Payroll Post Notes: One-Time Calculations

Hello blog readers! A common question we get is how to create a one-time payroll calculation, so I thought this would be a good topic to talk about. The reason for needing the one-time calculation can vary from payroll corrections to bonuses , but the process is always the same. Let's get started:

The first thing to do, if you don't already have one created, is to create the new pay type (BB163850) in Configuration. The rate selected and the number of pay types needed depends on the reason for the one-time calculation. Here are a few scenarios for employee bonuses:

• If all employees will receive the same amount, select Fixed amount and enter the total amount.
• If all employees will receive the same percentage of pay, select Percentage of gross and enter the appropriate percentage.
• If different groups of employees will receive a specific amount, create a different pay type for each group.
• If all employees will receive different amounts, select Fixed amount and enter the total amount that most of the employees will receive. When adding the pay type to the employee records using Create Group Assignments, you can manually update each employee amount on the Assignment Grid tab.

On the Schedule tab of the pay type, mark the Pay only in periods with specific end dates option. If the one-time calculation's pay date falls on the same date as the regular payroll calculation, the software will calculate both pay types together. If the other scheduled pay(s) are already calculated, only the one-time pay will be calculated.

Now you're ready to add the pay type to employee records. There are two options you can use depending on the number of employees. If you only have a dozen or so employees, I'd recommend manually adding the pay type. If you have a large number of employees, save yourself some time and use Create Group Assignments (BB164768).

You made it through the hard part. At this point all you have to do is create calculations and print the checks or EFTs; a process I am sure you are all familiar with . If you would like step-by-step instructions, take a look at Knowledgebase solution BB244550.

Talk to you soon!

The Ledger Lowdown: Get it in Balance

Hey blog readers! Nothing is more frustrating when you run your Balance Sheet and the bottom line is out-of-balance . So here you are with an out of balance Balance Sheet that you need to have to your board in an hour, or even worse an hour ago. What should you do? Well, the first thing is don't, or try not to, panic. A deep breath usually works for me. Then take a look at these common causes of out of balance financial statements and reports; you may be able to resolve the issue and be a hero.

Create and preview a new Trial Balance Report for the same period and fund(s) as the out of balance financial statement. The report should always be in balance when including all accounts and their balances. If the Trial balance report is incorrect with no filters or VCO selected, create a case.

If the Trial Balance is correct, try the following:

• Run the report as Supervisor or as a user without account level security defined. Financial statements will exclude accounts that a user does not have rights to view. 
• Mark the option on the General tab to include inactive accounts and rerun the report. Inactive accounts with activity will cause the report to be out of balance.
  • If the report totals correctly, create a query of inactive accounts (BB89504) and change the account(s) from Inactive to Active (BB68498).
• Check your VCO template. As new accounts are added or new templates created, accounts can be left off or duplicated causing the report to be out of balance or total incorrectly.
  • Run a chart template validation (BB62966).
  • Make any appropriate adjustments for duplicate or missing accounts (BB64859).
  • If the chart validation does not pinpoint the problem, run the report using the default template (BB67838).
• Check the filters on the report to ensure you're not filtering out accounts or activity. A combination of advanced filters on a VCO and report filters can cause you to filter your way out of balance. Remove all filters from the report to determine if the filters are the cause.
• Run the report at a level 9. Running reports at a lower level will summarize activity.  Increasing the level is an easy way to ensure no accounts are excluded from the report.
• Recreate the report to ensure the parameter file is not corrupt.

If your report is still out of balance after following these steps, create a case. Support will be more than happy to help you.

Talk to you soon!

The Financial Edge Wins the Campbell Award!!

Hey blog readers!  I wanted to share some great news from earlier this month.  The Financial Edge received the Campbell Award for being the most recommended product among users from nonprofits with revenue of less than $5 million. 

Campbell Rinker specializes in providing market research to the nonprofit world. For information about the survey,  check out 2007 Nonprofit Accounting Solution Report or Campbell Rinker's Press Release.

Talk to you soon!

The Ledger Lowdown: Vendor Tax ID Woes

Hey blog readers!  We are often asked why Accounts Payable users are not able to update a vendor tax ID, so I thought this would be a helpful topic to talk about today. 

Beginning in The Financial Edge version 7.70 we implemented personal information security.  This additional security option allows you to specify which users can view and edit information such as Social Security Number, credit card numbers, bank account numbers, and vendor tax IDs.  To ensure this personal information is secure, the personal information options are not marked when you create a new security group or update from a version prior to 7.70.  

To be able to update the field, adjust the Shared Component Personal Information options in the users' security group.  For complete steps, take a look at Knowledgebase solution BB181316.

Make sure you only assign rights to personal information for users that need to access it in order to perform their job. If you are not sure what rights are appropriate, check out What is Blackbaud's recommendation for personal information best practices?

Talk to you soon!

Payroll Post Notes: Track Checklist Items

Hey blog readers.  There's a cool feature in Configuration I wanted to share with you today.  When you hire a new employee they probably have to go through the employee orientation to fill out forms, get ID badges, departmental intros, and training.   Don’t forget the list of things to do when promoting employees or employee separation. 

Well the cool feature is called Tracks.  Tracks allow you to create and track (get the name) a list of things you need to do.  The checklist items can be for anything like tracking potential employees, new hires, promotions, business trips, lending supplies… I think you get the idea; pretty much whatever would work for your organization. As each task is done, you can update the Track record to show that it is completed and add a date.

The Track process can be automated too.  You can choose to add the track based on employee status, automatically add a new track when the current one is completed, and automatically change the employee status upon completion.

Ok, so I am a little happy about tracks, but I think it is a great time saver that is underutilized.  If you want more information about tracks, check out the Tracks section of the Payroll Configuration Guide.

Do any of you use tracks?  What types of things do you use them for?

Talk to you soon!

Welcome to the Blackbaud Blogs

Hello blog readers!  My name is Jennifer and I would like to welcome you to Blackbaud Blogs.  This is my first blog, so I thought it would be best to introduce myself.

I came to Charleston from New York, and yes most people call me a Yankee, to attend the College of Charleston.  After a year of milder winters, I decided to stay and get away from the snow and slush. It only snowed once in Charleston in the nine years I've been down here.  I have to say, snow on a palm tree is just wrong!  Anyway, I've been at Blackbaud for four and a half years supporting The Financial Edge and Accounting for Nonprofits.  I started as an analyst, became the FE Product Lead, and am now an information specialist.  You may have read some of my work. I write The Ledger, Payroll Post, and Student Billing Statement newsletters, which I hope you’re subscribed .

I suppose that is enough, if not too much, about me.  Keep an eye out for my product blogs, The Ledger Lowdown, Payroll Post Notes, and Student Billing State-of-Mind. Since I'm new to this I'd love your feedback, so feel free to click comments and let me know your thoughts.  We'll treat comments like a party, the more the merrier! 

Talk to you soon!

Keep that Chart of Accounts from Exploding

Resist the urge to add yet another account segment or code, and instead consider the following:

• Lifespan
• Budgeting
• Equity Retention
  
• Transaction Balancing

The above points will help you decide which of the following transactional characteristics is appropriate:

• Projects
• Transaction Codes
• Account Attributes
• Transaction Attributes
• Project Attributes
  

While the above have different abilities, each can at least be reported on.  For example, I can use a Transaction Attribute to report activity group by Location without creating additional Accounts.

Also, I'm always impressed by individuals who can tell me exactly what account '01-4512-22-3-84' is without reference.  Instead of referencing numerical code tables, or worse sticky notes, you can book transactions using plain English.

The table below outlines the basics of each characteristic.

Characteristic	Retain Equity?	Budget?	Require to Balance?	How many can you define?
Project	Yes	Yes	Yes	Unlimited
Transaction Code	Yes	Yes*	Yes	Five
Transaction Attributes	No	No	No	Unlimited
Account Attributes	No	No	No	Unlimited
Project Attributes	No	No	No	Unlimited

 

Now that you know account segments aren't the only show in town ... be kind to your Chart of Accounts and keep it from exploding.

How can Support help our Clients Integrate RE and FE?

I just finished spending 2 days at BBU in The Raiser's Edge Essentials I, which I felt was a great way to get some knowledge of another product under my belt to fill in space between the burger and fries I had for lunch.  Ultimately though, the goal is to improve Product Support's responsiveness, and ability to support clients who choose to integrate The Financial Edge and The Raiser's Edge. 

I still have quite a few more classes to go until I would say I "know" RE, but this project can't get started soon enough.  A problem we face in Support is that RE and FE users and Support Analysts have different vocabularies (vocabularii ?).  On top of that, because the 2 programs serve such different, but advanced functions in their own purpose it is no suprise that questions come up when working between the 2 products.

So, with the end goal of this project being a way for support to provide better "support" for the integration of FE and RE I would like to tap the knowledge of those integrated users...what hurdles did/does your organization face with integrating these 2 products?  From a procedural standpoint, does your accounting staff have nightmares over what the development office is sending to your database?  What are the questions you would like to be able to call Support and have someone know the answer to when it comes to your integration?

The floor then ladies and gents, is all yours...

 

Home Sweet Home Page

Recently I decided to create my laptop's workspace.  I spent a few moments thinking about my work flow and how I used applications.  The process resulted in two folders for documents on the Desktop, a Quick Launch Toolbar with shortcuts to four commonly used applications, and an organized Start Menu.

My workspace is now tailored for me and allows me easy access to what I need on a day-to-day basis.

You can do the same with The Financial Edge (FE) by using the Home Page.  Think of the records, reports, and processes that you commonly work with and append them to the Home Page as Favorites.  Don’t forget you can also include documents, such as budget worksheets or a policy manual, and links to web-pages. 

Not only does the Home Page allow you to tailor FE for you, but it's a great solution for new users or volunteers.  Providing a Home Page with links specific to the users roles creates a very clean easy to use environment.

Procedures & Processes

As a Product Lead, I constantly encounter different user scenarios and situations with how the software works, or how to perform a specific task.  More often than not, I end up asking myself, "How does The Financial Edge help our clients with their business processes?  Do they create processes around how they use FE, or use FE following their existing process?"

I would like to then, in the spirit of that thought, ask the Loyal Ledger Readers:

• What process does your organization have in place for your end of year closing?
  

Feel free to be as detailed - down to individual work flow/steps; or as general "we check the box to soft close the prior year" as you like...

Anyone?

Updating The Financial Edge

Updating The Financial Edge seems to be something that everyone has a different feeling on, so I wanted to put some thoughts out on the table....

Obviously, our goal here in support is to be responsive and get client issues resolved as quickly as possible.  If the way to deliver a fix is through a patch I feel like we should try to make these patches available frequently.  On the other hand, it can be time-consuming to be frequently updating the software to always be on the latest version.  Would making update patches available less frequently make it easier because there are fewer updates to install, or would it be burdensome because a patch that addresses an issue may not be coming out as frequently.  Then we have the patch readme, there is a link to this right from the downloads page that provides a list of what issues have been addressed in a patch, and just below this is a list of outstanding issues that we are working on.

I thought about my process for my home PC updates and how this could translate to updating FE.  I am one of those users who has automatic updates set so I only receive the notification that an update is available, and I can choose to install this or not.  Now, being the curious type I always take a look at what updates are available to see if there is something I am really interested in downloading.  If I see something critical, or that affects something I might be working on I always go ahead and install.  If I am currently working on something big and I don’t want to take the time to let the updates install though, I will push this off until a better time.