PowerChurch Software Newsletter - Year End 2018 Part 1

Welcome to the first issue of two year-end 2018 newsletters. In this issue, we're highlighting some more new features added in Version 12 and we've got some state-specific tax table and filing updates.

Year-End Sale - Two Free Months of PowerChurch Online Service

Every year, PowerChurch Software has a year-end sale for new users which runs from November 1 to January 31. This year, for the first time, we are extending this offer to existing PowerChurch Plus desktop users as well. For new or existing PowerChurch Plus desktop users signing up for PowerChurch Online for the first time during this sale period, we are adding two free months to your monthly or yearly subscription period.

PowerChurch Online is an installation of PowerChurch Plus which resides on our servers that is accessed remotely from across the internet. It's PC and Mac compatible! For more information about PowerChurch Online, including pricing & ordering, visit https://www.powerchurch.com/products/pconline

Version 12 Highlight - Changes to Accounting Months

Some of the biggest changes in Version 12 are related to the concept of Accounting Months in Fund Accounting. In prior versions, once you close a month, it is closed permanently and you can't post any new transactions. Version 12 has removed that limitation by adding the Reopen a Closed Month utility.

Also, prior versions would only allow you to have up to 12 or 18 months open at a time. In Version 12, you can now have an unlimited number of months open at a time. This allows you to leave months open as long as necessary to make sure the ending balances are correct.

State-Specific Tax Updates

Recent Maintenance Release updates for Versions 11.55 and 12 have added support for some state-specific changes:

• Iowa BEN. The Accounts Payable electronic filing of 1099-MISC forms now also prompts for the BEN (Business E-file Number). The W2 electronic filing process was already updated last tax year with this functionality. Both areas now save the IA BEN in the database, so that it won't prompt for it again next year.
• Ohio Deduction Multiplier. A bug was reported earlier this year that the OH state tax tables in PowerChurch don't allow for the deduction multiplier, a number (currently 1.112) that the calculated deduction amount needs to be multiplied by. https://www.powerchurch.com/support/122/1/how-do-i-update-my-ohio-tax-tables
• Oregon State Transit Tax. As mentioned in the summer newsletter, you can track the Oregon State Transit Tax as an "Other Deduction". The software will now ask which items were used to track this tax when you are ready to generate the W2s in Payroll.
• Utah State Tax Tables. Utah updated the tax calculation method mid-year in 2018. The change was simply to remove the concept of withholding allowances. A workaround for this change was simply to mark each employee with 0 withholding allowances. Now, there are both Pre 5/2018 and Post 5/2018 Utah state tax tables. PowerChurch will alert you of the new tax table format by warning that the old tables are still in use. https://www.powerchurch.com/support/128/1/how-do-i-update-my-utah-tax-tables

Forum Q&A

The Support Forum on our website 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 General:

Q. If I sit at our server and do a single email to a Personal Profile record, it brings up Outlook and all is fine. At my own desktop, if I email to a Profile, it brings up the Chrome browser.

A. That functionality is just telling your Windows computer to send an e-mail using the default program that is registered to send e-mail. Since it is opening Chrome, I'm guessing it is expecting you to log in to Gmail or something. If you have Outlook or some other actual e-mail client software installed, just make sure it is set in Windows to be the default program to handle e-mail.

From Accounting:

Q. How do you reconcile transactions that are posted in the correct working month, but dated for a future month. The transaction shows up in the unreconciled Check Register report, but I cannot seem to get to it to clear it.

A. On the reconcile screen, uncheck the box that says "Only show items dated before statement date".

From Contributions:

Q. I am new to PowerChurch and I need to know how to enter a donation and it show up on the contribution statement at the end of the year without it showing as cash income?

A. If this was a donation of goods, the advice of the IRS is that the church does not put a monetary amount on any receipt, but to issue a receipt acknowledging the gift that includes the name of the church, the date of the contribution or gift, and the description of the item. I would send this on church letterhead, and keep a copy for your records. This eliminates the need for having to figure out how to put such gifts in PowerChurch, and fully follows the IRS rules for non-cash contributions.