Nonprofit News by Soft Trac

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• The Earned Income Credit option is no longer applicable.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.

The RIDE UPLOAD UTILITY FOR MIP, developed by Soft Trac LLC for Charter Schools and Collaboratives in Rhode Island, has been enhanced to provide greater flexibility of reporting.

RIDE Utility Main Window

Enhancements include the following:

• Ability to enter the Fiscal Year Begin date. This eliminates the need to close the prior fiscal year before reporting on the current year.
• Option to exclude budget in the upload.
• Ability to code revenues for internal reporting needs while still meeting RIDE’s coding requirements.
• Allows schools to allocate Unemployment and Workers Compensation Insurance same as with other payroll benefits and still meet the RIDE requirement for summarized reporting..
• Allows schools the flexibility to allocate Advertising based on school’s needs, but send data to RIDE per their requirements.
• All Balance Sheet object codes (Assets, Liabilities and Equity) will be coded to meet RIDE’s guidelines.
• Validation (Valid EXP Codes button) verfies accuracy of Expense coding against the Account Code Combination table in MIP.
• Export to Excel – user can now export final file to Excel for ease in reviewing the data before uploading to RIDE.
• Reporting Period and Budget Version have been added to the Report Header

The utility was developed by Soft Trac for the Rhode Island Charter Schools and Collaboratives who use the Sage MIP Fund Accounting Software.

For more information:
Call 207.221.0340
Email darla@softtrac.com

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

Under Reports>Vendor Activity there is a neat report capability that some of you may already know about. But for some of you Sage MIP users, who have not heard of it, read on.

If you select the canned report under Reports>Vendor Activity called you will see that it looks like a Check Register with the expense coding and the related invoices associated with the payment. The Filter Tab has the settings all set up but please feel free to make customizations. Also feel free to add in the Content Tab a page break by Program or Dept or both or maybe put Program in the body of the report! Have fun getting the report to look the way you want it to, or better yet, the way the auditor would like to see it.

I called my report “Check Register with Expense Coding” – not very original, I know.