that does not have a retirement record for PERS or STRS. This ends up giving errors on employees using an alternative retirement.
Proposed Change: If an employee does not have a retirement record or a deduction with the W2 Pension flag set to Yes, then report an error.
The desire to change this error message is strong. There were only two negative responses, one of which was from a customer that does not have alternative retirement. Some positive responses expressed concern that non-members might get lost in the shuffle of the alternative retirement logic, but we believe that the specification for this error can handle that.
Background: With a few exceptions, classified employees must have Medicare deducted.
Proposed Change: If the employee was hired after 4/1/1986 and has a position or addon with an account that begins with a 2, and the position or addon is associated with an earnings table that has the Affect Medi Gross flag set to Yes, then report an error.
This question had more No responses (5) than any other. Many were concerned about receiving “bogus” errors for student workers, but we believe that with the appropriate setup (using Earnings tables), this should not be a problem. Some were concerned that the error might miss some employees, giving a false sense of security to payroll technicians. In response, most customers felt that some error message was better than no error message. We agree that payroll is a complex process that requires vigilant monitoring of setup, but this should not preclude adding helpful error messages.
Background: In general, retirees do not pay into OASDI.
Proposed Change: If a position or addon has a STRS assignment code of 61 and the employee tax setup or addon setup has the Affect OASDI flag set to yes, then report an error.
Many respondents were concerned about PERS members and those retirees rehired after April 1, 1986. However, because this error message is only designed for STRS assignment code 61, this should not be a problem.
As you can see, we carefully consider all responses when finalizing changes to the software. If you responded to this survey, thank you again for your time and input. For your convenience, your organization was added to the list of customers associated with CR 9510, allowing you to monitor the progress of these changes.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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The safeguarding of your social security number is essential to modern life. Escape Technology understands this and has ensured that social security numbers are not unnecessarily exposed. All occurrences of the SSN in the software are masked. To see the full SSN requires the user to have permissions to the record and focused actions to display the SSN. No one strolling by your desk would see the number accidentally. Let’s take a closer look at how this works. |
On the employee form, the only way to see the social security number is to roll your mouse over the banner (the SSN will display for five seconds) or purposefully click on the lookup for the SSN. The vendor form is similar. Escape Online includes logic that recognizes if the Tax Id is a social security number. If it is, the number is masked on the list and the form. Again, if you want to display the entire number, you must use the lookup.
We also track any changes to social security numbers. If an employee or vendor requests a change to their number, the user that changes it is recorded in a history record. In Escape Online, history records do not “time out.” They are a permanent detail of the employee or vendor record.
Reports use the same principles, but are a little more accommodating due to State and Federal regulations that require reporting of social security numbers. Again, we strived to require purposeful action before including the full SSN. If you are running a report that shows the full SSN, that is displayed in the report criteria and there is a warning in the report sampler.
No one wants their SSN compromised. Escape Online balances the need to protect your privacy without creating cumbersome processes for those who process your employee pay, vendor pay, 1099, W2 or retirement.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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When working on your budget, there are many ways to slice and dice the data. One way of looking at budget amounts is to take into consideration the accounts’ net effect on the fund balance. We added a Show NEFB flag on the search page of the Budget Entry activity based on an idea from Redding SD and Gateway USD, and we are sure that you are going to find this column really helpful, too. If you set the Show NEFB flag to YES in your search criteria, you will see an extra column, next to the Model Amount, calculating the net effect on fund balance. |
This new NEFB column uses the formula: Beginning Balance + Revenues – Expenditures – Designated = Undesignated Balance (or NEFB), creating an easy way for districts to verify that the appropriate resources are budgeted with revenues equaling expenditures. Notice how the total is zero! Revenues and expenditures match. Verified!
Of course, there are tons of other great flags for the Budget Entry list, like showing accounts without budget amounts, only showing accounts with zero amounts, and including/excluding restricted accounts, vacancies and such. All of which makes your budgeting task much easier.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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Need information? Need a laugh? Got 10 minutes? Then Terri and Leslie’s Top 10 review is for you! In less than 10 minutes, the witty banter of Terri and Leslie will give you the information you need to appreciate the top 10 features of the upcoming v10.04 release, including the new report viewer and approval notification. You will be entertained and kept in the loop. Don’t wait. Listen today. |
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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Escape Customer Care strives to give the best possible support. We assign team members to specific customers so that relationships can develop. It is always satisfying to hear when one of those relationships results in kudos for a job well done. We recently received this feedback from Becky Jeffries after she worked with Jacque Santana on a particularly difficult issue for Lake COE, an Escape Online customer that went live just over a year ago.
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Becky, we appreciate having you as one of our customers and especially appreciate your time to let us know how Jacque is doing.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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Since the beginning of 2009, every Friday, I have had the treat of proclaiming the virtues and features of Escape Online 5. I have learned a lot, and so has everyone else. Today, I have an update to a previous Friday Feature based on some great new changes. On May 7, 2010, I told you that you can display your How-Tos in a separate window. It was a fun little trick that was introduced to us by a customer. However, with the release of 10.04, this trick is no longer viable. |
As much as I liked the popup How-Tos (yes, I follow my own advice on Friday Features!), I think the loss of this convenience is small in comparison to the major improvements and efficiencies I gain with the new PDF report viewer.
So, if you took my advice on May 7, you need to go back to your Adobe Reader preferences and check the Display PDF in Browser.
This box must be checked or you will receive an error message (System.Windows.Forms.UnsafeNativeMethods) when you try to run reports. But, like I said, the new Adobe Acrobat report viewer coming in 10.04 is so awesome with its keyboard shortcuts, email capability and automatic Excel output generation, that you will agree it is a small price to pay for an elegant new report display method.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
Over the past few months, we have been diligently working to create an online environment for all Escape users to research, share, and communicate information with others in the Escape community. The Escape Online Network (EON) forum was launched last March to a limited group of technical level users, as well as Escape Customer Care users. The intent is that the forum becomes a primary support, information sharing, and research tool between Escape and our customers, including customer-to-customer interactions.
This forum site includes extensive email interaction, as well as excellent searching capabilities, and will become the ‘new’ Knowledge Base as we move forward.
The Escape Customer Care currently utilizes the forum on a daily basis to discuss software change requests, open incidents, and troubleshooting techniques to better serve our customers. The Technical Issues forum already includes 70+ topics, and has spawned several great discussions which have benefited IT groups from various counties and districts.
I use the Technical Issues forum to document Best Practices techniques, troubleshooting system issues, or simply store helpful SQL queries I use on a regular basis that customers might find helpful. The best part is that I can search the forums and find any and all threads which relate to my search criteria.
Other support forums currently in place include Finance Module, HR / Pay Module and the System Module. Are you interested in the results of one our polls? Want to find out how others polled answered in the Survey Results forum? Would you like to discover what custom reports other users have implemented or are working on to solve specific issues? There are forums that address these needs.
All of these forums are rapidly filling with vital knowledge that all Escape users should be aware of. I am adding users by organization, but if you want to get yours sooner, feel free to contact me, John Rhoadarmer.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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As each year passes, the world gets smaller and more connected. Many of the districts using Escape Online 5 have employees, contractors and vendors that reside in other countries. This means that you need to be able to add international phone numbers, country codes and foreign zip codes into their vendor and/or employee records. No problem. No hay problema. Ce n'est pas un problème. Non ci sono problem. Escape Online has a clever solution for this without requiring tons of extra fields or keystrokes. |
Want to add an international phone number? All you have to do is start the phone number with a plus sign (+), and Escape Online will not format it as a U.S. style phone number, like (916) 773-6363.
Want to add an international address? Enter the country first using the lookup which includes all country codes defined by the IRS's foreign country code table, and Escape Online will change the required fields and the validation for the address. The State field will no longer be required and the Zip Code field will no longer be validated as ZIP+4.
Now, that is fabulous. Que es fabuloso. C'est fabuleux. Che è favoloso.
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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We have just completed a mid-year update to our Escape Online 5 Product Roadmap. In about one minute's time you can get a high level review of the "big picture" enhancements we are doing this year. Not only are we completing the projects as we set out to do, we have added a few bonus features as well. |
Comments are appreciated! Send us an email and let us know what you think.
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