Payroll ACH file deletion

Had a customer call today that had lost a build for 800 payroll checks in the ACH Generation window. The payroll person had mistakenly deleted the build and the direct deposit ACH file was gone. (See tech doc 865591 that says this can't be brought back).

They have not been doing a backup before processing payroll which is recommended. I should be more clear. Doing a backup before processing payroll is extremely important. Most of the time processing payroll is completed without errors. On the occasion where there is an issue, the payroll and employee files are completely messed up. Event such as power outages, server restarting with/without explanation, computer crashing while posting, etc. will wreak havoc to the payroll sub module. Often there is no recourse besides restoring to a backup.

There was no backup before payroll processing. A full days work had been done by many departments. Looked like there was no solution.....we did come up with an acceptable work around however. After discussing we decided that they would:

1. Restore last nights backup to a test company. (The payroll batches had been entered the previous day.)
2. Re-run the payroll in the test company.
3. Verify numbers from summary reports in test company versus live company
4. Create the ACH file from the test company. They had an old ACH file and could look at the header and change information where appropriate.
5. Recommended working with their payroll processor (Wells Fargo) to make sure the ACH file was correct.

Luckily there was a fairly simple work around instead of voiding out the payroll checks and reentering the information again. Once again, do a backup before processing payroll.