March 2009 - Issue 8

New Federal Withholdings

The Internal Revenue Service released new Federal Income Tax Withholdings tables and Earned Income Credit (EIC) tables. The new tables incorporate the new Making Work Pay credit, one of the key tax provisions included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009. The IRS asks that employers start using these new tables as soon as possible, but not later than April 1, 2009.

If you are current on your yearly software subscription (CES) you should have received an e-mail with the tables that need to be changed. Changes such as this are all the more reason to keep your CES current.

Not current? Give us a call.

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The 2009 Customer Conference will be held in Las Vegas this year.   It will be held on June 9th - 11th at the South Point Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, NV.

Customers who have attended this conference in the past have discovered new ways to improve business processes. Some reunited with friends they made last year, networked with new acquaintances, met one-on-one with their Open Systems authorized partner, and engaged in lively discussions about our software and services.

Conference FAQ

Session descriptions

Sessions Eligible for CPE Credits

Conference Schedule

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Banking

One of the newest applications is the Banking Application. This application is not to be confused with Bank Reconciliation. It is an addition to your Bank Reconciliation as well as Accounts Receivable, Accounts Payable and Payroll.

Bank accounts can be set up as a Credit Card Banks allowing you to enter the credit card number used for this bank, the expiration date of the credit card and the vendor ID to use when paying open invoices using the credit card bank. This allows for keeping detail purchase history on your vendors while using a credit card to pay for the purchases rather than generating a check to the vendor.

Bank Reconciliation has an added feature for Reconciliation Import. This allows you to import your reconciliation information from your bank directly into the reconciliation function and automatically clear transactions that have been written to your reconciliation journals.

In Payroll, Direct Deposit is included in the Banking application. Vouchers replace ‘live’ checks and money is directly deposited into up to six of the employee’s designated banks and bank accounts. These can be set up as dollar amounts or percentages. Multiple Batch processing allows you to post multiple payrolls within a sing day and a separate file will be created  for each payroll batch.

The Automatic Clearing House (ACH) delivery of payments made to your vendors or received from your customers give you the ability to transmit electronic payments to your bank using a standard, secure system that is both highly reliable and efficient. The vendor can be alerted that payment has been made by either printing a voucher and mailing it, faxing the vendor, or emailing the vendor.

Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) support allows you to print machine-readable information on the bottom of your checks for quick processing. You’ll be able to securely generate checks while saving money by using blank check stock on a laser printer.

A fraud control and loss prevention measure, Positive Pay allows you to build a file (formatted to your bank’s specifications) that can be transmitted to your bank for the authorization of check payments.

In Accounts Receivable a business rule has been added to require an authorization number to be entered for credit card payments when the cash receipt is over a specified amount.

Recurring entries in Accounts Receivable and Sales Order have had payment fields added to the billing tab to give the ability to set up recurring entries to be paid using credit card or direct debit type payment methods.

For further information on this time and money saving application, give us a call and we can set up a demonstration of how this application will improve your cash flow.

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TRAVERSE: A look at version 11

Open Systems is offering a class each Tuesday until March 26 to show off this soon to be released version that bring TRAVERSE to the forefront with .NET technology.

This one hour demonstration is free and is offered at 11:00 am CST (12:00 EST) each Tuesday..

To sign up for the class email staceyr@osas.com or contact us and we can get you signed up.

Spaces are limited.

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Thinking of Upgrading?

Is your software NOT current? Have you been thinking about moving from OSAS to TRAVERSE.

If the answer is YES to either of these questions then the next two weeks can save you money and get you current.

Rather than the usual cost of an upgrade for these next two weeks you can upgrade your OSAS to OSAS, TRAVERSE to TRAVERSE, or OSAS to TRAVERSE for the cost of three year’s CES.

This is a substantial savings over the upgrade price.

If you would like a demonstration just give us a call and we can show you OSAS Version 7.5, Traverse 10.5 or the newest release of Traverse 11.0

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Winding down year-end

Now that the dust of Year End is settling I would like to offer a few recommendations:

Microsoft Windows Security Update

A recent automatic update for Microsoft Windows can cause problems with TRAVERSE when accessing certain forms, such as GL Statement Layout and GL Account Budgets. Most occurrences of the problem will manifest itself as an error number 438. In some cases you might see the message “Form is not Populated”.

This issue has only been reported with TRAVERSE 10.5 but may also be an issue with TRAVERSE 10.2 users.

Should you receive these messages just give us a call and we can email the hot fix to you, or you can visit http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/advisory/960715.mspx.

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OSAS Technical Tip - AR Methods of Payment

You enter your cash receipts most days and your usually making entries against customer accounts or using a non-customer and entering the GL account number you wish this cash receipt to credit to.

Did you know that setting up different Write Off Accounts you can quickly (and correctly) write off customer’s invoices and post them to various expense accounts?

For example if a Customer owes you for an invoice and then comes out and does some work for your company you can set up a MOP as a Write-Off and have the GL account go to the expense account for the work the customer did for you.

If you have a segmented GL Chart of Accounts there may be several different accounts that you want to write off discounts to. In this case you would set up a MOP for each of the divisions that you have and then rather than entering the discount in the discount field you would enter the MOP for the money you received then enter a second method of payment that goes to the proper GL discount account.

Customer Deposits if entered not using a customer when received and applied to the Customer Deposit GL account can be entered with the customer ID as the invoice number so that in the GL activity it is easily reconciled. When the Customer is billed you can use a MOP that goes to the Customer Deposit account and apply the deposit directly to the invoice showing only the additional amount due.

Bad Debts and Sales Tax are also common write off MOPs. Remember though if you are using a method of payment to write off an open invoice or Sales Tax it does NOT reflect within the Commissions reports nor does it reflect in Sales Tax reporting. Credit memo these. 

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TRAVERSE Technical Tip - Disaster Recovery Yet Again

Last month was the ice storm and the snow that drove many people from their offices and homes. We are NOT out of the woods yet. Spring is right around the corner and with spring comes the possibilities of severe weather of a warmer kind.

Heavy rains, flooding, high winds, and tornadoes can wreak as much havoc as snow and ice to a business.

Do you have a Disaster Recovery Plan in place? Can your business still operate during times of power outages? Is your data available to you when your network is down?

In these very difficult economic times losing a week’s worth of business could be catastrophic.

Don’t wait until it is too late to realize that you can not function during times of no electricity or internet.

If you need help developing a Disaster Recovery Plan we can assist you. Some quick and simple methods of protection that come to mind are UPS (Universal Power Supply’s), Off-site data backups, Off-site Email Data storage facilities and Generators.

Don’t get caught un-prepared. Preparing for disaster in advance will keep your business running. 

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About Maple Business Software Consulting

Maple Business Software Consulting, LLC has over 22 years of experience planning and implementing business solutions for small, medium and large size organizations. Our fully trained staff has the technical skills and business experience necessary to help you realize your company’s full potential through business automation.

Our philosophy is simple "Do the right thing, no matter the outcome".  For our potential customers, this means walking away if our solution does not fit your business. We'll never try to fit a square peg into a round hole. When we take you on as a client, you can be confident that we have a solution that will solve your business challenges.

Purchasing the right solution for your organization could be one of the single most important decisions you make for your business. The key is to find the right product, coupled with a solution provider you can trust. You need someone who will be there with you every step of the way, from the selection process, straight through implementation, training and then after-market support.

We take pride in providing superior service and reliable products to help your business operate more efficiently. Our corporate philosophy, strong work ethics, and experience are the key ingredients to your long term business automation success!

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