No companies showing in the "Select Payroll Data" window

Payroll Data on a different computer through a network

If your payroll data is on a different computer through a network, you may have this problem if your network connection is lost. Usually in this case a message will appear in Payroll Pro advising you that the location of your data cannot be found. Please follow any instructions given.

If you miss the instructions, then you may be able to find the location of your payroll data by looking at a file called PROGRAM.LOG which may be in the PayPro folder.

EXAMPLE: if your data is on S: drive in a folder called PayData, but your network connection to S: drive is lost.
In this case when you run Payroll Pro you might see the "Main Payroll Data Folder" as C:\PayPro or some other location other than S: drive.
Using NotePad or some other program with which you can read a text file, try opening the file called PROGRAM.LOG which might be found in the main program folder - eg in C:\PayPro.
This may contain a line similar to the following:
A [date and time] Previous Data Folder: S:\PayData
From this, you can see the data had been on S: drive in a folder called PayData, so you can point Payroll Pro back to this location.

You can point Payroll Pro to the required location by using the CHANGE button. Click here for instructions.

 

Or if you are not on a network...

This problem could also occur if you have just installed Payroll Pro on a new computer but have not restored your data or copied over your data from the old computer. Click here for more information about this.

 

Data Corruption

In the [hopefully unlikely] event of data corruption, or one or more deleted files, you could also find that your data is missing from the list. There are a number of solutions for this.

The following solution may be the easiest:

1. Exit Payroll Pro, then restart it.
2. When the data selection form appears, click "Cancel".
3. From the top pull-down menu, click "Help" then "Other..."
4. A confirm prompt will appear - "Roll Data Back". Click YES.
5. The data selection form will appear again - your data will still not be showing.
6. You will see the heading "Data Sub Folders" just above the list. Point the mouse arrow over these words (in Payroll Pro) and double click.
7. Your data folder should now appear, but with "<***---MISSING FILE---***>" showing where the name would usually be. Select this data.
8. The "Undo Update Totals" form should now appear. Tick all 3 boxes and then click "Roll Back Now".
9. After a few seconds a pink warning will appear advising that you now need to update your totals. Click YES to continue.
10. The "Update Totals" form will now appear. Click OK and your data should now be fixed, up until just after the very last pay run.
11. You will now be able to carry on as if you had just finished processing the last payrun.

 

If the above solution is not practical, you can restore from a backup as follows:

1. Select FILE then Backup/Restore.
2. Double click on the text "Data Sub Folders".
3. Any data with missing files will then appear in the list, with the text "<*** -- MISSING FILE -- ***>" in the company name column.
4. If you data appears with the MISSING FILE text, then select this to restore into.
5. Continue with the normal restore procedure. Click here for information about restoring (see part A).

 

More Information

Data in Sub Folder

The data for Payroll Pro is usually kept in a sub folder to the main payroll program folder. For example, if Payroll Pro is installed in C:\PayPro, then the data for XYZ Limited might be in the sub folder XYZLtd:

The main data folder in Payroll Pro in this case would be C:\PayPro - the same as where the program is installed.

 

Data in another location

In some cases the data may be in a different location than the program.
For example, a folder called PayData with sub folders for the data:

In this example, the main payroll data folder is C:\PayData, even though Payroll Pro might be installed in C:\PayPro. It is not recommended you do this unless you have a special requirement for this.

You can use the "Change" button from the data selection window to tell Payroll Pro to point to this. The folders for the data do need to be sub folders of another folder as in the image above. You cannot for example have ABCLtd on the C: drive as C:\ABCLtd.