Tales From Tech 2 - Issue: 25

Well, it's almost that time of year again.

Spring...

Spring is a wonderful season of renewal and new life and I was so happy this morning to cast off the old, gray clothes and get out the shorts and the short sleeve shirts again. I could feel that it was time to throw off those winter coats and open up the windows to let the warm breeze flow in.

Then I woke up.

Well, it's not spring, but it's certainly not too early to start thinking ahead and one of the things that many church secretaries are probably already thinking about right now is closing the Accounting Year in PowerChurch Plus (and if they aren't, they probably should be). I know it's certainly the only thing that's been on my mind for weeks now.

Anyway, thinking about whether the light stays on in the refrigerator after the door is closed reminded me of that old saying: Where there's smoke, you won't see the forest or the trees, because it's all smoky and stuff.

DOCUMENTS PAST AND PRESENT

Around the beginning of the year, I covered several topics relating to year end and I'm not planning on going through all of it again. There's not really anything in that previous volume that no longer holds true, so my plan is to make this short and to the point, since we all probably have other things that we need to be doing. (Yes, I'm talking to you. Get back to work!)

Because most everything you need to know has already been covered, the first thing I'll suggest is for you to go back and read Volume 21 of Tales From Tech 2. It is available here.

The next thing to do is to read our "Closing the Accounting Year" document. Even though it covers many of the same topics as Volume 21 of Tales From Tech 2, there may be a little bit more detail on some of the topics, so go ahead and give it a read, when you have the time. It is available here. Study it. Live it. Love it. It will be your friend and you will be the recipient of its glorious and bountiful joy.

REMINDERS

Most of the following information is probably already covered in one of the documents above. In fact, it's probably in both of them, but I've been known to repeat myself to repeat myself and so here's the important stuff one more time:

Don't forget to make more than one backup before you close the year. In fact, you should make at least 46 or 47 backups. (Okay, I'm just kidding, but you actually might want to make 3 or 4 and keep one of them in a safe or in Al Capone's vault or something like that.)

Make sure to download and install the latest Maintenance Release for your version (if necessary) before closing the year. (To verify whether you need to download the latest Maintenance Release or to actually download it, just go to http://www.powerchurch.com/mr/. Maintenance Releases for Versions 6.2 and higher are available there.)

Don't eat raw chicken!

If you are using PowerChurch Plus Version 8 or higher and you want to create new pledges for 2004, then ADD the new pledge records. DO NOT change the dates on existing pledges.

The tax tables in PowerChurch Plus are user maintained. That means that you change them yourself whenever they change, so don't sit by the door for weeks on end, waiting for the mailman or mailwoman to bring you a disk or a CD with updated tax tables on it, because you'll just end up starving to death. Just bring up the tables you need to change under the Maintain Tax Tables screen, make your changes and save the record. (By the way, we have a document in the Answer Archive section of our web site that explains in detail how to update your tax tables. In addition, there are also links there to the federal publications and state revenue web sites for the tables you'll need. The Answer Archive is at http://www.powerchurch.com/support/answers/.)

THE END (ALMOST)

Well, I guess that's about it for today's volume. I hope you enjoyed it.

ON MY WAY TO WHERE THE AIR IS SWEET

Today's newsletter was brought to you by the letters C, U, S, T, O, M, R, E, P, O, R, T, T, U, T, O, R, I, A and L and the numbers 3, 9, 9 and 5.

I've had suggestions in the past about doing a Tales From Tech 2 on Custom Reports, but why recreate the wheel? We have a wonderful, multimedia tutorial for just $39.95 (US). It's all about Custom Reports and you can read all about it by going to http://www.powerchurch.com/cr/.