I was asked this question from someone a few days ago and I have a little bit of information about this.  At some point I will expand on this article but for now, it’s a short one!

This article is simply about using Cdn Payroll and US Payroll together, as in “can you use them together”?

The short version is the supported method is not to have both in the same environment, i.e. same SQL instance.  There is a KB article that spells out all of the “how to”, and describes two installs, two instances, one US English, one Canadian.  That KB article is here.

There are clients who do run this in the same environment, different companies but the catch is, you can’t install Canadian Payroll on a US installation (the “Canadian” GP code is the only one with Canadian Payroll - under Additional Products).  So, for clients in the US, who simply want to add a Canadian operation after the fact, this won’t work for them but the KB article outlines how to install it.

The one thing I find interesting - step 8 says you must use the same Account Framework setup for both installations.  I understand that most times you would, but *requiring* it seems odd since they are describing two basically stand-alone installations and two separate client installs… I could be missing something but I don’t see why the framework matters.

The most challenging aspect of this approach is for the users who need to access both US payroll and Canadian payroll, therefore having two client installs on their workstation.  The KB article references this briefly, after step 17.  “A US Payroll client must never be connected to the Canadian Payroll instance of SQL server and vice versa”.  Most users don’t change the ODBC connection at runtime but if the users are like most users I’ve seen in the past, if they ever launch GP and see a “GPUS” and “GPCDN” option the drop down list, they will try it!  Not good…