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As you all know Kim has moved onto bigger and better things. Although she’ll still be with Sage, we’ll be sad to see her leave the Support Online Community. However I’m very excited to take over for her and hope I can fill her shoes. I’ll start with a brief introduction of myself.

Calendar Year

Starting a New Year

Advancing to New Fiscal Year(this blog also applies to 2009 as well)

Exciting news, the January 2009 product update will be available for download as of today!  The update includes the new tax tables, for all our SimplyCARE subscribers, as well as a few program improvements.  For further information, please take a look at the readme.txt file included with the update. 

You can download the update directly through the program.  When the update becomes available, you will be prompted to update right at startup.  You can click on Download Now to start the download.  If you are not prompted at startup, open your company, go to Help-Check for Updates and click on the Check Now button.  You can also download the update from our website, at the link below

http://www.simplyaccounting.com/support/productupdates/

When you initiate the download, you will be prompted to either Run or Save the downloaded file.  We recommend that you choose Save and the run the updated after it’s downloaded.  The advantage of saving it first is that you will now have the update stored on your computer.  If you ever have to reinstall the program, you can just run the update again instead of having to download it first.  You also avoid the risk of the computer trying to automatically run the update if your download is incomplete or interrupted. 

When you try to install the update, you may get a message warning you that you have a pending reboot.  If you have recently installed Windows updates, or updates for any other program, you may be required to reboot your computer.  If you do receive this warning, we strongly advise you that you do reboot your computer before you install the Simply Accounting update.  This will ensure that both the Windows updates and Simply Accounting updates get installed successfully. 

The 2008 version users will be updating to Release D and the 2009 version users will be updating to Release B.  You can check which release you are on by going to Help-About Simply Accounting. 

Hello All,

 It is with mixed emotions I announce my departure from the Simply Accounting Community in an official capacity.  I am continuing my career with Sage and have accepted a challenging role on our Innovation team.  In my new role I will continue to focus my attentions on the wonderful world of the internet and small business communities.

 I am leaving this role in an official capacity but, of course, I'll continue to poke my head in from time to time and see what is going on and post some updates and information.  I look forward to staying in touch!  Many of you have provided me with some great feedback and interesting perspectives and I hope you continue to do so.

As for the community, I am pleased to introduce Andrew C as the new moderator.  Andrew C is a phone support agent and recently joined the online chat team.  He has found fast success in the support team, he has amazing technical knowledge, thorough trouble-shooting skills and a sparkling personality to boot!  Andrew C and Nemanja will continue to blog and post in the forums.  Feel free to contact them through the forums or send them a private message.

Happy Holidays everyone!  I am sure I'll be chatting with you again

We’re slowly but surely approaching yet another new year.  Apart from Christmas presents and New Years parties, it also means the end of the payroll year.  This week I would like to address a topic which invariably arises at this time.  I will talk about posting transactions into the next calendar year and how advancing the calendar year affects your books. 

Why is the Calendar year even an issue?  Well, if you do payroll, you know the answer.  Payroll is done based on the Calendar year, not your Fiscal year.  On the other hand, transactions, of any kind, can not be posted into the next Calendar year unless you first advance the Calendar year.  If you don’t do payroll in Simply Accounting, the solution is very easy; advance the Calendar year.  You can do that by going to Maintenance and Start New Year.  Make absolutely certain that you select the Calendar year!  You don’t want to start a new Fiscal year by accident.  Just to be on the safe side, make a backup before you attempt this. 

What if you do process payroll in Simply Accounting?  If you are not on a SimplyCARE Payroll plan, in other words, if you calculate your taxes manually, the impact will be minimal.  The only change that you will notice, if you advance the Calendar year, is that the journal entries for payroll posted into the previous year, get posted on December 31^st.  This is regardless of the date on the paycheque itself.  This is because that year is officially closed and any entries made to a closed year are automatically treated as year end adjustments.  Therefore, they are posted on the last day of the year.  If you are on a SimplyCARE Payroll plan, you should be very careful when advancing the Calendar year.  Automatic tax calculation will only work for the current calendar year.  If, for example, on December 1^st 2008 you advance the Calendar year to 2009, the automatic calculation will no longer be available for paycheques posted in 2008.

Ideally, you should hold off advancing the Calendar year until all payroll for the current year is done.  If you do need to advance the Calendar year before the last payroll of the year is done, there is a workaround you can use.  Before you advance, save a copy of your file by going to File-Save As.  Give this copy of your file a unique name in order to prevent confusion between the two copies.  Once you have the copy, go back into your original file, advance the Calendar year, and keep working as normal.  When it comes time to process the payroll, open the copy, which is still in the previous year, fill out the paycheque and take a look at the Taxes tab for the deductions.  I’m sure you realize what we’re up to here; we’re using this copy for tax calculation.  Write down the deduction amounts, go back to your original file, enter the deductions manually and post the paycheques!

Hopefully this has cleared up some confusion that the Calendar year presents!

If I had to pick one feature that puts Simply Accounting above its competitors, it would be Foreign Currency.  Accounting software, designed and developed in Canada, naturally recognizes the needs of the Canadian business climate and thus, foreign currency is fully integrated in Simply Accounting.  At the end of the article you will find links to knowledgebase articles related to setting up Foreign Currency.

So how does it work?  After setting up at least one foreign currency, you can create a foreign currency bank account.  How do you designate an account as a particular currency?  In the Class Options tab, when you select Bank you will see the Currency dropdown box.  In it you will have your home currency and any foreign currencies you have set up.  The next step is to create foreign currency customers and vendors. 

In the customer/vendor records, go to the Options tab and set the currency.  Now, when you use this customer/vendor in a transaction, your Accounts Payable/Receivable account will record the transaction in the currency set for the customer/vendor!

An every day reality with foreign currency is that the exchange rates change often.  If you post an invoice today but receive the payment in a month, the currency rate would have certainly changed.  So what happens in this situation?  When you set up foreign currency, you’re asked to select an expense account in which to track exchange gain/loss.  If there is any gain or loss because of the exchange rate fluctuation between the invoice and the payment, this account will automatically get affected by the difference! 

Take a look at these articles for instructions on setting up Foreign Currency as well as solving common issues related to it.

How to set up a Foreign Currency

Canadian balance of Foreign Currency bank account is not correct

Currency denominations

Continuing with November’s theme of new features I thought I’d share some of the very simple, yet beneficial features introduced in Simply Accounting 2009 Enterprise.

The MySql database is a more scalable database which means in the Enterprise version some of the previous caps have been expanded.  Examples of this are

• 1000 Departments (up from 100)
• 1000 Price Lists (up from 100)
• 100 “Ship To” Addresses per Customer (up from 10)

Another focus of Enterprise is increased security feature.  When Enterprise was introduced to the product line, one of the features introduced for security was Roles.  Roles basically allow you to pre-define your user’s access to various areas of the database by grouping users with like jobs in to a role.   (An example of this would be creating a role for “Sales Person” and then when you create new users that are sales people you assign them that role to streamline and make consistent the act of creating users with the same characteristics.)  Now in 2009 Enterprise you can limit a user’s access to Account Reconciliation and Deposit Slips in the Accounts & General Ledger module and can also control exactly which Financial and Banking reports a user can view and edit, giving users access rights to only the reports they need.  No need to explain the benefits of this functionality – some times you don’t want everyone seeing your business and now you can control this!

By now, you've probably noticed that for the 2009 release there is a heavier emphasis on improving existing features.  In that spirit, we made a few enhancements to reports which were, again, based on your suggestions and requests!

Each report now has scalable columns which will auto-fit to the content of the column.  If you double click on the edge of the column title, the column width will automatically adjust.  The Deposit Slip detail report has been greatly improved when it comes to multi-currency.  You will now have adjustable columns with the foreign amount and the exchange amount showing.  The Project reports now show corrections and I know that many clients have asked for this one over the years! 

If you have the Premium edition, or higher, you will have all of the above mentioned improvements in addition to a really cool enhancement to the Income Statement and Balance sheet.  Take a look at these two reports and you will notice that you now have the ability to show/hide whole account groups and sub-groups!  On the left edge of the report you will see little plus/minus button beside each account heading and sub-group account heading.   I was pretty impressed when I saw this!  A brand new report has also been added in the Forecast and Analysis section.  You can now run a report which will show you your sales receipts grouped by the method of payment.  I know that this was another common request I heard from clients.

Install the 2009 as soon as possible and take a look at these reports, I’m sure you won’t be disappointed!   

Sage is offering a new payment solution for our client base.  Sage Payment Solutions is an affordable online credit card processing service.  Merchants who accept credit cards can process these payments from within Simply Accounting.

Sage Payment Solutions is used for multiple products and has most recently been integrated with Simply Accounting.  What exactly do I mean when I say integrated?  You can process your invoice transactions in Simply and select a Pay By option.  If that option is a credit card and your Sage Payment Solutions merchant ID and Key have been activated in the settings, when you process the invoice with that pay by method a screen allowing you to key in the credit card information for processing is enabled.  Click the Process Credit Card button and record the payment and then post the invoice.  Within the invoice screen, you have recorded both the invoice and all aspects of the payment.

I'm not a sales person and I don't have much of a pitch but I was an end user and Sage Payment Solutions is a competitive, secure solution for handling merchant services and I do know that most small businesses want to save time and want to save money which is why I'm writing about this service.  If it's something you want to know more about visit the Sage Payment Solutions site.

The last thing I will say about Sage Payment Solutions at this point is think about the time and money and duplicate entry an integrated payment solution will save you.  Explore your options and make an informed decision about what is best for your company.

Many of you have received your 2009 version of Simply Accounting in the mail and you’re probably eager to install it.  To avoid an outbreak of puzzled looks and head-scratching, I’m going to talk about some important changes to our product line up in 2009. 

Two editions, Entrepreneur and Simply Accounting by Sage now have new names.  If you have been using the Simply Accounting by Sage 2008 (Basic in previous years) don’t be surprised when you get the 2009 Pro in the mail.  Yes, that’s right, Simply Accounting by Sage/Basic in now called Pro!  Just to avoid any confusion here, this is not the same as the Pro edition we had in 2007 and earlier versions.  While they share the name, they are different products.  If you had a Pro 2007, or earlier, you should be upgrading to Premium 2009.  Entrepreneur 2008 has been renamed to First Step 2009.    

Premium is still called Premium but it’s now sold in one user increments.  This is a nice change as now you can buy the exact number of licenses that you require.  With earlier versions, if you wanted to add one user you would have to purchase an additional 2-user license. In practical terms, this means that you will use a separate serial number and key code for each user.  If you are on a SimplyCARE plan, you will receive your 2009 upgrade in the mail.  In the package, you will also find one letter, per each user, containing a serial number and a key code.  If you had a 2-User Premium, for example, you will get two letters with two different serial numbers and key codes.  Enterprise users are not affected by this.  It’s still sold as a 5-User or 10-User edition and you will still install each user with the same serial number and key code. 

To sum up the major changes, Simply Accounting by Sage 2008 is Pro 2009, Entrepreneur 2008 is First Step 2009 and Premium 2009 is sold in one user increments with each user having a unique serial number and key code. 

For additional information regarding the changes to the 2009 line up, click on the link below.

http://www.simplyaccounting.com/products/faq/

In Simply Accounting 2009 versions it is now possible to customize a Simply Form for emailing!  If you use a custom Simply Form for printing purposes and a generic template for emailing, you can now change the email form type to the custom Simply Form.

This change is going to make form customization much easier for users and will allow you to customize one simply form for use with printing and emailing.  You simply select the same custom form in both the print and email form field.

In the past you needed to use Crystal Reports to customize an email form template.  Although you no longer need to do that some users have customized Crystal forms that suit their company’s needs and it is perfectly acceptable to continue using those forms.  Crystal Reports (.rpt) allows for some more advanced customization also, so if the simply form (.sfm) isn’t meeting your needs explore the Partner page for a business partner who can assist you with a crystal customization.  (We have some partners here in the forum who are experts at customization!)

Basically, you need to indicate that you are using a Custom Form, select the Custom Simply Form option, set the Form type to User-Defined and then do one of the following:

a) If you have already customized a sfm form for printing, click the Browse button and find that customized form and choose “Open” to set the form in the form path.
b) If you have NOT customized the form, click “Customize Form”, choose to customize the form from a template, select the template, make the modifications in the form designer and save the form with a name that is specific to you.  Proceed to option A to select this form type for emailing purposes.

You asked for it, you got it!

Practically all of the new features in the payroll module have come from suggestions made by you, our clients.  Most improvements center around reports.  We have added a new report and enhanced some existing ones; I’ll go into more detail on these later.  You now also have the ability to email Direct Deposit stubs to your employees.  If you’re in Quebec, you’ll be happy to hear that we added the Additional Quebec tax field to the Taxes tab of the employee record.  This means that you can now deduct additional Quebec tax just as you were able to deduct additional Federal tax.

The biggest improvement to the payroll reports, in my humble opinion, is the addition of the Pensionable and Insurable Earnings Report (PIER).  This is the report that the Canada Revenue Agency uses to check if your CPP and EI deductions for the year were correct.  The report is only available for clients who are on a payroll plan.  Also, keep in mind that you should only be running it at the very end of the year when you’re ready to issue T4s.  Since the report, and the calculation, is based on the number of pay periods, the report will only be useful when you have processed every pay period for that year.  For more information on the PIER report, click on the following link to the CRA website: 

http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/pyrll/clcltng/cpp-rpc/pr-eng.html

We have also made your life a little easier when it comes to filling out the numerous government forms, which make our life so interesting come year end.  The positions of the CPP and EI amounts have been switched around in order to match the formatting of the government forms, such as the PD7A remittance form.  Speaking of the PD7A, we have added the gross Taxable Payroll amount to the Payroll Remittance report.  Last but not least, the system defined benefits field (Federal and Quebec) has been added to the Employee Detail report.

That’s it for Payroll but stay tuned for upcoming blogs on other, pretty cool, new features.  

Let's talk processes.

Sometimes as a business you have to look at your processes and some times that means taking a critical look at the way you are getting things done.  Can you do it better?  Can it be easier?  Sounds logical enough but sometimes it's tough to see the forest through the trees (picture me at this moment going a little cross eyed and you'll establish the visual I speak of.)

In the 2009 Simply Accounting release one of the most basic of processes was looked at, picked apart and changed - for the better!  I'm talking about the registration process.

I know - at this point you're all thinking Kim has "lost it" if she expects cheers for revealing such a minor, itty-bitty change and you're right that this is a minor change (wrong about the other!)  Basically we looked at call triggers to the support centre last January and as a whole I think the entire Simply family was stunned to learn that more than 10 percent of the calls Support took were surrounding registration and it was decided right then and there that the registration process had to change to save our clients time.

When SimplyCARE clients receive their 2009 product they will also receive a letter revealing their serial number and their keycode and their payroll ID.  This means you won't need to go online or call our registration line and listen to our hold music during the January tax season.  Go ahead and activate!  Better still - if you don't have that little letter handy that I just spoke of when you go to activate, if you are a SimplyCARE client just click the "Retrieve Key Code" button when activating and the fields will self populate for you.  It's been made that simple!

For new clients who purchase at retail the self populate feature is obviously not going to work for you as we have no way of pre-registering your product but you can click the register online link and register that way.  I'm providing the link at the bottom of this blog as well.

So that's it.  A tiny little modification that you won't think of 2 minutes after it's done but hopefully it will save you some of your valuable time and ease the installation process for you.    

Registration for new clients

As Nemanja promised, I am here to tell you a bit about one of the new features in Simply Accounting 2009… sort of.  Controlled Release isn’t a tangible feature so you won’t notice it in the product.  In fact, if we did our job right, the only reason you’d know anything about it at all is because I’m here telling you about it right now.

Controlled Release is a new process implemented by our Product Release team.  The concept is actually pretty simple.  The idea?  Take Simply Accounting out of the QA laboratory and in to the real world.  And it doesn’t stop there!  The second part of this progression required clients to upgrade their actual live databases to the 2009 software version and operate their businesses for weeks in the new version.

We knew that we were asking a lot of the “test group” that volunteered to work with us and so for the 12 business partners and nearly 50 end users who installed Simply Accounting 2009 and upgraded their real databases we guaranteed an all hands on deck experience.  Members and managers of every department were involved in the process from beginning to end.  Essentially the release team observed and collected feedback on every part of the upgrading process.  Every contact from a controlled release participant was meticulously documented - every comment, observation or issue noted.  Every single day for the duration of the 4 week process the Release Managers would meet and share and discuss everything.  The best part – change came as a result of this release group!  Issues were found and reported weeks before the product was scheduled for release and subsequently the Simply Accounting 2009 product being shipped to SimplyCARE customers and being stocked on store shelves was tweaked and polished as a result.

What does this mean?  That Simply Accounting 2009 went through its first update before it was ever released.  What does this mean for you?  That if you belong to the “Let’s wait until January to upgrade club” it may be time to reconsider.  Everyone knows what happens to our call centre during tax season (I know first hand and let me tell you the hold time ain’t pretty) so avoid the madness and do the upgrade early.  Beat the rush!

This very simple change is going to reinvent the release process of Simply.  In fact, next release the Operations team is going to recruit as many as 200 participants over a 6 week span and as a result, I suspect we will see a change in both the quality of the product and the experience of our end users – both for the better!

Oh - our Controlled Release video is now on You Tube so check it out!

It’s an exciting time of the year for us here at Simply Accounting, the 2009 version has been released and I personally believe that it’s our best release to date!  Over the next couple of months, Kim and I will introduce you to the great new features of the 2009 version and we’ll give you some tips and tricks on installation, conversion and general year end procedures.

Today I’m going to talk about the improved learning Centre feature in the 2009.  Some of you might be aware that the earlier versions had the Learning Centre in the Help menu.  In the 2009, the Learning Centre is one of the modules on the left side of the Enhanced View.  The biggest improvement, in my biased opinion, is its integration with the online community.  This is very exciting!  You will now be able to read the blogs and forum posts right inside your Simply Accounting.  How cool is that!? Both the blogs and the forum posts are updated in real time (provided you’re connected to the internet) so you’ll never miss a thing!

The next great new feature of the Learning Centre is the Frequently Asked Questions section.  Here you’ll find the top ten issues, or questions, that come in to the support center.  This section will be updated regularly so you’ll always be on top of what’s happening and what kind of issues the other users are experiencing.  If you ever experience a problem, check here and hopefully you will be able to find a solution. 

Other features of the Learning Centre include a section with tutorials, which range from setting up a new company to a guide on payroll and reporting.  You will also find an updated listing of classroom courses, and a section with links to all of our support options.  Keep in mind that you’ll have to be connected to the internet in order for the content of the Learning Centre to be updated.  If you’re on a dial-up connection, the content will get updated whenever you connect to the internet. 

So go ahead, install the 2009 as soon as you can and try out the new Learning Centre!