Bringing it all in house and thriving

Overview

The Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth is a non-profit organization with various Parishes sharing the goal of fostering a communion that “equips the saints to carry out the mission of Christ in the world”. With various Parishes and employees, it is important for the organization to have visibility and control over their payroll services. Having a prior relationship with BAASS both teams worked together to implement various solutions and tools to improve efficiency and visibility with Sage HRMS.

Key Outcomes

• Ability to track, maintain, and analyze employee and volunteer information
• Training and knowledge on calculating and analyzing ROE
• Ability to quickly adjust to different pay frequencies

Challenge

The Archdiocese has several large parishes that faced payroll-related challenges, as each parish handled these tasks in house; in some cases it was performed manually, while others were using various alternative payroll software solutions. They had little to no visibility into business processes and changes being made by each parish individually. Reporting and reconciliation was a timely process completed across multiple disconnect systems or manually with room for human error. With various employees it was a meticulous task to adjust for different pay frequencies, benefit changes, and more.

Solution

BAASS implemented Remote Payroll Services for the Archdiocese of Halifax-Yarmouth including the management of various elements of payroll, updating employee pay rates, and custom documentation. BAASS went an extra step in exporting pay and putting the data into the format needed for imports into their financial system.  Reporting and reconciliation was a common thread that BAASS was able to assist and streamline among Parishes.  Due to the timing of the loss of personnel, BAASS handled the generation and distribution of the T4s.

 “It was very comforting to have that fallback and to be able to rely on the service where BAASS could step in and be a partner for us in a time of need to help us process payroll and keep things moving until the person who does it here returns” - John Kennedy, the Financial Administrator noted.

Training and Support for Existing Staff was also handled during this time.  BAASS understood elements of the functions of the dioceses needed to remain in house.  As a result BAASS was able to train their existing staff to fill these gaps.  Some items that BAASS trained their team in the areas of employee benefits, employees’ rates of pay, putting employees on leave, and training them on how to do their own internal ROE. 

John spoke about the training they received: “BAASS and Anna were trying to have us learn how to do things, and that was great. Over the course of the 3 months, I certainly learned things about payroll.”

Outcome

The prior relationship and understanding between BAASS and Archdiocese, helped BAASS to successfully approach and fulfill their payroll needs, by building a customized interface of their financial system. This was a major contribution to the trust and value between the parties. The BAASS team understood their system, their operations, the customizations, and the software they were using. 

“It was seamless in the sense where you’d be talking on a phone, but it was like they were here” - John described their experience working with BAASS.

In addition to offering payroll services, BAASS was able to view their processes and provide advice on streamlining. The recommendation to have all their parishes use the same program, Sage HRMS eliminated manual entry and disconnected systems.  BAASS will continue to work with the Archdiocese to set up the parishes as their own entities to make it easier to maintain them. Reflecting on the payroll services offered by BAASS, John mentioned that “it was great having the resource available for someone to help us, with payroll being so critical. Having the payroll run wouldn’t be something keeping me awake at night, because I feel that no matter what, we could reach out to BAASS, and they’d be able to do that.”