Post to GL: Failed Batch

Shirley Wagar

When posting directly to the GL from Billing Management, has anyone experienced a failed batch without an error message? We have just implemented Billing Management and our first attempt to post to the GL resulted in a failed batch (2300 distributions), but there is no error message indicating the cause of the failure nor are any of the transactions flagged.

Blackbaud's video detailing the direct posting process clearly states that all failed batches will be accompanied by an error message, but this is not the case.

I have logged a case with support and they've confirmed that they aren't seeing an error message, but they have not been able to resolve the issue (it's being discussed with “internal resources”). @Julia Meseck, do you have any suggestions???

This is the third case I've had to log with Blackbaud where Billing Management is not functioning as expected and the two prior cases had to be resolved with a code-fix. At this point, I feel like I've become Blackbaud's bug tester! ?

If anyone has experienced a failed batch and has a suggested solution, I'm open to any/all feedback!

Amy ONeil 2

@Shirley Wagar I feel your pain. We just implemented Billing Management July 1 and I feel support has not been trained on the product. I have not been able to post to GL because it does not recognize our GL numbers even though they say it's linked to FE. Meeting with a consultant this afternoon. I will ask your question and let you know if I learn anything useful.

Shirley Wagar

@Amy ONeil We had the same issue! The first thing you should check is that your GL numbers in Billing Management don't have any trailing spaces. It's probably not the issue, but that's the first thing support tried to suggest was causing the errors.

Every single one of our account numbers was tripping a flag when we tried to create a batch and, after opening a support case, Blackbaud finally had to admit the issue could only be corrected with a code fix. If it helps, you can reference our case number (019759146) where support acknowledges that their development team had to implement a fix to resolve the issue.

And you are correct in that their support team doesn't seem to be very knowledgeable about the product. The Billing Management resources are limited, so I find I keep having to open cases to ask simple questions. Some reps are quick to respond but far too often I get referred to the ideas bank to make a feature enhancement request because the product is working “as designed”. The product is lacking some functionality that really should be available (you can't import payments from alumni parents or parents of past students, students cannot be their own payers, etc.). Given the number of times I've posted to the ideas bank, I think I should be a paid consultant!

Good luck with your consultant, but if you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out. As product users, we tend to be able to help each other resolve issues more often than not!

Julia Meseck

Hi @Shirley Wagar,

It looks like this is a permissions issue where the user needs access to add batches (Journal Entry => Regular batch => Add) within FENXT. Once the permissions are updated, you will be able to retry the batch.

We will be updating the documentation for the Direct Post to note the exact permissions needed.

I apologize for the confusion and frustration.

-Julia

Shirley Wagar

@Julia Meseck Thank you! You are a life saver! That's exactly what the issue was. Yes, please definitely update the documentation. I had checked everything I could think of, but it never occurred to me that the issue was with a security setting in FE NXT!

Julia Meseck

@Shirley Wagar I also just got word that we can actually show better messaging during the process if the user doesn't have the right permissions so we'll be getting to work on that!

Shirley Wagar

@Julia Meseck Wonderful! If you'd like to discuss any more of my requested feature enhancements, just let me know. I'm more than happy to share! ?