The Ledger : 7.77

How and Why Did We Come Up With Transaction Control Business Rules?

Charles Soderlund — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:26:00 GMT

Here in Financial Edge support, one of our biggest challenges is helping our clients reconcile their databases. This topic puts us in what you could call a gray area of our scope of support. The scope of support basically outlines what we can and can’t help you with. Traditionally, our response is very much geared to giving you the right reports to run and letting you knock it out. However, if you’ve ever been in a situation where you’ve inherited the books from a previous bookkeeper, you will understand that from the outside looking in, this is quite a daunting and time consuming task, especially if you have no idea what happened in the past.

That being said, we also realize that no software is perfect and that not all issues that can contribute to reconciliation issues stem from poor accounting practices or data entry. So how can your support representative prove that the reason that you are not able to balance your ledgers is something that you did or a software issue without reconciling the database with you? That is our dilemma, because our Support culture dictates that we do everything to help a client in need. So to try to help pry our Financial Edge support staff and you reconcilers out there out from in between that rock and hard place, we have introduced several new Transaction Controls in Financial Edge 7.77 that, once you have balanced your books, will greatly help you keep them that way with minimal effort on your part.

These features were mostly suggestions that you gave to us over the years that Financial Edge and its predecessor Accounting for Nonprofits have been in the field. A cross-departmental task force here at Blackbaud got together to see how we could improve the transaction entry and management processes to avoid some of the common pitfalls that cause reconciliation issues.

First, we made a list of the most commonly encountered situations that can make a sub-module out of balance to the General Ledger. Once we had the list, we ranked them in order of how hard it is to identify and correct these issues. The task force’s next step was to come up with solutions for as many of those scenarios that we could. In terms of solutions, we tried to take a proactive approach and provide features that would prevent you from creating these discrepancies going forward. Basically, we have provided options that dial back some of the flexibility of transaction entry so that there is less chance for transactions to be entered inconsistently causing unexpected differences in your control accounts. Like Uncle Ben said in Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Well, we are helping you to exercise that responsibility and/or take some that power away from your end-users.

Keep in mind that these new rules will not magically make your books balance, but they will provide a way for you to control transactions going into system, so that all users are forced to enter data consistently. Here is a link to a previous post that covers the new rules: New Transaction Business Rules. Also, check out Knowledgebase solution BB499077.

Please let us know what you think!

Happy Reconciling!

Sr. Product Support Lead, The Financial Edge

Payroll Post Notes: Only Print Used Attendance Codes

Jennifer Maroney — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 19:06:00 GMT

This feature is great for those of you that have several attendance codes on employee records not in use that appear when printing checks or EFT notices. I'll give you one guess on this one...give up?

Beginning with the release of The Financial Edge version 7.77, you will have the option to only print attendance that has a balance! No more wasted additional documents listing attendance codes with zero balances! An attendance code with a zero balance is an attendance code with no activity and that has not been used.

After you update to the new version, follow these steps to stop attendance with no activity from printing on checks and EFTs:

In Banks, select the Payroll bank, and click Edit Account Details.
Select the Payments tab, highlight Payroll Computer checks, and click Edit Payment Details.
On the Default Payment Options for Payroll Computer Check screen, highlight Attendance Information.
Unmark the Show attendance with no activity checkbox.
Click OK.
Follow the same steps for EFT.
Save and close the bank account information.

The trees, and your budget, will thank you for unmarking the box . Talk to you soon!

The Long or the Short of It: Export the Description You Want

Jennifer Maroney — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:16:00 GMT

Over the past few years, many of you have requested the ability to export either the short or long description for table entries. Well, I am happy to announce that your wish has been granted in FE version 7.77, due out later this year. With this release, you will have the option to export the long description for attributes, states, journal codes, or any tables that have a long and short description defined.

After you update, follow these steps to select the export table description format:

Select Tools, Options from the menu bar.
On the Options screen, select the Export tab.
In the When exporting code table entries, export drop-down, select either Long Description or Short Description.
Click Apply and then OK.

Remember, adjusting options only changes the default export format for your user name. If others want to export using a long description, they will need to update their personal options.

Talk to you soon!

New Transaction Business Rules

Jennifer Maroney — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 21:40:00 GMT

I wanted to share another great new feature with you guys that will be implemented in FE 7.77! This one will help if you find inconsistencies in your data that could cause reconciliation issues, such as transaction dates not matching post dates or transactions posting to the incorrect accounts. When you update to the new version, due out later this year, you will see new Transaction Business Rules. These business rules will allow you to have more control over transactions and limit the potential for incorrect data entry.

The new Business Rules are located in General Ledger and subsidiary ledgers. Let's take a look at the each new rule:

General Ledger Business Rules:
- Do not allow post dates to be different than transaction dates in other Blackbaud Systems disables the Post Date field forcing the Post Date to equal the Transaction Date. This option prevents date inconsistencies and confusion when running reports.
- Do not allow journal codes to be edited when posting from other Blackbaud Systems ensures the same journal code is always used when posting from sub-ledgers. This option helps prevent transactions from one subsidiary ledger being grouped with another on GL reports. For example, an Accounts Payable invoice posting to the Student Billing journal code will show the invoice with SB transactions causing an out of balance for both AP and SB.
- Do not allow a default account to be edited or used as the primary account in other Blackbaud System transactions prevents users from using default summary accounts incorrectly. For example, the AP Summary account would be restricted so it can only be used on invoices as the credit account number.
- Allow adjusting journal entries to Blackbaud System default Summary Accounts prevents users from using default summary accounts in Journal Entry and on miscellaneous entries in sub-ledgers. This option prevents transactions from posting incorrectly to summary accounts causing it not to balance with subsidiary reports.
Subsidiary Ledger Business Rule:
- Do not allow a General Ledger account number to be used for more than one Configuration Default Account prevents the same default summary account from being used within a product. For example, the Accounts Payable liability account can’t be the same account number as the Accounts Payable encumbrance account.

I also wanted to mention that these new rules will not affect transactions already entered into your database; they will only apply to new transactions added.

Stay tuned for more 7.77 previews. Talk to you soon!

The Ledger Lowdown: Sort Your Allocations

Jennifer Maroney — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 17:16:00 GMT

This is a short post, but a great one if you use Allocation Management and find it hard to find projects or accounts in your allocation pool. Beginning in FE version 7.77, due out later this year, you will be able to sort the allocation pool grid. The best part is, when you save and close the allocation pool, your sort order is also saved!

Follow these steps to sort the grid:

Open the Allocation Pool.
Right click in the grid
Select Sort by [pool basis] and then Ascending or Descending.
Save the Allocation Pool to save the sort option selected.

Stay tuned for more 7.77 new features. Talk to you soon!

The Ledger Lowdown: WebPurchasing Replacing eRequisitions

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 14:51:00 GMT

I have some exciting news for those of you that use eRequisitions or are looking for an online requisition product. With the release of FE version 7.77, due out later this year, eReqs will be replaced with WebPurchasing . This new online requisitions product offers the same functionality as eReqs plus many new features and implemented customer suggestions, including:

User-friendly navigation
Enhanced product searching
Multi-level approval workflows
Ability to create requisitions without selecting from a product list
Password reset functionality
Increased password security requirements

If you would like more information about WebPurchasing, please refer to the WebPurchasing Latest News article or contact your account manager at solutions@blackbaud.com or 800.443.9441.

Talk to you soon!

End the City Frustration!

Jennifer Maroney — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 14:41:00 GMT

No I'm sorry to say I don't have an answer to the gas price crisis, but I do have good news about city names. Do you have slightly different ways of spelling the same city in your database such as North Pleasantville, N Pleasantville, and N. Pleasantville? Have you steamed "it's all the same place so why can't it be added the same way ?"

End your frustration by making the City field a lookup table, which allows you to select the city name instead of having to type it in. This not only saves time and prevent typos; it will allow your city names to be consistent .

The first thing you need to do is make the City field a lookup table. This process takes all cities currently on records and adds them to an Address City table. More good news, you only need to make the change in one place; the change will apply to all FE modules. Follow these steps to create the lookup table:

In Configuration, click Fields.
Highlight Address.
Mark the Lookup checkbox.
Click Yes to the Do you want to create a table for the City field? prompt.

Once the table has been created, you need to clean up any duplicate city names.

In Configuration, Tables, highlight the Address City table.
Click Description to place the cities in alphabetical order.
Scroll through the list and make note of any duplicates.
Run the Table cleanup utility to merge the duplicate cities.

That's it, you're done! Oh and if you have a new city, you can add it on the fly. Talk to you soon!

Strong Passwords are on the way!

Daniel Dalnekoff — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 17:31:00 GMT

That's right!

Beginning with the release of The Financial Edge 7.77 new users in the system will require a strong password when being setup. This requirement will not be changing for existing users, but if a change is made to the existing user in system security that requires the user record be saved, the new password will need to adhere to the new strong password rules.

What is a STRONG Password?

For The Financial Edge, a strong password will be one that consists of at least 8 characters, and contains at least 1 letter and 1 number. Some examples include:

my1password

pizza999

Stay tuned for more exciting news on new functionality coming out with the 7.77 release...

Organize Your Queries

Jennifer Maroney — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 13:14:00 GMT

Trying to locate the one query amongst dozens or hundreds can feel like finding a needle in a hay stack. If you hate searching through all of your queries, the answer is in the upcoming release of The Financial Edge version 7.77, due out in Quarter 4.

After updating, you can create categories, or directories, to organize and group your queries. The categories can be by user or query purpose, such as reconciliation. Instead of scrolling through the entire list of queries, you'll be able to open the category folder and find it in a snap.

To create and organize query categories, select Organize Categories from the menu in Query. On the Organize Categories screen, you can create, rename, and delete query categories. You can also adjust the order in which the categories appear on the Query page.

Stay on the look out for more 7.77 new features. Talk to you soon!