Selecting accounting software is one of the most critical operational decisions your company can face. Dedicating some time and effort in vetting the best choice to meet your specific needs, procedures, and goals will obviously benefit you in the long run. But it’s not enough to just make a selection, implement it, and forget about it. Au contraire! As with all business systems, reviewing the ROI on a regularly scheduled basis to ensure performance and systems integration is meeting your current business climate should be SOP.

Is Your Accounting Software System Scaling to Meet Current Needs?

Is your current accounting software solution growing in parallel with your company? Perhaps it has the capabilities to expand as you grow, but you are not utilizing it to its full potential. Sometimes companies start out conservatively, and implement systems that work for the company at that specific snapshot in time. Yet as they grow, they may forget to expand their systems to include and automate particular components (or add modules) which will help them be more competitive – and generate bigger bottom lines.

This happens a lot with users of entry software like QuickBooks and MS excel spreadsheets. They seem sufficient at the start, but as projects grow more complex and disparate business systems need to be integrated, there tends to be better solutions.

Does Your Accounting Software Fit Your Needs?

• Can your team generate the right reports easily?
• Is your data integrated into one solution?
• Do you spend too much time trying to find the data?
• Does your software support your company’s internal policies?

For accounting software to fully support your business needs, it should reduce time spent searching for relevant data and more time analyzing the data. In addition to this, you need to easily produce reports with critical information used for making fluid business decisions. On top of all of this, the software needs to be customizable to suit your internal accounting procedures and policies.

Ultimately, Accounting Software should Streamline Operations

Tracking time cards, invoicing, receipts, payments and check printing are the daily operations that provide a quick overview of the complete payables and receivables processes. An industry-specific solution such as Sage 100 Contractor, or Sage 300 Construction and Real Estate, can help tie these activities with contractual information such as subcontracts, purchase orders, and project item procurements.

While accounting software is a key to a successful business, the information and data used must be current and accurate. By having an integrated solution, data can be input from the office or the field and your team members can have instant access to critical project information allowing them to analyze data, manage the budget, distribute reports, input time cards, and more.

If you are still using entry level software, it may be time to consider a better solution. And if you use a highly capable business management and accounting software it may be time to have an expert review your processes and needs to verify you are using your current solution to its fullest capacity. In either case, it is likely to improve your profitability.

We at Ledgerwood Associates are happy to help you with your accounting software solutions, implementation, system optimization review, and software training to help you grow your business.

 (See check fraud prevention technology live and up close at Ledgerwood Associates’ first annual Technology Day, April 4^th in Scottsdale, AZ.)

Stay one step ahead of the criminals by understanding check fraud and the fraud prevention technology available today. Your organization’s bottom line can be negatively impacted by this still prevalent crime.

The Liability of Fraudulent Checks

Check fraud is on the rise even though check volume is declining. Checks remain the most vulnerable payment mechanism targeted by fraudsters. The reality is that without preventive measures in place to deter criminals, your firm is extremely susceptible to check fraud.

Am I Personally at Risk?

Recent changes in the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) have placed the burden on the party who is most negligent in the process. This could be you. Historically, financial institutions were on the hook when criminals took advantage of an unsuspecting business. This is no longer the case.

Losses Are Substantial

The Association of Certified Fraud Examiners estimates that organizations in the US lose about 7% of their revenue to fraud. The American Bankers Association and FBI have estimated between 5.5 and 13 billion dollars are lost yearly due to check fraud.

Three ways criminals use checks fraudulently:

1. Lost, stolen, or counterfeit employee paychecks
2. Counterfeit checks showing one company’s MICR line with another company’s name
3. Payee name is altered on the issued checks

Fraud Prevention Measures

Implementing preventative measures will significantly reduce your firm’s liability related to these crimes. Here are some safeguards you can put in place to limit your exposure:

1. Eliminate preprinted check stock. It’s easy for criminals and employees to take checks without notice when several different checks with preprinted information are lying around.
   
   a.  Purchase software to print checks on blank check stock from your computer.
   b.  Use a single type of check stock to print checks from different bank accounts on behalf of multiple clients.
   
2. Add security features to your checks. Security features empower the payee to verify that their check has not been tampered with.
   
   a.  Heat sensitive ink that will cause a symbol to fade then reappear when you rub between two fingers
   b.  A microprint border that, when photocopied, will appear as an obvious broken line
   c.  Chemical reactive paper that will appear to be stained if a chemical alteration is attempted
   d.  Watermarks that cannot be photocopied
   
3. Close the payment loop. Standard Positive Pay and the new Payee Positive Pay electronically send your bank the information that should be on the check they are cashing. If the dollar amount, payee name, date, check number, or routing code are changed the bank will refuse payment.
   
4. Implement the proper internal controls. Set up the appropriate structure in your organization to ensure that the correct people in firm have approved payments when they are made.

Technology to Prevent Check Fraud

When you realize what is at stake, taking action becomes a necessity. Fortunately there are solutions that address these measures.

Piracle has created a software package, Create-A-Check, that seamlessly integrates with your current accounting application. For many years they have worked constantly to stay one step ahead of the people whose goal is to defraud your company. Their software and security enhanced blank check stock address all of these issues and more.

Learn more about check fraud prevention technology at Ledgerwood Associates’ first annual Technology Day, April 4^th in Scottsdale, AZ.

Sage 300 CRE/Timberline Office users love the software, but often grumble about the stacks of paper that print out after clicking the “Finish” button at the end of common tasks. These entry and posting journals document the changes that were made in the current module and each interfacing application.  Even the simple entry of a few invoices can result in several pages that chronicle the effects on Accounts Payable, Job Cost, General Ledger, Billing, etc. 

Some users review the journals and then store or shred them, while others print them to an online “junk” file, never to give them a second thought.  With Sage Timberline Office version 9.8 you can maintain easy access to your journals and never print them again!

Store journals in a way that fits the needs of your company with the Automatically Print Journal to File feature in Sage Timberline Office version 9.8. The setup is relatively simple and you can specify folders and assign the naming conventions you prefer. Do you want separate journal folders for each task within each application?  How about for each user, or just each date?  Would you like the files named by user, or by the task and date?  It’s entirely up to you!

To access the feature to Automatically Print Journal to File:

1. Go to the “Tools” menu of any Sage Timberline Office application.
2. Select “Options”.
3. Then click on the “Journals” tab. 
4. Click on the Help menu to get step-by-step instructions. 

An additional tip: If you want to eliminate the possibility of overwriting journal files, add the date and time to the journal file name. Example:

Submitted by Ledgerwood Associates Certified Consultant, Kyle Zeigler.

Overlooked or delayed payables entries can mean incomplete or inaccurate job cost and general ledger information. The Recurring Invoices option in AP is a great way to manage these types of payables saving you time and money. 

Most companies have at least some payments that are made to the same vendor for the same amount on some kind of scheduled basis.  These are your monthly rent, loan and lease payments, quarterly and annual contract fees, and similar kinds of payables.  You may not even receive an invoice for some of them and instead rely on lists and reminders to make sure they are paid. 

Use Recurring Invoices to enter the payables once with the details, distributions and recurrence patterns, and then easily generate invoices for these payables.  Add them to your open payables database according to their payment schedules and improve timeliness in posting distribution information to job cost and general ledger.

With Recurring Invoices you can:

• Create recurring payables for amortized or fixed amounts
• Specify joint payees at the invoice level or at the distribution level
• Assign payables to customized groups to easily report on them
• Set specific weekly, monthly and annual recurrence frequencies
• Create on-demand payables that don’t fit a fixed schedule
• Set limits on the number of invoices, total dollars, or date range
• Easily edit recurring invoices if amounts or other variables change.

Not sure how? 

In AP, select Recurring Invoices from the Setup menu.

On the Setup Recurring Invoices screen, click the Help button.
Detailed information on setting up recurring invoices is available for you to view or print. 

Submitted by Ledgerwood Associates Consultant, Kyle Zeigler.

Many Sage Timberline users received the following error today
“The instruction at #### reference memory ####. The memory could not be read.”

The culprit is a Microsoft Automatic Update.   Here’s how you can fix it…

Special Considerations or Warnings
Defect ID: 530799

Solution or Workaround

Turn off automatic updates and remove the updates with add/remove programs.

To turn off automatic updates:

1. From the Start menu, select Run, type sysdm.cpl and the press Enter.
2. On the Automatic Updates tab, select the option Turn off Automatic Updates.
3. Click OK.

To uninstall updates

1. From the Start menu, select Control Panel.
2. Select Add or Remove Programs.
3. Select the box to Show Updates.
4. Sort updates by date.
5. Remove the following updates, if installed:

• KB976576
• KB956250
• KB982519

1. This will require a reboot.

Hope this helps!

Accounts Payable

The Problem:
The exempt, on-hold and join check status no longer displays in Enter Invoices or Change Invoices

What You Really Need To Know:
Sage Timberline knows about the issue and will soon issue a fix. Be assured that the issue is isolated to the display itself. The Exempt, On-Hold and Joint Options are working just as they always have.

Why’s it doing that?
The addition of distribution grid lines adjusted the items that will display in the Enter Invoices and Change Invoices screens.

Payroll

The Problem:
The format you added to the phone number field is not retained after saving the employee.

How To Fix It:
If you imported your employee phone number using ODBC and there is no formatting, retype the whole number, or use Cut and Paste, and then add the format.

Why’s it doing that?
Payroll automatically adds formatting to employee phone numbers (xxx)xxx-xxxx when setting up a new employee. However, if you import the employee information using ODBC, the employee phone number may not be formatted correctly and adding the formatting will not be recognized without changing the number.

Install

The Problem:
You’re getting an Error 1904 message.

What it means:
This means the install failed to register multiple dlls.

How To Fix It:
Uninstall and reinstall Pervasive on the server or the affected workstation.

Why’s it doing that?
Pervasive was not correctly installed on the computer.

Property Management

The Problem:
The Property Management Comparative Occupancy Analysis does not run for February.

How To Fix It:
Go in and change the design formula named “Test on February” from Month-As of Date (Design Formula) = 2
to Month-As of Date (Design Formula) >= 2

Hope this helps!