News From GMS a publication for GMS clients

Volume 27, No. 1 January 2015

In this Issue

In Memoriam December 2014 Revi-

sions Released Page 2 RLSS - IRS Report-

ing/Cancellation of

Debt

Offsite Accounting Services Available

Ten Fun Facts About Denver

Page 3 Employer Sponsored

Health Coverage

GMS Employees Give Back

Page 4 Upcoming Webinars

Service Orders Via Email

GMS Welcomes Jie

Chen

The GMS Offices will be closed on Mon-

day, January 19th in honor of Martin

Luther King Jr’s birthday. The offices

will reopen on Tuesday, January 20th

for normal business hours.

December 2014 Revisions Released

The latest accounting revisions were posted to our website www.gmsactg.com on December 23rd, 2014. You should have received an email from GMS on December 23rd that included in-structions for downloading and installing these revisions to update your software to version 1.2.298. It is VERY important that all revisions be installed in a timely manner, especially since the 2015 tax changes are included in this revision. It is also important that all staff using the GMS Accounting System read through the List of Changes included under Help within your software, and also in your Help Manual, to familiarize themselves with the new features or changed items. Before you process your first paychecks dated in 2015, be certain you have gone to Payroll, Annual, and completed the Save/Clear YTD Amts step and then click on Help, About and confirm the version number is 1.2.298. After both of these have been done, you may then proceed to process your 2015 payrolls.

GMS, Inc. 10559 Metropolitan Avenue

Kensington, MD 20895

Phone: 800-933-3501

Fax: 301-933-3502

E-mail: service@gmsactg.com

In Memoriam Linda J. Berseth 1951-2014

It is with the heaviest of hearts that we announce the death of Linda Berseth, former President/CEO, on December 28, 2014.

In addition to family and friends, Linda leaves behind an al-most endless list of lives she touched in her 29+ years of em-ployment with GMS. She dedicated a large portion of her life to the company and was responsible, in no small part, for the successful business it is today.

The support and guidance Linda gave to both GMS staff and our clients was a mixture of knowledge and compassion. For that, we will always be grateful.

Linda used the term “GMS family” quite frequently. Those of us who knew her, knew she felt that to her very core.

As we say farewell to Linda, she will forever be in our hearts, never to be for-gotten.

Rest in peace…..

Page 2 NEWS FROM GMS A PUBLICATION FOR GMS CLIENTS VOLUME 27 NO. 1

Ten Fun Facts About Denver

Denver is the nation’s most highly educated city with the highest percent-age of college graduates.

Denver brews more beer than any other American city.

Denver was named the “thinnest” city in Ameri-ca according to the Na-tional Cancer Society

Denver receives 300+ days of sunshine per year

Denver has the largest city park system in the nation with 205 parks in the city limits and 20,000 acres of parks in the near-by mountains.

Denver has the highest percentage of “Baby Boomers” of any major U.S. city.

Denver really is a mile high.

Denver International Air-port (DEN), which has been lauded as the best and most on-time airport in the United States, co-vers twice as much land area as Manhattan

Colfax Avenue in Denver is the longest continuous street in America.

The 13th step of the state capitol building in Den-ver is exactly 1 mile above sea level.

RLSS - IRS Reporting for Acquisition or Abandonment of Secured Property and/or Cancellation of Debt

Following are excerpts from IRS Instructions for Forms 1099-A and 1099-C. If you believe you are required to complete these forms, please consult the IRS website for complete instructions. The IRS requires these forms to be filed by January 31.

File “Form 1099-A, Acquisition or Abandonment of Secured Property”, for each borrower if you lend money in connection with your trade or business and, in full or partial satisfaction of the debt, you acquire an interest in the property that is security for the debt, or you have reason to know that the property has been abandoned.

If, in the same calendar year, you cancel a debt of $600 or more in connection with a foreclosure or abandonment of secured property, it is not necessary to file both Form 1099-A and Form 1099-C, Cancellation of Debt, for the same debtor. You may file Form 1099-C only.

File “Form 1099-C, Cancellation of Debt”, for each debtor for whom you cancelled a debt owed to you of $600 or more if an identifiable event has occurred, and you are one of the following:

1. A financial institution described in section 581 or 591(a). 2. A credit union. 3. Any of the following or a subunit of one of the following:

a. Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, b. Resolution Trust Corporation, c. National Credit Union Administration, d. Any other federal executive agency, including government corporations, e. Any military department, f. U.S. Postal Service, or g. Postal Rate Commission.

4. A corporation that is a subsidiary of a financial institution or credit union, but only if, because of your affiliation, you are subject to supervision and examination by a federal or state regulatory agency.

5. A Federal Government agency including: a. A department, b. An agency, c. A court or court administrative office, or d. An instrumentality in the judicial or legislative branch of the government.

6. Any organization whose significant trade or business is the lending of money, such as a finance company or credit card company (whether or not affiliated with a financial institution). The lending of money is a significant trade or business if money is lent on a regular and continuing basis.

Continued on page 3

Present versions of Software are: Accounting 1.2.298 RLSS 1.0.0.11

Please join us as we celebrate our 30th Annual Summit,

June 2015 in Denver, Colorado.

READ MORE HERE

Off-Site Accounting Services Available GMS offers a wide variety of off-site services for our clients. Two of the more popular ones are year-end assistance and training on a specific feature or procedure in GMS. However, there are also other areas in which we may be of assistance. As you know, bank reconciliations being done timely are critical in order to produce accurate financial reports. Other accounts on the Balance Sheet are not to be taken lightly either. Not having your Accounts Payable Analysis reconciled to your General Ledger or not knowing the detail behind any asset or liability account on your Bal-ance Sheet can have a dramatic impact on your financial reports. One of the services we offer is to reconcile these accounts for your agency. We know that there can be a variety of reasons that these reconciliations may have gotten behind. Why not let us help you get current with your procedures? We are also available to create some of the more involved Report Writer exercises for you. Don’t wait until your fiscal year ends to request these services. Should you require off-site assistance in any of these areas, please contact us at service@gmsactg.com to schedule these services.

Page 3 NEWS FROM GMS A PUBLICATION FOR GMS CLIENTS VOLUME 27 NO. 1

TOYS AND BOOKS FOR THE KIDS, SUPPLIES FOR OUR TROOPS

At our recent staff meeting in Crystal City, Virginia, we gathered books to be donated to Ft. Myer Child Development Center, toys to help the children at The Campagna Center and personal grooming supplies sent to the Wounded Warrior Project in Jacksonville, Florida. Below are photos of some of our staff having fun sorting these donations.

Top left: Yongling Xin, Software Engineer; Marilee Floener, RLSS Director/Service & Support Specialist; Rod Jones, Implementation & Training Manager. Bottom left: Era Williams, Director of Sales & Marketing; Deann Hasbrouck, Implementation & Training Manager. Left center: Robin Berseth, Events & Technology Director; Sara Drury, Director of Administrative Operations; Deann Hasbrouck. Right center: Duane Scott, Administrative Operations. Top right: Sara Drury; Ann Dragoo, Director of Service & Support. Bottom right: Kim Cosentino, Service & Support Specialist.

Employer-Sponsored Health Coverage

The Affordable Care Act requires employers to report the cost of coverage under an employer-sponsored group health plan. Report-ing the cost of health care coverage on the Form W-2 does not mean that the coverage is taxable. The value of the employer’s ex-cludable contribution to health coverage continues to be excludable from an employee's income, and it is not taxable. This reporting is for informational purposes only and will provide employees useful and comparable consumer information on the cost of their health care coverage.

Employers that provide "applicable employer-sponsored coverage" under a group health plan are subject to the reporting requirement. This includes businesses, tax-exempt organizations, and federal, state and local government entities (except with respect to plans maintained primarily for members of the military and their families). However, federally recognized Indian tribal governments are not subject to this requirement.

To assist you with this reporting requirement the GMS accounting software has a box located under Payroll, Employee, Employee En-try, Personal Data tab. In this box, you will enter the amount of em-ployer paid health insurance per pay period. For example, if the em-ployer’s cost of health insurance for an employee is $400 per month and that employee is paid semi-monthly, you would enter $200. You would not enter any amount paid via payroll deduction by the em-ployee. These amounts will accumulate in a table and will then print in box 12 on the employee’s W-2 form. For more information, please consult the Help Manual or the IRS website at http://www.irs.gov/Affordable-Care-Act/Form-W-2-Reporting-of-Employer-Sponsored-Health-Coverage.

RLSS - IRS Reporting for Acquisition or Abandonment of Secured Property and/or Cancellation of Debt

Continued from page 2 Although most RLSS users are not included in the above descriptions, you as a lender have the op-tion of voluntarily submitting 1099-Cs. This can be useful in your collection process related to bad debts. When your agency has recognized a loan as a bad debt, and charged off the principal balance, you can then submit a 1099-C at the end of the year. Once you have issued a 1099-C to a debtor, you cannot actively pursue collection, but you can re-ceive voluntary contributions from the debtor. If the debt was cancelled for reasons other than bankruptcy, the amount of the charge off may be-come taxable income for the debtor, which can in turn become an incentive for repayment. A note of caution: Reporting charged off loans on 1099-Cs should only be done when all avenues of collection have been exhausted. Because the cancelled debt is reported to IRS as potential income, any future recoveries toward that loan must be voluntary.

Page 4 NEWS FROM GMS A PUBLICATION FOR GMS CLIENTS VOLUME 27 NO. 1

UPCOMING WEBINARS COST ALLOCATION SUPPLEMENTS February 18, 2015 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

This Webinar will review the logic and mechanics of cost allocation. Topics will be discussed such as why, in certain cases, cost allocation can give a more accurate representation than direct charging. All GMS cost allocation supplements will be re-viewed from their initial setup to the end result. Webinar will include: Monthly Cost Center Allocations Dual Indirect Cost Pool Shift Indirect Costs

Service Unit Allocation Special Allocation/Internal Base Cost Allocation Locks Consolidated Cost Allocation Detail

LEARN MORE

REPORT WRITER April 22, 2015 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

Report Writer is a tool that allows you to create re-ports from a database mining perspective. This webinar will cover the basics of a database struc-ture and the relationship between tables and que-ries. Step by step instructions will be given as you are walked through the process of generating a re-port. Two samples will be used during this training. The first will be a basic exercise to generate a simple report. The second will be a more complex report that links multiple tables and adds expressions to the result fields. Canned exercises that are currently available to all GMS clients will also be reviewed.

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day.”

~Edith Lovejoy Pierce

LEARN MORE

Service orders via email

As you know, GMS strives to provide the best possi-ble service and support to our clients. To help us manage our service, we record all service calls from clients and our responses in our client tracking sys-tem. In order to make sure everything is recorded and nothing is overlooked, please make sure that if you send an email about a service issue it is sent to service@gmsactg.com. This will assure it is logged in properly. Even if you have been working with a particular service and support staff regarding an on-going issue, please send the email to the above ad-dress rather than directly to GMS staff. Feel free to reference in your email that you have been working with a particular person. This will help us provide the best service possible. Thank you.

GMS Welcomes Jie Chen We are excited to introduce the latest member of the GMS team! Jie (pronounced Jay) Chen began with GMS as a Software Developer on November 23, 2014. He comes to us with over 8 years of experience in Financial Software Development and has already proven to be an asset to the company. His talents and hands-on experience will help GMS continue to be one of the top software developers for non-profit Accounting and Revolving Loan soft-ware! Everyone here welcomes Jie and we look for-ward to having you meet him at the GMS Summit 2015 in Denver, CO in June 2015.