Operation: Great Bend Recreation Commission, serving USD 428 and the surrounding rural Kansas community with fitness, sports, cultural, and educational programming, staffed by 10 full-time and more than 100 part-time employees. Industry: Public recreation and community services. Prior environment: Microsoft Dynamics GP, in place for more than 20 years, with manual processes, onsite data storage, and payroll for a fluctuating seasonal workforce of over 100 people managed by hand. Engagement scope: Migration from Dynamics GP to Dynamics 365 Business Central, government-style fund accounting, integrated payroll built with Integrity Data, and ongoing upgrade support. Timeline: Approximately five months, scoping through go-live.
The challenge
Great Bend Rec had run on Dynamics GP for two decades, long enough that the system had become the default rather than a deliberate choice. The organization needed cloud-based fund accounting suited to government-style reporting, plus a payroll process that could handle a staff that swells with seasonal part-time hires without still being done by hand. “GP felt antiquated, like I had to learn how to go backwards,” said Joe Henry, the Commission’s Business Director. Mandy Simpson, the Commission’s Accounting Director, described the starting point directly: “We were still storing things onsite, doing everything manually, and running payroll for 100+ people by hand.”
The approach
TruNova (TruNorth Dynamics at the time of this engagement) led the migration from GP to Business Central, partnering with Integrity Data on the payroll integration, over roughly five months from scoping to go-live. The rebuild went deeper than a straight lift-and-shift: the account structure itself had to be rebuilt to fit Business Central’s model rather than carried over as-is. “We had to rebuild our entire account structure. It was overwhelming at times, but the team was responsive,” said Simpson. Chris Umphres, the Commission’s Executive Director, framed the relationship behind that responsiveness: “We’ve worked with TruNova for years, and they brought in Integrity Data, a perfect fit for payroll.”
Results
- A 20-plus-year-old GP environment fully retired in favor of Business Central in about five months.
- Manual, hand-run payroll for 100+ seasonal and full-time employees replaced with an integrated system built with Integrity Data.
- Fund accounting rebuilt for government-style reporting, with onsite manual record-keeping replaced by a cloud-based platform.
- “Business Central is intuitive, efficient, and the keystrokes alone are saving me carpal tunnel,” said Henry.
- “It won’t let me make the mistakes I used to,” said Simpson.
- Ongoing upgrade support delivered without disrupting operations: “We didn’t even know the update happened, because TruNova took care of it,” said Umphres.
Next step
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