Do you use it? That long, 60-character Purpose field in SchoolBooks

We’ve always prided ourselves for being responsive to our users and adding requested enhancements on a fairly regular basis. In an attempt to keep our software up-to-date and fresh, we usually add new features, new sorting options, new reports, or something fun (you name it) about once a year. Then every once in a while, we come back and check to see who is actually using the new stuff we added.

In May 2008, one of the Version 5.9 changes was the lengthening of the Purpose (Description) field from 30 to 60 characters. We increased the length in Purchase Orders, Invoice Entry, Receipting/Bank Deposits – in short, everywhere throughout the software. Users had been telling us for years that they needed more room for longer and more detailed descriptions. We had held off for quite a while because it was a major change, requiring us to modify almost every data file, several of the screens, and to change the layouts on many of the reports. But we did it and that longer Purpose field has been out there in the world now for a year and a half.

So – here’s the question: How many of you out there regularly use more than the old 30 characters in your Purpose fields? Who out there is taking advantage of all that space to enter long, detailed descriptions of the transaction? Please comment and let me know. All feedback will be appreciated.

Enhancements to Improve Your Audits: Feedback Needed

I’m reviewing Tracks and SchoolBooks enhancement requests that pertain to audits. These are either requests you’ve made because your auditor asked for them or things you think would help you have an easier time with the whole audit process. We get a lot of compliments on our SchoolBooks Audit Selection Report, but I think we could do more. I would appreciate your feedback: Are your auditors requesting different types of information than they were a couple years ago? Are there any reports that need one more function added to be just perfect for you and them? Is there something else we could give you that would make your audit go more smoothly?

I’m listing the current enhancement requests that contain the word “audit” so you can comment and tell me whether these are important to you or if you have something completely new to add. Whatever we discover together, I’ll report it back here.

SchoolBooks:

• Audit Selection Report – Add option to print all deposits over X amount. Add option to print all receipts over X amount.
• Add option to summarize accounts on the Balance Sheet. She got an exception on her audit because they saw sub-accounts on her Balance Sheet and didn’t like that some of them had negative balances.
• Master Audit Report – Needs to show changes and additions to User Codes.
• New audit report to show changes to master files – like Vendor Maintenance and GL Account Maintenance.
• New consolidated report - Vendor Check History for 1099 vendors only across all schools.
• New consolidated report - Consolidated Category Report across all schools.

Tracks:

• Master Audit Report – display all WebStore sales under ” WebStore” User Code.
• Importing transactions. When using Import Manager, auditors want to see a list of imported sales listed by receipt number.
• Add option to Sales by Receipt Report – allow for grouping/selection by Payment Type (so she can get a separate list of all credit card sales).

Paying Vendors – ACH vs Check? Positive Pay?

We’ve have a couple software enhancement requests concerning payables to Vendors and sending files to your bank. I’d love to get some feedback on these topics. Do you love these ideas? Do you hate them? What?

1. Automated Clearing House (ACH) is an electronic network for financial transactions. It means you could pay a Vendor with an ACH transfer right from your bank directly to their bank – with no check! We’ve had a couple requests for this and I’m wondering how many schools might actually allow this. As you can imagine, you’d need VERY tight security and a whole bunch of approval procedures in place within the software in order to send a file to the bank. But - it would save trees, save money spent on postage, save time spent in preparing checks, stuffing envelopes, etc.

2. Positive Pay is an anti-fraud service offered by most every US commercial bank. Here’s how it works: Every time you print a batch of checks, your software (like SchoolBooks) automatically sends a file with all the check numbers and amounts to your bank. That way, your bank knows the amount of every check you’ve issued and can decline a check with an altered amount.

You know that we are constantly evaluating new features which may increase the functionality of our software. I’ll be sharing about more of these in this blog going forward – because this is a great place for Blue Bear users to share their thoughts – with me and everyone else. So what do you think about these two? Are they things you may want in a year or 3 years? Or never? Or what? Let me know!

Volunteers: Help or Hindrance?

Everyone in schools has opinions about volunteers. Blue Bear users have traditionally used volunteers to help out primarily with Fall Registration – and we’ve heard so many stories – some good, some pretty awful! Volunteers can make your life lots easier (helping to manage long lines of students and parents) or create extra work (they accepted cash, but entered it as a check, but then reversed it as a credit card – and now it looks like the student has REFUNDS for 3 yearbooks!). Oh dear!

The “volunteer” story that had the most profound effect on our software? It’s about the parent who was selling yearbooks and decided it took too much time to enter the student’s name into the computer at the time she took the money – so she didn’t. The Blue Bear user called us in horror the next day when she looked at a yearbook list with 120 yearbooks sold to “blank”. This resulted in a FAST enhancement: The “Customer Required” feature in Tracks Item Maintenance was born on the spot.

My opinion? Volunteers need to be trained with expectations established and supervised. The problems arise when volunteers are put into situations where they have to make decisions and don’t understand the consequences.