Nonprofit News by Soft Trac

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

Soft Trac LLC is pleased to announce that it is partnering with ACOM Solutions, Inc. to bring its Sage Fund Accounting clients EZContent Manager.

EZContent Manager is a richly featured, fully web-enabled solution for automating and streamlining all aspects of Sage Fund Accounting document management storage, search/retrieval, distribution and retention processes, enabling the elimination of all or most paper documentation in office workflow.

About ACOM Solutions, Inc.
For over 27 years, ACOM has automated the document and payment processes for more than 4,000 organizations. ACOM’s solutions quickly bolt-on to an organization’s existing Sage/accounting/ERP system to extend that system’s capabilities and dramatically improve that organization’s efficiency by automating their manual, paper-based processes. By incorporating ACOM’s solutions into their product offerings, Value-Added Resellers (VARs) can easily bring this valuable set of additional cost-saving Sage/ERP enhancements to their clients.

About Soft Trac
Soft Trac is a consulting firm specializing in technology for nonprofits and governmental entities. Soft Trac offers a full range of professional services and software solutions to enhance the productivity of nonprofits and municipalities.

For more information:
Call: 207.621.8556
Email: sales@softtrac.com
Visit: www.softtrac.com

Susan Saadat, a Soft Trac Senior Consultant, went above and beyond all of our expectations when she forwarded a request from a Fundraising 50 prospect to management while in the labor room on medication to induce labor.

It is not uncommon for Soft Trac’s employees to respond to the needs of a customer or prospect while on personal time, but Senior Consultant, Susan Saadat, took this dedication and passion for the customer to an all-time high.

You see, Susan, had been in the labor room for more than two days when she received an email from a prospect. She quickly forwarded the email to Soft Trac’s management for response. How many women do you know who would take time out between contractions to monitor their work email and respond? Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and now Susan Saadat have changed the world forever.

Kidding aside, we are grateful for the dedication that our staff have for our customers.

We are especially pleased to announce that Sarah Saadat, daughter of Ali and Susan Saadat, was born on Saturday, April 16, 2011, at 9:25 am. “Little Peanut” as Susan lovingly referred to her weighed in at 9 lbs 14 oz. Sarah, Ali and Susan are all doing well. Susan says, “We are totally in love with her and look forward to introducing her to all of you soon.”

Susan Glows with Love and Pride

Sarah - Born 9:25 am, April 16, 2011, 9 lbs, 14 oz

Wish you were automatically informed of new release versions of your software? Want to talk with other users? Want to help other users? Sign up for the Sage Nonprofit Community Forums to stay up to date with all things Sage Nonprofit.

1. To sign up, go to Sage Forums

2. Once you have created an account, you will need to visit the ‘My Profile’>’Organization Information’ section to edit your profile. In particular, you will need your organization’s account number, which Soft Trac can provide. Call us at 207.512.2709 or e-mail saadat.susan@softtrac.com to get this information if you don’t already have it.

4. Once you have completed this, go to the tab labeled ‘Community’ and choose the subtab ‘Forums’.

5. Click on the icon for e-mail or RSS Feed next to the forum(s) you are interested in to subscribe to an RSS feed or to have e-mails sent to you directly.

This ensures that you will be kept up to date with information relevant to your software products.
Note that if you are a person who is not likely to voluntarily visit the feed on a regular basis, you might be better off signing up for the e-mail subscription, as the e-mails will come directly to your inbox.

I recently read an article in the Nonprofit Times about the compliance changes we will all be facing in 2012 for reporting of payment to 1099 vendors. There is a new provision in the healthcare reform legislation that is designed to improve reporting and closing a tax gap.

Starting in 2012, the 1099 filing requirement is expanded to include gross payments of $600 or more to both corporate and non-corporate recipients, and are further expanded to include both payments for services and for property. This could significantly change the number of 1099′s that organizations will need to produce.

There are several changes to the penalities as well. I would encourage you all to learn about the changes that may impact what you need to track. The article is available at http://www.nptimes.com/11Jan/EXP-01182011.html?tr=y&auid=7632782
You should consider running a vendor payment report to review your payments in 2010, so that you can begin to prepare for what you will need to track in 2012.

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.

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.