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Volume 25 No. 9 September 2013

IN THIS ISSUE: Handling Civic Leave Tax Time! Attention Payroll Department! How should you date a void Accounts Payable Check? GMS Webinar - Basic Accounts Payable RLSS Repayment Calculation Order

To Our SQL Server Clients: Pros and Cons of Shrinking Your Database

In the past it was practice to shrink a SQL Server database in hopes of “pushing out” empty spaces within the file structure thus increas-ing the overall performance. However there has been much discus-sion on this procedure recently and if you search for articles/opinions on this process you will find that most often the recommendation now is to run the shrink function only if absolutely necessary. Shrinking the database may have minimal effect if any, and can frag-ment the index which could negatively affect performance in the long run. GMS strongly recommends that you have a DBA (Database Administrator) available to manage your database(s). Maintenance plans should be written for procedures such as database backups and other utilities.

NASH-EDGECOMBE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, INC. JOB POSITION AVAILABLE

Job Title: Finance Director

General Statement of Duties: Perform superviso-ry and complex fiscal control work in the Finance Department. Responsible for accounts system development and fiscal control over a variety of diverse program accounts each having different funding sources. Work includes supervision of a staff of accounting technicians and coordination and review of all the accounting – clerical work. Work also involves the responsibility of inventory control, purchasing, contracts, insur-ance and advising the Executive Director on fi-nancial matters. Work is performed inde-pendently under the general supervision of the Executive Director and is reviewed through peri-odic reports and an annual audit. Thorough knowledge of bookkeeping principles and practices. Thorough knowledge of estab-lished governmental budgeting and bookkeeping practices and procedures. Ability to understand, interpret, and apply the laws and regulations gov-erning the maintenance of financial rec-ords. Ability to plan, supervise, and instruct ac-counting technicians in record keeping and other accounting-clerical work.

DESIRABLE EXPERIENCE AND TRAINING Graduation from a four-year college or university with a major in Business Administration, Ac-counting or Finance; and experience in fiscal con-trol, bookkeeping or accounting-clerical work. Extensive experience in fiscal control, bookkeeping, or accounting-clerical work and graduation from high school supplemented by basic courses in bookkeeping or accounting; or an equivalent combination of experience and train-ing. Nash Edgecombe Economic Development, Inc. is an equal opportunity employer. Employees are selected without regard to age, sex, race, color, creed, religion or national origin. Please send resumes to: N.E.E.D., Inc. PO Box 2346 Rocky Mount, NC 27802-2346 Position is open until filled Salary: Depends on Qualifications

We hope you had a

wonderful Labor Day!

Page 2 NEWS FROM GMS A PUBLICATION FOR GMS CLIENTS VOLUME 25 NO. 9

GMS, Inc. 10559 Metropolitan Avenue

Kensington, MD 20895

Phone: 800-933-3501

Fax: 301-933-3502

E-mail: service@gmsactg.com

Present versions

of Software are:

Accounting 1.2.292

RLSS 1.0.0.10

Important Note!

Always run the

Microsoft Update

at www.microsoft.com

whenever GMS software is

installed on a new or dif-

ferent computer. Work

with your IT staff to set up

the automatic update best

suited for your computer.

ACH Debit Box on General Journal Have you ever wondered exactly what the purpose is for the

ACH Debit box on the General Journal entry form? This fea-

ture identifies the journal entry to be entered as an ACH

debit payment to a vendor. This box should be checked, for

example, after you make an online payment to a vendor on

the vendor’s website, have received approval from a vendor

to make automatic withdrawals from their bank account or

record bill pay activity from a bank.

Once this box is checked the vendor code and vendor name

fields will appear on the form. You may then enter the ven-

dor information to which the ACH debit payment was is-

sued. The vendor information is retained and subsequently

printed on the GJ batch. This payment information will also

be added to the vendors Payment History and will be added

to the 1099 table if applicable when 1099s are prepared!

Attention Payroll

Department!!

You should have recently received an email from us on how to order forms or services from GMS for your W2, 1099 and 1098 year end processing. Make sure you read that email for the order-ing deadline and an explanation of all that is available to you as a GMS cli-ent!!

You can find the order form attached to

this month’s newsletter.

Handling Civic Leave

Many agencies have policies that require employees to reimburse the agency for payment

received while on Civic Leave such as Jury Duty or testifying in a court proceeding.

These policies are typically in place when an employee receives their normal salary while

on this type of leave. If you have a similar policy, following is how you should handle

this transaction in the accounting system.

Implementation may take place in two ways: 1) the employee’s salary may be reduced to

compensate for the government payments received or 2) the employee may repay the

agency after the civic leave has been taken. Leave Balances will not be affected with ei-

ther method.

If the agency wishes to let the employee keep the payment and will reduce their next

paycheck by the amount received, you should:

1. Enter a Timesheet adjustment using the Civic Leave Element Code and a

minus sign before the dollar amount, which will credit the amount of the

payment received. Zero hours should be recorded on the Timesheet Adjust-

ment as the hours had already been recorded on the original Timesheet. At-

tach documentation of the reduced amount such as a copy of the check or

verification from the court.

2. Process this Timesheet Adjustment with the regular batches in your next

payroll.

If the employee repays the agency after the civic leave has been taken you should:

1. Include the repayment in your normal bank deposit and code the cash receipt

to Salaries and Wages – GL Account 50000.

2. Enter a Timesheet Adjustment as explained above in step 1.

3. Do not process this Timesheet Adjustment through payroll. You will need to

manually post this batch through Tools and Post Timesheet Batches.

Page 3 NEWS FROM GMS A PUBLICATION FOR GMS CLIENTS VOLUME 25, NO. 9

Supplement #422 New Hire Reporting

Most states now allow for electronic reporting of new

hires. It varies by state how often you report new hires,

but all states require it. This supplement gives you the

ability to prepare a fixed length ASCII file for submis-

sion to your state.

It’s as simple as selecting the beginning and ending date

of the range for which you are reporting and the appro-

priate state. Depending on the reporting requirements of

the state selected, other information such as insurance

availability for the employee and dependents may be

included in the report. A file is then prepared based on

the states file specifications.

Should your particular state not be listed in the Combo

Box, simply contact GMS and we will prepare the

electronic file format specific to your state.

The supplement can be ordered on-line at https://

www.gmsactg.com/order-supplements.html.

The cost of the New Hire supplement is as follows:

Purchase Price Annual License/

Maintenance

1-2 Users $100.00 $15.00

3-4 Users $125.00 $18.75

5+ Users $155.00 $23.25

“All labor that uplifts humanity

has dignity and importance and

should be undertaken with

painstaking excellence.”

~Martin Luther King, Jr.

How should you date a void Accounts Payable Check?

When voiding a check, the proper date to use for the void would be the current date. For example, if you wrote a check in February, and you have just discovered in September that you need to void that check, you would not want to void it with the original check date of February. You would use the current date. When writing the check in February, that month’s bank rec would show the check as outstanding. In March it was outstanding, and in April it still was, etc. You have no doubt completed all of the bank recon-ciliations up to date, so you would want the void to be dated and posted to the current month. And in the cases when the procedure also involves voiding a voucher, if you have completed monthly processing for those past months, you would not want to go back and re-process those months, as you have probably sent reports to outside sources based on your original financials. Posting and processing the voids with the current month is the most efficient procedure to follow.

Page 4 NEWS FROM GMS A PUBLICATION FOR GMS CLIENTS VOLUME 25, NO. 9

RLSS Repayment Calculation Order Often we are asked “If multiple items are being withheld from a repayment, in what order are they deducted?” The order of items deducted from the Activity Total is Late Fees are the first to be collected. The Late Fees are then followed by Service Fees. Next comes Escrow amounts, NSF Fees and anything entered as Other, fol-lowed by Current Interest. If there is still money remaining after all of the above items have been collected, then the software will look to see if there is any unpaid Accrued Interest. If yes, it will collect as much of this Accrued Interest as money allows. (When Accrued Interest is collected, it will appear as a negative amount on your screen.) Finally, when all out-standing Accrued Interest has been collected, any remain-ing funds will then be applied towards Principal.

If funds have been depleted before all of the Current In-terest and possibly other fees have been collected, the uncollected amounts will appear under Accrued Interest as a positive amount. This is being set aside to be collect-ed the next time money is available to do so. Should you see positive Accrued Interest then you should also see no dollars being applied to Principal. You should never edit and remove any amounts you see in Accrued Interest as this is money that is due to you and the software is seeing to it that you will receive it, maybe not with the current repayment due to inadequate cash being received, but from a subsequent repayment. In viewing a Loan Activity report (loan history), each transaction that appears is showing amounts ONLY for that transaction, not cumulative. To determine the total amount of Unpaid Accrued Interest you should look at the Loan Totals line of the Accrued Interest column.

Do You Use Microsoft Outlook For Your Email?

If your organization uses Outlook for email there is a feature in the GMS Ac-

counting System that you may not be aware of. There are occasions when you

may need to send a report from the accounting system to someone for review.

One way to do this of course is to use the export feature in GMS, save the re-

port in the format desired on your hard drive, then open your email application,

attach the saved file and send. There is a much faster way however when using

Outlook to manage your email.

When you have a report on the screen that you’d like to send to someone, you

first click on the export icon, which is the envelope towards the left end of the

tool bar above the report. The export form then opens up and you select the

desired format in the top combo box. The next step is to select the destination

in the bottom combo box.

In the past you may have selected Application which would launch the appro-

priate application, such as Microsoft Excel, or you could select Disk File which

immediately gives you the option of saving the exported file. However if you

look at the last option in the Destination combo box you will see Microsoft

Mail (MAPI). If that is selected and when you select what pages are to be ex-

ported a Send Mail form will open.

At this point you type in the email address of the person to which you’d like to

send the report, or you can click on the address button and it will open your

Outlook address book!! At that point it’s only a matter of selecting the recipi-

ent and clicking send. And this all happened without you having to leave the

GMS software! Note: the system automatically names the attached file. Should

the recipient wish to save the file rather than just open, the “save as” function

can be used to create the desired file name.

As you can see this can be a big time saver when emailing GMS reports. Please

note that for this feature to work properly you must have Microsoft Outlook

running in the background.

Book Your Rooms Now for the

2014 GMS Summit!!

Don’t find yourself without a place to stay!

Due to all of the special events including

the 139th Preakness Stakes taking place

on Saturday, May 17th, rooms will sell out

at our conference hotel as well as surround-

ing area hotels, so please book your rooms

early!

From the attractions to shopping, dining to

nightlife, there’s no shortage of things to do

and see in the beautiful Baltimore Inner

Harbor. Come early or extend your stay for a

few days and take advantage of the low

room rates that have been negotiated just

for you.

Sheraton Inner Harbor Rooms