Cogitate Inc Newsletters Here you can find archives of our newsletters and other important information. 1 April April 2014 Newsletter By PFA Admin news 0 Comment Checkless Payments Pro Fund Accounting offers checkless payment options for both Payroll and Accounts Payable. In Payroll we have the Direct Deposit option, which create a text file for your bank. This file contains all the employee information necessary to transfer funds from your bank account to theirs. You can also provide your employees with a copy of their check electronically. All of the reports (PR JOURNAL, PR GROSS and NET, PR EFTPS, etc.) are still available. To use the PR Direct Deposit you first have to contact your bank and get the program set up with them. Then, in PR Deductions Maintenance, set up a Deduction Code DD, with a name of Direct Deposit, a Calc Type 21, and a Calc Order 99. Finally, in Employee Maintenance, set up the Deduction Code DD for each employee in the program. Enter their Bank Account # in the Direct Deposit Acct# field, and their banks Routing # in the Direct Deposit Routing# field, with a C for checking or an S for savings. After the payroll is calculated, run the Payroll Direct Deposit program to create the file for your bank. Accounts Payable is handled a little differently. We do not create a text file for your bank. Most banks have an eBill Pay option. Once you have this setup with your bank, it’s just a matter of checking the EFTP box in Vender Maintenance. This will flag the payments as being made electronically. You can generate reports for your venders notifying them that a payment has been made. The APPOST and APPAY procedures are not affected. Read Full April 2014 Newsletter Checkless Payments Pro Fund Accounting offers checkless payment options for both Payroll and Accounts Payable. In Payroll we have the Direct Deposit option, which create a text file for your bank. This file contains all the employee information necessary to transfer funds from your bank account to theirs. You can also provide your employees with a copy of their check electronically. All of the reports (PR JOURNAL, PR GROSS and NET, PR EFTPS, etc.) are still available. To use the PR Direct Deposit you first have to contact your bank and get the program set up with them. Then, in PR Deductions Maintenance, set up a Deduction Code DD, with a name of Direct Deposit, a Calc Type 21, and a Calc Order 99. Finally, in Employee Maintenance, set up the Deduction Code DD for each employee in the program. Enter their Bank Account # in the Direct Deposit Acct# field, and their banks Routing # in the Direct Deposit Routing# field, with a C for checking or an S for savings. After the payroll is calculated, run the Payroll Direct Deposit program to create the file for your bank. Accounts Payable is handled a little differently. We do not create a text file for your bank. Most banks have an eBill Pay option. Once you have this setup with your bank, it’s just a matter of checking the EFTP box in Vender Maintenance. This will flag the payments as being made electronically. You can generate reports for your venders notifying them that a payment has been made. The APPOST and APPAY procedures are not affected. Read Full April 2014 Newsletter Attached Files April 2014 Newsletter 952.77 KB Related Articles October 2014 Newsletter The Death of Windows XP In our March 2014 newsletter we shared with you that Microsoft was ending support for Windows XP on April 8th, 2014. Now that we are past this date, we are want to remind all our customers to budget an upgrade to all their computers still running Windows XP. This then raises the question should I go to Windows 7 or Windows 8.1. Cogitate supports both Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 at this time. We are developing everything new with Windows 8.1 and then making sure it will still work on Windows 7. We recommend that you attempt to upgrade to Windows 8.1, but if your hardware is not compatible, then upgrade to Windows 7. Read Full October 2014 Newsletter March 2014 Newsletter Customizing UtilAbility Central As we discussed in a previous newsletter, the UtilAbility Central form is the gateway to your data within UtilAbility. From time to time we may spotlight some of the unique features available in the UtilAbility Central form. This month we will discuss the ability to customize the default look and layout of the data fields that are displayed within UtilAbility Central. When you purchase UtilAbility, the UtilAbility Central form will default to display all the fields that are available on each tab. The column headings for the fields are the actual field names as they are defined within the database. The columns that we thought you might be most interested in are displayed first. Finally, the Sort/ Search Fields on each tab default to the field that we think you might most often want to search by. These are the defaults, but you can certainly change any of these to better suit your needs. To customize any list, you can right-click on that list and choose Customize Grid Display or hit Ctrl-G when that list is displayed to open the Customize Grid form. This form lets you select which fields will be displayed in the list and the order in which they will appear. You can even change the column header for each field and the width that will be used for that field column. When you click OK, your settings will become the new defaults that will be used whenever the UtilAbility Central form is opened. To change the default Sort/Search Field for any list, you can select the Search Field and Sort Order that you want by clicking the column header for any field. Subsequent clicks will reverse the Sort Order. Once you have it set the way you want, you can right-click on that list and choose Save Sort/Search Field as Default or hit Ctrl-S and your current Sort/Search Field will become the new default that will be used for that list whenever it is displayed. Please note that these settings will not change your data in any way. They simply change the way you view your data in the UtilAbility Central form. So if you wish to make a change, go ahead and give it a try. As always, for additional information about Customizing UtilAbility Central, please see the UtilAbility Help Documentation or contact the Cogitate support staff. Read Full March 2014 Newsletter January 2014 Newsletter PFA Works and You! We are very pleased to let you know our first version of PFA Works has made it to the Microsoft Store and is now available as a free download; however, this is only one part of the product. The other parts are still under review by our testers. Roscommon and Wexford County Road Commissions agreed to help us design and test PFA Works, so feel free to give them a call to see how it is going. We wanted to fully release the product in 2013, but the holidays and year-end stuff have gobbled up the time; therefore, we will be hosting a webinar to showcase PFA Works in January 2014. You will all receive a special invitation to the webinar through email. Finally, we would like to offer all of you the chance to help us. If you would like to start using PFA Works now, please contact George Loescher at 866-634-9991 extension 9. Read Full January 2014 Newsletter June 2014 Newsletter PFA Works June Update We have been busy making enhancements to PFA Works which will help make the timecard process more efficient. Here are the enhancements that we made since last month’s newsletter: We made the size of the Equipment and Inventory grids bigger, so the grids can hold more items. On the Timecard Entry screen, we added the ability for PFA Works to automatically select the timecard information for an existing timecard. When you add a timecard entry, PFA Works will now automatically select the entry you just added. So now you won’t have to add a timecard entry and then tap on it again before entering information for that entry. We added the ability to enter mileage information for equipment. If this is something that you would like to use, the only requirement is that you setup a mileage preventive maintenance schedule in Pro Fund Accounting for each piece of equipment that you track mileage for. When the supervisor approves a timecard entry that includes mileage for an employee, the mileage information will be automatically added to the piece of equipment in Pro Fund Accounting. On the Equipment and Inventory screens, if you try to add an item that was already added; PFA Works will now automatically highlight the added item. This makes it clearer that the item was already added to the timecard. If you are interested in learning more about how PFA Works can streamline your road commission’s timecard entry process, please visit www.profundaccounting.com/pfaworks. If you are interested in purchasing PFA Works, please contact George Loescher at president@cogitateinc.com. Read Full June 2014 Newsletter April 2015 Newsletter Spring Is In the Air, Time For Spring Cleaning Spring is in the air and it is time for a good spring cleaning. These words my mother would say the first warmer day in April. And sure enough I was voluntold (forcibly volunteered) to open and clean all the windows from the top of the house to the bottom. Inevitably during the cleaning we would hear the words "how did this place get so dirty?" And of course nobody dared to suggest any answer to my Mom for fear of extra chores. When it comes to viruses and malware for your PC, I hear the same question many times, "How did I get infected?" I will try to answer that by giving the 9 easiest ways to get infected. 1.Simply click on any links. Simply clicking on any links without proper investigation will result you in having the risk of accessing either a malicious site or phishing site. Any of those are not good and you stand a high chance to get your computer infected, especially if you click on incoming links from unknown user. 2. Never perform software update. Attackers sometimes can make use of your out-dated software which consists of certain vulnerabilities to attack your computer and gain full control of it. A very good example is Adobe Flash player, your web browser, or any other application that has the potential to go out to the internet, and it stands a very high chance to get infected. As a result, just go on without updating your software and the attacker will find the vulnerability to penetrate where the attacker will then gain full access to your computer and plant a Trojan there. 3. Turning off automatic Windows update. Turning off the automatic Windows update is like turning off a security feature. Making your Windows update automatically means getting the latest security patch automatically as well. If you want to get infected, just don’t update your Windows and by 2-3 months’ time, you should be able to see the list of Windows vulnerability that you have. 4. No antivirus installed. If you still do not have any antivirus installed, I would like to know how you can tell if your computer is infected with a virus? How are you going to disinfect them? Antivirus software today can come as cheap as free and there is no reason for you not to install one. Let’s put it this way, antivirus software is like a security guard, do you see any banks operate without at least one security guard? 5. No firewall installed. A Firewall is not an antivirus. If you owned an antivirus and treating it like a firewall, then you might be wrong. A firewall is best at preventing and not disinfecting. Firewalls today can also come as cheap as free. Since we have a security guard as antivirus, firewall is going to be things that can prevent theft such as a solid steel door, CCTV, and good alarm system. As a result, if you don’t have a firewall, you are just welcoming the Malware to your computer. 6. Executing unknown file without scanning. When you download a file from somewhere or receive a file from your friend, do you run a scan on the file before executing it? How sure are you that the file you are about to execute is not malicious? Scanning just one file or two does not hurt and it should be done whenever you want to execute them especially when you just received a file. If you want to get yourself infected, download more files randomly from the internet and launch them without a proper virus scan. 7. Do not have a regular full system scan. Even human body needs regular medical checkup from time to time to know the condition of your health. The same goes for your computer…it needs to be scanned regularly so that you will know your own computer is Malware-free or not. Malware today does not have to be active 24×7. Most of them hide themselves and you can’t detect them until you scan your computer. As a result, scan your computer at least once a week to tell the Malware that the hide and seek game is over. 8. Do not read error messages. I realized that there are some users who somehow can read a long error message in less than a second. They are fantastic speed readers, aren’t they? No, they aren’t. They just ignore those error messages and click OK without reading them. If you do not know what is going wrong on the site you are visiting, you might just be visiting an unsafe site. They might have some security feature turned off and you did not realize because you didn’t read the error message. So now, do you want to spend your one minute to read the error message or just don’t read them and think that you are too smart to know everything? 9. Ignoring error messages. For some of the users who read error messages, but are somewhat stubborn or have no concern for their security, they just continue their browsing as usual. This happens commonly when the website is trying to tell you that the site that you are visiting has HTTPS connection error. This could lead to either the certificate had already expired or the web address had been compromised. That is why the Certificate Authority revoked the web certificate so that it can warn you all about the compromised event. However, many users just ignore them and don’t give a piece of concern at all on the HTTPS issue and just visit. Do remember that if you are visiting a non-HTTPS site, it means your communication channel is not encrypted! Credit: Alan Tay Read Full April 2015 Newsletter May 2014 Newsletter Setting Up New City/Township Budgets Before you sit down to enter your new budget figures, run a BUDGET WORKSHEET report for your current budget. Pencil in your new budget amounts, and use this as your data entry document. There are two ways for cities/townships to create a new budget in the ProFund Accounting software. First, you can simply go to GLPOST, change your SOE to BGT, set your effective date to the first day of your new fiscal year, and enter each account number and budget amount. Remember, Revenues go in with a (-) sign If you don’t want to enter all those account numbers, we have a utility for you. To access the utility: * Go to UTILITIES. * On the left side, four down, you will find CREATE EMPTY BUDGET JOURNAL. * Click on this, put a check mark in REV & EXP, set your fiscal year start date, and click OK. * Next, go to GLPOST, change the SOE to BGT, and click on the folder next to the JOURNAL NBR field. The top journal should be highlighted. Click OK and OK. * You will find a journal with all of your Revenue and Expense account numbers, with zero amounts. Click on the first account number, click on EDIT, enter the budget amount, and SAVE. Do this for all of your revenue and expense accounts. * If there are numbers here that you don’t use, just click on them and select DEL IND. * If you need additional numbers, click on NEW and set them up. It may be helpful to set up all GENERAL FUND accounts and get that to balance, before you move on to the FIRE FUND, ROAD FUND, WATER FUND, or whatever funds you may have. Read Full May 2014 Newsletter Comments are closed.