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| New system less flexible, more errors |
by David Forbes
Senior Staff Writer |
A new payroll system
for Appalachian State University employees is more susceptible to
human error and less flexible than previous systems, said some staff
that work with the system.
“The main problem, once you learn the quirks of the system,
is that there is a fairly tight window to enter the hours in. I
would like to see a set payroll calendar like we had in the past,”
office manager at the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership
Tina R. Parlier said Monday. “It doesn’t look like a system
that has been utilized much. It looks like the system they’ve
given us is a draft system, where everything hasn’t been worked
out yet.”
“I think [the problems] are just a byproduct of the fact that
it’s a new system and we’re all on a learning curve,”
associate vice chancellor for administration Greg M. Lovins said
Tuesday. “We’ve actually been surprised at how low the
number of errors has been. Our staff is doing a great job in learning
the system and its capabilities. That’s not to say that mistakes
aren’t being made, but that’s human nature.”
Lovins said that human error unrelated to the payroll system delayed
staff paychecks in September.
Parlier said that individual departments are now doing work previously
done by payroll and human resources, which she said makes the new
system more prone to human error.
“I think everyone’s trying hard to be conscientious, but
as with anything, the more hands you have on it the larger the possibility
of errors, and we’re not trained to be payroll people,“
Parlier said.
“In my personal opinion, the system is a lot less flexible
than before,” Joyce C. Henson, an administrative secretary
in the department of communication, said Monday. “It’s
much harder to go back and correct something if a mistake is made.”
“Departments are now more directly involved with entering time
onto a system, and the rationale there is that they’re right
there in the front lines seeing their people do the work,”
Lovins said. “We’re only doing that right now for temporary
employees.”
The new payroll system, known as the “Banner” system,
took effect July 2003. Banner software has since been adopted by
all University of North Carolina system schools except for North
Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill, Lovins said.
Banner is a product of SCT Corporation, based in Malvern, Pa. According
to their Web site, SCT mostly provides software services for higher
education.
Appalachian started to adopt the “Banner” system before
the rest of the UNC system, Lovins said.
“Our old system was designed for [Appalachian], by [Appalachian]
about 20 years ago, so we had to do all the updates ourselves. It
had served us well, but it was getting antiquated,” Lovins
said. “When Appalachian decided to make the change, we were
ahead of the curve. We felt like we needed to change our system,
and not long after we had started working on implementing our system,
the UNC office of the president came forward to give the opportunity
for all the schools to change their systems.”
Lovins said eventually the university would integrate campus functions,
from demographic data to financial aid, into the same Banner system. |
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