Nonprofit News by Soft Trac

Soft Trac LLC is pleased to announce its membership in Sage Leadership Academy Alumni Association (SLAAA) for the current association year. SLAAA is an association for firms that sell and service ERP systems who have demonstrated that they are committed to maintaining the highest ethical standards and sustaining professional growth. Membership in the alumni association is extended to all firms that have graduated from the Sage Leadership Academy or Upstream Academy’s Blueprint for Excellence.

Soft Trac’s President, Darla Hamlin, will be attending SLAAA’s fall retreat in Estes Park, CO in October. The retreat features a one-day presentation on leadership by Eagles Flight, an innovative leader in the development and delivery of practical training programs for the global business community. The second day will be dedicated to the concept of the self-differentiated leader.

According to Darla, “Soft Trac’s team believes that continuing education and the exchanging of ideas is critical to serving our customers in the nonprofit and government sector. The time spent with Sage executives and other business partners is invaluable in helping us focus on ways in which we can continually improve customer relationships and empower our staff.”

Soft Trac has been serving nonprofits and governmental agencies for more than a decade and is recognized nationally for its leadership, client success, and revenue goal achievements. Please visit www.softtrac.com for more information.

Learn more about SLAAA at www.slaalumni.com

Soft Trac, a consulting firm that specializes in providing software and services to nonprofits and governmental agencies, has an immediate opportunity for a Nonprofit Software Consultant. The Nonprofit Software Consultant will engage and cultivate relationships with our customers to implement fundraising and other nonprofit software, as well as provide other consulting or technical services.

The Nonprofit Software Consultant oversees all aspects of a project, including but not limited to, budget, resources, timeline and deliverables. Deliverables may include a configured software system, documentation, custom reports, data migrations, training, and/or customer-directed product enhancements that support the customer’s use of the software. The Nonprofit Software Consultant reports on project status to the customer and to his/her supervisor on a regular basis.

FMI: Nonprofit Software Consultant Full Job Description

I wanted to share with you what I have learned about my new laptop and compatibility with Sage Fund Accounting. Earlier this year I got my new laptop, new MS Office, and new operating system. After playing around and getting used to the new interface, I found that I could not print in Sage Fund Accounting. It would close the application each time I tried. So I called Sage tech support and got the front line person and we tried all kinds of things. First we uninstalled my Cute pdf and Sage internal drivers. That didn’t work so we went to Change the User Account Control Settings to reduce to Never Apply (permissions stuff). That didn’t work either. We then set up a print driver call AMYUNI and applied it to our newly installed Sage Internal Printer driver. That was interesting but didn’t work.

Sage 2nd level support called me back and this is what worked: We went to Devices & Printers>Select MIP Internal Printer driver>Right click and chose Printer Properties. Go to Ports Tab, scroll down to AMYUNI and click on that port (if there is one) then click Apply.

I asked my new favorite 2nd level support person if there was a Sage KB article on this issue and he said ‘not yet.’

So the first tech person was really close to solving my mystery. He got me an AMYUNI print driver. But it was the 2nd tech person who knew that all we needed was to change the port on Sage Internal driver. Apparently, the new operating system doesn’t want to share the same port (i.e.: LPT1), so there was a conflict. Bet that happens a lot.

We have all heard a horror story (or two) about a nonprofit that became embroiled in a financial scandal. In addition to the public relations nightmare such things engender, organizations caught up in a scandal are forced to turn their attentions toward the crisis and away from the real work they are meant to be doing.
Here are a few simple procedures you can put in place in your fundraising office to help prevent fraud.
The Maryland Association of CPA’s recommends the following simple steps to help prevent fraud.
1. Spread financial duties, such as processing payments, making deposits, reconciling bank statements and handling petty cash out among several people in your department. If possible, you should rotate these duties between people.
2. Make sure that employees take a vacation of at least one week of consecutive days. This may heighten your chances of discovering irregular activities.

http://www.macpa.org/Content/23704.aspx

Tracy Coenen, CPA, recommends some of the following tips on her website:
• Safeguard physical assets, including data and money
• Implement an anonymous reporting mechanism to allow employees to participate in the reporting suspicious activity
• Monitor access to assets and data
www.fraudessentials.com

Sage recently posted an update to Sage Fund Accounting (formerly Sage MIP Fund Accounting). Version 10.2.11, is now available for download from the Sage MIP Fund Accounting Knowledgebase. The v10.2.11 download link as well as all of the detailed release information and installation instructions can be found within Knowledgebase article #311222.

You may access the knowledgebase article at www.sagesoftwareonline.com. After logging in, simply click the green “SUPPORT” button to be directed to the main support page, which contains a link to the Knowledgebase. If you are not already registered for Sage Software Online, click the “Register now” link on the login page.
As v10.2.11 is a cumulative update, it includes all of the updates (v10.2.7, v10.2.8, v10.2.9, v10.2.10 and v10.2.11) since the October 2010 release of v10.2.6.

The updates prior to v10.2.11 contain:
- The following federal changes:
• The Employee Social Security withholding rate was reduced to 4.2%.
• The Earned Income Credit option is no longer applicable.
• The withholding allowances and the percentage method income tax withholding tables were updated.
• The percentage method nonresident alien calculations were updated.
• The HIRE Act has expired effective 12/31/10; therefore, all HIRE Act benefit codes should be changed to Discontinued.

Changes in state withholding tax information for AZ, CA, CO, HI, KY, ME, MO, MI, MN, NM, ND, OK, OR, PR, RI, VT, IL and Palau.

Feature to credit the 2% excess employee social security withholding back to each employee if your organization ran payroll before installing v10.2.8 which was released on January 4, 2011 and you have not processed the credits manually. Please refer to Knowledgebase article #316443 for more details on how to set up and use this new payroll feature.
- Resolutions to customer reported issues.

The v10.2.11 contains the above updates and:
- New update makes accommodation for the reduction in the FUTA tax rate from 6.2% to 6.0% effective 7/1/2011
- Resolutions to customer reported issues (See aKB 317867 for more information on all resolved issues).

This article by The Associated Press appeared in the Kennebec Journal June 29, 2011.

AUGUSTA — Gov. Paul LePage says he’ll sign a bill to allow charter schools, putting Maine among the 40 other states that allow them.

The state Senate on Tuesday evening sent the bill to the governor’s desk after voting to give it final approval.

Charter schools were an issue during last fall’s election. Then running as the Republican candidate for governor, LePage made repeated promises to push for charter schools if elected.

The bill he’s signing, LD 1553, would allow no more than 10 public charter schools in the first decade. It would also limit the number of students who can attend them in the first three years to protect smaller non-charter public schools.

Charter schools are voluntary public schools that cannot teach religious practices and cannot discriminate against students or teachers.

Members of Community Action Agencies in Massachusetts and Connecticut attended this years annual conference on Cape Cod to learn about “Helping People in Turbulent Times”.

The 12th annual conference was presented by MASSCAP and CAFCA.

Soft Trac was pleased to be able to help the Community Action agencies in MA and CT by being a sponsor and attending this conference. Soft Trac’s staff shared information with attendees on how they can increase productivity across their communities by using solutions such as Sage Fund Accounting, Sage Fundraising, ETO by Social Solutions, and EZContentManager by ACOM.