PowerChurch Software Newsletter - Summer/Fall 2015

Welcome to a special combined Summer/Fall 2015 issue of the PowerChurch Software Newsletter. The recurring theme in this issue is Newness. We've got a new training video series, newly redesigned features in the program, new Knowledge Base articles, and even a new Windows version released!

Announcing New Custom Reports Training Videos

We recently published the 11th online training video series: Custom Reports. This video series is two and a half hours long and covers everything from A to Z in the Custom Report Writer. Your purchase of this online training video series includes a year of unlimited streaming access by anyone in your organization, as well as a download of a PDF booklet that details the most common functions and operators used in custom reports. It also includes step by step instructions to create all of the different report examples that were used in this training video series.

If you aren't familiar with all of the other training video series available, visit www.powerchurch.com/training/videos for more information.

Announcing Redesigned Vanco Payment Solutions Integration

We have recently published a Maintenance Release update in Version 11.55 of PowerChurch Plus and in PowerChurch Online that more directly integrates with Vanco Payment Solutions in Contributions. With this update, we now connect directly to the Vanco servers, downloading your contributions into the program. The original file import is still available, if you prefer to use it, or if you are using some provider other than Vanco. Aside from eliminating the file import process, another benefit of the new Vanco import is that when you have a new contributor sign up through Vanco, PowerChurch will remember the link to their ID number, so you no longer need to manually assign envelope numbers on the Vanco site.

But that's not all!

The biggest problem that we hear about is when you accept bank drafts and credit card transactions, it is difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with the bank statement at the end of the month. Not only are the dates of the contributions different than the deposit dates, but there are also fees charged by the credit card companies and the payment processing service, which make the amounts different as well.

PowerChurch now downloads not only your contributions, but also gets all the other necessary information to keep the accounting side of the transactions straight. With the redesigned Import From Vanco process, you will have both the contribution date and the deposit date, which are used separately by Contributions and Accounting. It also gets the associated credit card fees from each transaction, so you will see those expenses on the Accounting side and everything will line up on the Reconcile Bank Accounts screen just as it happened in the real world.

We have published an article in the Knowledge Base that explains the process and how to get started using it today:

www.powerchurch.com/support/444/1/vanco-payment-solutions-integration

For more information about Vanco and how they can help PowerChurch users, visit https://vancopayments.com/egiving/powerchurch.

Background Checks With Protect My Ministry

We have recently published two new articles in the Knowledge Base on our web site. Each explains the process of requesting background checks through Protect My Ministry. One details the setup and process on the PowerChurch side, and the other covers the rest of the process, which happens on the Protect My Ministry site. The articles are linked below.

Using Protect My Ministry for Background Checks

Windows 10 Compatibility

In the months prior to the release of Windows 10, we had several informal testing sessions with various Tech Preview releases. Earlier in the summer, once the official release date was upon us, we had an organized mass testing session with all of our support and development staff and went through every screen and process in PowerChurch Plus, Online, and Check In and verified that there were no compatibility issues to speak of in PowerChurch Plus Versions 10.4 and higher.

Since the official release of Windows 10, we have had user reports of problems sending e-mail with SSL security in Windows 10. This was a very limited problem, with very few people affected, but for those that were, there was not a work-around. Taking that into consideration we integrated a completely new e-mail control in PowerChurch Plus Version 11.55 (Version 11.1 will soon follow) that resolves issue for the few that were experiencing it and to protect the rest of you from having that problem in the future.

Unfortunately, Versions 10.4 and prior of PowerChurch Plus are no longer under maintenance and therefore did not receive this update. Because it is a problem that currently affects so few people, we will not be removing Version 10.4 from the current Windows Compatibility list. However, in the future, it may be necessary to do so if it becomes a widespread problem.

Another side effect of the new e-mail component is that it is not compatible with Windows 98 or ME, so those older Windows versions have now been removed from the compatibility list for PowerChurch Plus Version 11.55 (with Version 11.1 soon to follow).

Windows Compatibility details for all PowerChurch Software products can be found in the Knowledge Base article linked below.

www.powerchurch.com/support/416/1/powerchurch-products-windows-compatibility

Forum Q&A

The Support Forum on our web site is a very active online community of our users and Tech Support staff members. There you can browse through thousands of questions and answers, or post your own.

From Membership:
Q. I need to run a report of phone numbers, both mobile and home, but can't seem to find the right report for this.
A. Membership > Personal Profiles > Reports - Personal Profiles > Selected Names, Addresses, Phones. You'll be given the option to filter out members from non-members, and also what will be displayed on the report.

From PowerChurch Online:
Q. When I attempt to upload pictures to Power Church I am getting this error. "This operation as been canceled due to restrictions in effect on this computer. Please contact your system administrator." I am the system administrator and I use my personal computer for my church work.
A. When browsing to the picture file to import, be sure you are browsing on drive letters M and higher. Those are the drives on your computer. Don't click the standard Windows Desktop or My Documents links, because those are the folders on our server that you don't have access to.

From General:
Q. Can data be shared between computers with the same version of PowerChurch installed? In other words, if one person in the office enters data into PowerChurch then copies the data to a CD, can another person in the office use the CD to update data on their computer without wiping out all previous data.
A. Why not just network the systems, it doesn't cost anything extra. I'm assuming that in this day and age, your office is networked to share the internet access, and that works to everyone's advantage here. The instructions for networking are in this Knowledge Base article: www.powerchurch.com/networking