Nonprofit News by Soft Trac

In the past, outsourcing payroll duties was a good option especially if your organization had limited resources and time. A staff member provided essential information about your organization and employees and the payroll service took care of generating the checks, making the tax payments, filing tax returns and distributing the year-end forms.

If you have a small payroll of less than ten people with few programs or departments, that still remains a good option. However, as payroll software technology has advanced, we are seeing many organizations re-evaluating the benefits of bringing their payroll in-house.

One such organization is a client of Soft Trac with approximately 150 employees. According to their Finance Manager, it made sense to study the differences between continuing to outsource versus bringing their payroll in-house. The study revealed that their payroll service was providing the core payroll services, but their accounting staff was still spending time in preparing the time records, maintaining employee information, reconciling payroll reports and doing journal entries.

On examination, they found that the Sage MIP Fund Accounting payroll module would allow their organization to take closer control over their costs while producing their own payroll. The MIP payroll provided them with options, such as labor hour reporting, integration to Allocations and Bank Reconciliation, and the ability to easily manage accrual entries. The Direct Deposit module allowed them to provide their employees with the same service as their payroll service company. In addition, they found that MIP payroll’s integration with Aatrix Software automated the federal and state tax reporting and eliminated the worries of manually filing tax returns and year-end tax forms.

In the final conclusion, their study revealed an annual cost savings of over $13,000. The cost savings they will realize in the first year alone, paid for them to add the payroll module with direct deposit and a fully integrated HR module.

Annual cost of payroll service (excluding inflation) $15,000
One-time Cost of MIP Fund Accounting Payroll Module,
Direct Deposit and Sage’s New HR Module $10,900
Annual Maintenance & Support Cost $1,300

Want help conducting your own cost analysis? Call Susan Campbell at 207-621-8556 for assistance. For more information about Sage’s MIP Fund Accounting Payroll or the Sage’s New HR Module, call Sandy Sherry at 207-221-6575 or Susan Campbell at 207-621-8556.

If you hold down the shift key while right clicking on a folder, you can choose “copy as path” to get the path name of the file’s location to paste wherever you’d like. This is very useful when trying to get the “real” location of data files, etc.

Ever wonder why things are “missing” in an export file created from a Sage Fundraising 50 report? Take, for example, a donor profile report that references a series of donations in the onscreen view. When you export that information to a format like Excel, suddenly the donation information is “missing”.
It’s actually not MISSING, it’s just left out of the export file by design. Of course, knowing what would and wouldn’t be in the report in advance might have helped, right? You can find out in advance what will be in the export file by going to help>product guides>reports guide>[appropriate report category]>[appropriate report name] and checking the section where it says “Export File” in Sage Fundraising 50.
If you find that the export information isn’t going to include everything you need, then try a custom constituent or financial export file. Remember, the constituent file will show one record for every constituent meeting the criteria, while the financial report will show a record each time the criteria are met, which can mean multiple listings for each constituent.
Happy reporting.

I have resolved myself to the fact that I am no longer cool. When I go out, it’s generally with a husband in tow and 10:00 pm is a late night for us. I no longer care if my hair is in style or my clothes are fashionable. All of this would probably explain why I didn’t jump on the Facebook, Twitter or Linked In bandwagons right away.

Over the past few weeks, however, I have discovered what the fascination is all about. Even as I connect with high school and college friends on Facebook, the application of these readily available social media to fundraising become increasingly obvious. In this age of tightening resources, the use of these media as money saving mechanisms is also blindingly obvious, or at least should be.

On Facebook, for example, an organization can create an event and invite their friends. You can upload videos. Download free applications that will allow you to add items like an auction to your page. You can create a discussion board. Add a map to help people find your organization.

Obviously, a resource like Facebook isn’t intended to ferret out donations of large sums of money from relative strangers. But, if the current economic situation has shown us anything, it should be that relying on the few for large sums of money that can be wiped out by a bad run in the market is a risky strategy. Exploring avenues like Facebook and other social media can lead your organization to create new relationships with donors that may have shallower pockets, but who swim in a deep pool of social media, surrounded by friends, acquaintances, and strangers with money to give.

I know there are relatively few of you out there who are taking advantage of this tool. If you’re one of them, tell us why. If you are using Facebook, tell us how.

I came across a situation the other day where an organization had issued a payroll check to an employee who proceeded to not cash it and the organization had lost contact with the individual. The point of this story isn’t why they didn’t cash it (which in itself is a whole other thought) but rather what do you do when you’ve issued a check to someone and it doesn’t get cashed, you lose touch with the person and can’t locate them regardless of the many attempts.

As tempting as it is to just void the check and forget about it, there are proper procedures that should be followed. Each state will have different rules and you should check with your specific state for details, but in the State of Maine there is the “Maine’s Unclaimed Property Act”.

In Maine, if you have property belonging to another person and you’ve held it for the required dormancy period (which ranges from 1 to 15 years depending on the property) it should be reported as unclaimed property to the state.

For specific details on the required dormancy period or how to report unclaimed property to the State of Maine visit: http://maine.gov/treasurer/unclaimed_property/report_property/index.html

As for what to do in Sage MIP Fund Accounting will depend on whether it is an AP check or a Payroll Check.

If it is an AP check, you would want to void the check, referencing it as a lost check. This will clear it out of your bank reconciliation. This entry will debit cash and credit AP. Now you need to reverse the invoice. Then enter a new invoice to the Treasurer, State of Maine referencing the unclaimed property and the appropriate information about the
original check. When you cut the check to the Treasurer it will clear out AP leaving you with the debit to the expense and a credit to cash.

If it is a Payroll check it’s a little more complicated as you can’t void the check because it will impact your tax reports and those were reported correctly. So you’ll need to create a journal entry debiting cash and crediting a liability such as Due to State. Then when you are ready to send the money in to the state you’ll enter an invoice debiting the Liability “Due to State” and crediting AP. When you cut the check the AP will be debited and cash credited.

Hope this find you well. Here are some Sage Knowledgebase articles regarding tax forms to order and a useful PR Q&A article.

Please note that if you want to use Aatrix to file forms for you, you can set up an account with them. Find their web site in the Sage MIP Aatrix Q&A attached.

Regards,

Sharon Blakeslee
Nonprofit Accounting Specialist
Soft Trac, LLC
207.221.0342

MIP Tax Forms Article 296550

W-2-Red Copy 273286

PR Tax Calc QandA 303703

Q: How do I figure out which donors have given for x number of years in a row?
A: The easiest way to find out if someone has given for a given number of years in a row is to go to the Donor Card in Sage Fundraising 50. Then, query on the “yearly total” amount, using the qualifier “is greater than 0″ for the first year you want to check on. Then, go to the next year you want to query on in the list, again using the qualifier “is greater than 0″. Repeat until all years you wish to inquire about have been included in the query.

Fundraisers using Sage Fundraising 50 sometimes struggle with how to code gifts that come in after the end of the fiscal (or calendar) year properly. I hope we can clear this up here.

Let’s suppose your organization’s fiscal year runs from January to December. We’ll further suppose that your organization runs an annual campaign each year; we’ll call this campaign the 09 Annual Campaign. The 09 Annual Campaign is made up of two solicitations: the 09 Spring Mailing and the 09 Fall Mailing. All set?

Now, let’s suppose that it’s January 3 and two donations arrive on your desk.
Donation A is a check dated December 31 and is in response to the 09 Fall Mailing.
Donation B is a check dated January 1 and is in response to the 09 Fall Mailing.

How should these gifts be coded?
BOTH gifts should be applied to the 09 Fall Mailing (and, consequently, the 09 Annual Campaign). The GIFT DATE for each should be the date on the check. While the tendency is to want to create an “overflow” or “after year end” solicitation, the truth is, there is no need.

The Result
Donation A is properly contained in tax year 2009 and Donation B is properly contained in tax year 2010. BOTH gifts are in response to the 09 Fall Mailing and the 09 Annual Campaign.

How should you report on these?
When the E.D. asks for a report of all donations to the 09 Annual Campaign (or the 09 Fall Mailing solicitation), you can simply use the criteria 09 Annual Campaign (or 09 Fall Mailing solicitation).

When he/she asks for a report of donations to the 09 Annual Campaign (or the 09 Fall Mailing solicitation) for the fiscal year (or another set of dates), you will use the DATE of the gift, along with the campaign and/or solicitation to report.

YES, these numbers will be different, but now you know why and can explain to him or her why this is the case. Part of your responsibility, too, is asking the right questions of the person who is asking you for reports.

If you’re still skeptical about not needing to recode the solicitation, the following situation might help you to understand a bit better. Suppose your organization has undertaken a capital or major gifts campaign. A donor has agreed to make a gift to the 09 Major Gifts campaign. She will pay this donation over five years. Each time a gift comes in, it will be coded to the 09 Major Gifts Ask and the 09 Major Gifts Campaign. This will be true for every pledge payment made over the course of those five years. You wouldn’t recode the gifts to come from a different solicitation each year in this scenario; why would you do it to any other gift?

The training database is now a choice in the drop down menu of databases available when you log in to Sage Fundraising 50, as shown below, rather than being a separate icon and login, as it used to be. The user name and password should be: admin, sagefr50

On January 2, 2009, Soft Trac was one of 26 businesses who suffered the loss of their main office at 500 Route One in Yarmouth, Maine due to a fire that destroyed the building. Read more

While we were determined that we would not let the fire distract us from our mission of giving back to our community by helping nonprofits, we were forced to embark on a journey of rebuilding the company.

It is with a grateful heart that we acknowledge the help and support given to us by our customers, vendors, business associates, the Yarmouth Chamber of Commerce, our former landlord and his staff as well as our many personal friends and family. There are too many people to acknowledge individually here, but you know who you are. Everyone from Art and Rob who made certain that we had a chance to retrieve what we could, to the friend who delivered homemade cookies or gave one of us a “hug”, to the associate who offered us space to conduct business while we rebuilt, or the vendor who replaced our business cards and letter head at no cost, to the Yarmouth Chamber of Commerce staff member who made certain that we knew of available donations…your thoughtfulness will not be forgotten.

You will all be happy to know that Soft Trac has turned the “lemons” into “lemonade”. Our new office space at 361 Route One in Falmouth provides us with more space to conduct our business. An open house is planned for mid July.