Timberline Users Group Welcomes Meeting Expectations

News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
November 2010
Timberline Users Group Welcomes
Meeting Expectations
T
Timberline Users Group Welcomes
Meeting Expectations.....................1
Webinars, Resources and TUG Talk: Are ...
You Making TUG Work for You?.......2
Your Contact Information is an Asset That .
Takes Time and Care to Manage.....3
Make Good Use of Print to File and You’ll
Save a Good Deal of Paper.............6
With the Right Setup, You’ve
Got A Service Management-
Payroll Team...................................7
Merging Estimates Makes
Adjustments Easy...........................8
The “Employee vs. Independent
Contractor” Challenge....................9
The Whys and Hows of Saving the
(T) and Menu Versions of
Report Templates.........................10
Stay Current and Make Those
Old Leases History........................12
Who’s On First? Who’s Using What........14
he Board of Directors would like to
announce that Meeting Expectations,
Inc., an association management
company based in Atlanta, has been retained
to serve as the new administrator for TUG.
Meeting Expectations serves
a variety of association
and non-profits, including
technology user groups.
Meeting
Expectations
will facilitate conference
planning
and
various
association management
functions for our group.
With this change in administration,
our membership will have the support
of a management company that can
apply experiences it has gained serving
organizations of all sizes for over 20 years.
With Meeting Expectations, we’ve selected
a management company with vast
experience assisting user groups
to achieve optimal success. They
have been serving the Oracle
Applications Users Group since
1992. Meeting Expectations
is accredited by the American
Society of Association Executives,
demonstrating it delivers its
services at an extremely high
standard. This transition will
allow us to continue to provide outstanding
support and services to the users of Sage
Timberline Office software.
TUG MEMBERS UPDATE YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION
TUG administration has a new home. Please make sure to update
your contact listing with the new address, phone numbers,
fax number and e-mail address.
Timberline Users Group
3525 Piedmont Road
Building Five, Suite 300
Atlanta, GA 30305
Toll Free #: 1-866-846-0999
Direct #: 1-404-760-8171
Fax #: 1-404-240-0998
e-mail: [email protected]
November 2010
News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
Webinars, Resources and TUGTalk: Are
You Making TUG Work for You?
by: Eire Stewart,
JP DiNapoli Companies, Inc.
Published by the
Timberline Users Group, Inc.
and sent to all members.
Board of Directors
T
imberline Users Groups hosts a
fabulous Annual Conference and puts
out a great Newsletter but did you
know that TUG has a whole lot more to
offer? Webinars, a Resource Library of user
designed STO reports and import templates
and nearly immediate access to problem
resolution via TUGTalk are just three of the
many benefits that TUG provides.
Webinars:
TUG hosts an ongoing selection of Webinar
education. These hour long session are
available for free to TUG Members! These
webinars are taught by Session
Leaders selected from a talented
pool of expert end users and
STO certified consultants. In
addition to our day long YearEnd Closing Webinar scheduled
for December 2nd, upcoming
topics include PJ Owner Change
Orders, Using Projection Fields in
Financial Statement and TUG’s
monthly Product Committee
Forums for each major module.
Webinars are held on Webex
and 25 seats are available for
each webinar. The schedule of
Webinar offerings is posted on
TUGWeb.com under [Memberto-Member Benefits], [Online
Events Calendar], [Training
Calendar]. To sign-up, simply
e-mail [email protected] with
the date and webinar you wish
to take.
Resource Library:
Why recreate the wheel? If you need it,
chances are someone else does too and has
already designed a report that you can simply
tweak a little bit to make it work for you.
the TUG Pulse
Take advantage of a wide variety of reports
designed by other STO users as well as tried
and proved Import Templates for everything
from GL Journal Entries to Account Payable
Invoices, Direct Job Costs and Estimates.
All of these can be downloaded by logging
into TUGweb.com and clicking on [Resource
Library].
TUGTalk:
Whether you are looking for information
on third party imaging solutions, a quick
processing tip to make a task work better or
have run into an error that you can resolve,
TUGTalk can get you quick
feedback. Sorted into 22
categories by module
or topics such as ODBC
or IT, TUGTalk allows
members to post queries
that are forwarded to
all members that have
indicated an interest
in that category. Most
queries get between 2
and 4 response within
24 hours.
A recent
example is a posting
by a user wanting to
produce an AR Aging
by Cost Center. Posted
at 9:03am, he had two
responses by 11:32am;
one suggesting specific
condition be added and
the other offering to
share their report.
In these economic times, we need all the help
we can get. Put all your resources to use by
making TUG work for you!
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Natalie Allen, President
Matt Weaver, Vice President
Jon Banse, Secretary
Julie Brown, Treasurer
Tim Cooke
Sharon Hessong
Kimberly Jordan
Barbara Morse
Toni Sykora
Lenni Witt
Robin Peterson
Denney Benedict
Publications Committee
Brent Cato
Julie Brown
David Brown
Sharon Hessong
Maeva Mayes
Liz Perez-Lavin
Val Steffen
Eire Stewart
Shanna Torges
Timberline Users Group
3525 Piedmont Road
Building Five, Suite 300
Atlanta, GA 30305
e-mail: [email protected]
Phone: 404.760.8171
Fax: 404.240.0998
Toll Free: 866.846.0999
e-mail
[email protected]
Web Site
www.TUGweb.com
News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
November 2010
Address Book:
Your Contact Information is an Asset
That Takes Time and Care to Manage
by: Robin Peterson
Marquette Real Estate Group
T
he Address Book module is the Contact
Relationship Management (CRM) function
of Sage Timberline Office. Because all
STO modules are integrated, every company
needs a process to add and to update contact
information—one of your company’s most
important business assets.
Here’s a comprehensive look at the ins and
outs of Address Book. Keep in mind: All Sage
Timberline Office modules are affected by the
Address Book.
STO Address Book Functions:
General Settings
Setup for Company
Setup for Contact(s)
STO modules and their Address Book
interfaces/features:
Estimating
Add on the fly or look up
Project Management
Contacts relate to Project Management
Buyout
Interfaces with Job Cost
Accounts Payable
Vendors
Accounts Receivable
Clients/Customers
Job Cost
Commitments: Purchase Orders/
Subcontracts
Setting Up a Company
Prior to setting up a new company, always do
a search. This will ensure that the company
doesn’t already exist in your Address Book.
When you select Find, you’re given three
options:
•
•
•
Company View lists all companies currently set up in your Address
Book, except for those companies
that are inactive.
Inactive View lists all companies
for which you’ve checked the
Inactive button.
Estimating Sub/Vendor View shows
the vendors set up in Estimating and
that currently have a sub number.
If you click the Options button, you can also
filter or change the Sort by function. If you’ve
set up Trade fields for your own company
and, during setup of a new contact checked
that contact’s box denoting its trade type, you
can then refine your search by using Filter by
to select a particular trade during a sort.
When using Sort by, you have two choices:
Company or Estimate Sub Number.
After your selections are made, the window
will allow you to begin typing the company
name using the best fit, either alpha by name
or numeric by estimate sub number.
Using the Setup Screen
Once you determine a particular company
isn’t in the database, you can begin to add
that as a new contact, using the Setup screen.
The Setup screen allows you to enter many
different fields for Location, Region, Type
and Sort As. All these features enable you
to use your contacts to refine your reporting
and marketing, such as locating contractors
in specific geographic areas or in specific
lines of business. For example, if you set your
own company’s locations as Midwest and
South, you can then sort contacts within your
targeted geographic regions, say for a mass
mailing throughout the Midwest. Or, you can
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sort by type of contact, such as architect.
The more information you enter, the more
flexibility you’ll have with your software. But
remember: garbage in/garbage out. Getting
the correct contact information up front gives
you many advantages and opportunities
down the road.
Sort As will pre-fill with the name you type
in, but you don’t have the option to change
this. When your team does a search, they’ll
see whatever you’ve entered as the Sort As
name. We’ve dealt with this at our company.
We have a sister company, United Properties
LLC, that staff calls UP. Our setup puts UP in
the Sort As list, but United Properties LLC is
listed in the Full Company Name field. If you
take this shortcut, use caution. Be sure your
team understands that the abbreviated name
is for the Sort As list only and that the full
name needs to be entered for use in reports
and all other communications.
The following are the setup functions and
fields:
Address: Four different address types are
allowed for each company.
Street: Physical location.
Shipping: Where items are shipped to.
Remittance: Where payments are made,
possibly a lock box address.
Other:
E-Mail Address:
Send Via: Print, FAX, or E-Mail.
NOTE: If you’re electing to go paperless,
set the default as E-Mail for the primary.
The E-Mail address will pre-fill when you’re
sending reports to that company. For example,
in my database TUG has the primary Send Via
as the e-mail address, [email protected].
o Continues
November 2010
News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
Now, whenever I select the Send feature on
a report to TUG, this address will pre-fill into
the E-Mail address.
USE As
This feature, located in the right-hand
button menu below Delete, is how you link
the company to the Estimating, Accounts
Payable, and Accounts Receivable modules.
I suggest you discuss with your accounting
staff, project managers, and estimators, etc.,
how you’re going to number companies in
the Address Book.
In our company, our Estimating and Accounts
Payable numbers are the same. When the
contact is a client or an owner, we use an
alpha system. But once a company is set up,
there’s a choice to add the basic information
for AR, AP and Estimating directly in the setup
so you can assign the number directly in the
set up for all applications in which you’ll need
the contact.
After clicking on USE As, select AP/AR/
Estimating. For AP a window will open and
you can enter the new number. Address and
other known details will pre-fill from the
company setup.
The Estimating Sub/Vendor USE As window
will open with a large number such as
9000098. You can use this default number.
Just remember, in order for your estimator to
see this new company, you have to set the
company to be used by Estimating as assign
a number. Numbers are the only option here,
so you will need a numeric system in place
for numbering.
For the AR customer, select Accounts Receivable
and enter the customer number. The details will
pre-fill from the company setup.
Contacts
You can have several different contacts for
one company, and these contacts will affect
many of your PJ documents. Most likely you’ll
be sending items such as meeting minutes,
transmittals, change orders, change requests,
etc., to a specific person or persons rather
than to the company in general. Therefore,
you need to set up the contact with all of
the contact information such as phone, fax,
e-mail and title.
Contacts can be set up one of two ways: in
the Address Book, if you open the company,
you can select the icon next to the Name, Job
Title, Business Phone, etc. This icon will open
into a new window allowing you to enter all of
the contact’s information.
Full Name: Meeting Expectations
Company: TUG (Timberline Users Group)
Job Title: Administrator
This will pre-fill into PJ Job Setup for your
contacts.
Department: TUG Main Office
Sort As:
This again will be what you see when you do
a search, so be careful entering the name to
ensure that it’s what you want to search by.
The default is how the company is set up in
the top field.
E-mail address: [email protected]
Send Via: E-Mail
Make sure you change this to E-Mail if you
want the e-mail address to pre-fill when
you’re sending documents out of STO.
The second way to set up a contact is within
an application module such as Project
Management or Address Book. While other
modules, including AR, allow you to open the
company and add the contact (the best way
to lessen errors), these modules allow you to
elect to set up a contact only.
When you select Set up a Contact, the first
item is the Full Name, such as John Smith.
Next is the Company; the drop down will
allow you to find the company that contact
(John Smith) works for. The icon directly to
the right of the drop down allows you to set
up the company if it does not exist.
Estimating
Estimating uses the Address Book for
companies only; the assumption is that
a product or subcontract is issued to a
company, not just to an individual. But
estimators can add companies and contacts
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on the fly in STO Estimating.
In the Subcontract Name column, if a name
is typed that is not found, a window appears
allowing the estimator to add the new contact
name. The danger here lies in how your
processes are set up. Many times the company
already exists in the Address Book, but the
name has been misspelled or a word, such
as “The,” is missing or has been erroneously
added. Or, the words in the company name
may be out of order. Confusion may reign if a
company already exists in the Address Book,
but is added again, incorrectly.
To help prevent this doubling up of company
names and contacts, set rules and guidelines
for adding any company. Also, reinforce your
staff’s training on lookups.
Buyout, Estimating Procurement
Buyout looks at the vendors set up in the
Address Book. You’re allowed to add all
vendors you need on a line item. If you
interface between Buyout and Job Cost, and
the vendor is set up in the Address Book
but not in Accounts Payable, you’ll receive a
reject notice when you attempt to import your
commitments from Buyout.
Project Management
With Project Management module deployment,
Address Book became an integral part of STO.
All contact information for all the tasks that a
project manager performs comes from the
Address Book contact list. With open security
you run the risk of double or even triple
entries for the same company and contact.
Rules for adding company and contact
information need to be put in place prior to
implementation of PJ to prevent multiple
entry. If you enter a contact into a job for a
task such as a transmittal and that contact is
wrong, you’ll need to know where to find the
contact in order to replace it with the correct
one. You will not be allowed to simply delete
the incorrect contact or company.
I have a helpful Crystal report called PJ
Vendor Usage. This report lists all of our
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News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
vendors, by name, and the tasks for which
they’ve been used. With this report, I can
easily see duplicate names. I can then
correct the contact or delete the incorrect
information. If you’d like a copy of this
report, go to the TUG reports library at www.
tugweb.com or please e-mail me at robin.
[email protected] and I’ll send
you the report.
Entering Your Contacts in PJ
There are two different methods for entering
contacts. If you’ve already set up all of your
contacts in Job Setup, you can just select
the drop-down arrow and pick from the
list. If you have not set up your contacts,
you need to select the binoculars icon and
find the contact. The company shows up in
parentheses ( ) behind the contact’s name
so you can ensure that you’re selecting the
correct contact.
One thing to remember
when you’re adding
contacts to any PJ
task: if you’re selecting
a contact from the
binoculars and that
contact has already
been set up during Job
Setup, the contact will
be double-entered into
your job setup. This means the contact will
appear twice in any of your project contact
lists. Always use the drop-down arrow first.
I also want to share a quick trick to populate
all of your job contacts. Open a transmittal
and in the TO: area start typing all of your
project’s contact names, or select them from
the binocular address book list. Once you’ve
added the entire project contact list, hit the
Save button on your transmittal. Then hit the
Delete button since you’re not intending to
send the transmittal out. Go back into Job
Setup and find your job. On the Contacts
tab, you should find all of the contacts you
selected in the transmittal. Go ahead and
enter the remaining details you’ll need, such
as Role and Spec section, if used.
November 2010
Accounts Payable
Vendors can be selected in the Address
Book settings using the USE As button.
Once you’ve selected the vendor and
added the new Vendor Number, go into AP
and add all of your additional information.
Remember, Address Book is really a contact
management-type application, so it does
not house the detail that AP does with
information such as vendor insurance.
Accounts Receivable/Contacts
A customer can also be set up in the Address
Book. Then, select the USE As button to
designate that customer as an AR contact.
Once the company is set up in the Address
Book, you can easily go into AR and add
the additional information required by your
company to manage the customers.
You’re now able to add
the Customer Contact for
additional reporting and
able to create additional
contacts and billings. An
example would be if you
have one parent company
but several different
billing addresses for each
job. Rather than setting up
each address as a different
company, set up different contacts for each
job for that customer. Then you can easily
select that contact within the contract.
The Address Book, a powerful tool for contact
management, if not managed correctly can
be your worst nightmare. Be sure to set
up an Address Book training schedule for
your company. Security can be limited or
expanded to enable specific staff to set up
and manage contacts. In addition, giving one
staff member responsibility for maintaining
the Address Book will help ensure the
integrity of all that valuable information you
rely on every day.
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Save the Date –
December 2, 2010
Kick off the holiday season with
TUG’s gift to you…its first ever
six-hour Webinar, but in one-hour
installments over the course of the
day on December 2. Mix and match
and attend only the sessions that
apply to you:
11 a.m. 12 p.m. 1 p.m. 2 p.m. 3 p.m. 4 p.m. Accounts Payable
Accounts Receivable
Job Cost/
Project Management
General Ledger/
Cash Management
Payroll
Property Management
(Please note: All times are
Eastern Standard Time.)
Webinars on each module will cover:
• The essential steps prior to
processing any information for
the following year.
• Preparing files prior to close,
including backing up and data
checking procedures.
• Printing year-end reports and
any government forms such as
1099s and W2s.
• The changes that are made
in the system when the year-end
process is run. This will include
fields populated in the Master
file records.
• Archiving and History processes
to keep your data files at a
manageable size while retaining
the ability to retrieve
information.
Take advantage of this unique opportunity to groom your year-end skills
by attending one, two or all of these
sessions. To participate, e-mail:
[email protected]. You’ll need
to enroll for each module you
want to attend.
November 2010
News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
Make Good Use of Print to File and
You’ll Save a Good Deal of Paper
by: Sharon Hessong
Reece Albert, Inc.
A
quick and easy way to reduce your paper
output by half is to set Sage Timberline
Office to automatically Print to file.
1). If you’re on 9.4, in any module, go to
Tools, Customize. If you are on 9.5/9.6/9.7,
in the Sage Desktop, go to Tasks, Sage
Timberline Office, Common Tasks, Tools,
Customize. The General tab will open. The
third item down is Print to file. Check the
box and then click OK to exit.
2). Now, when you close out of AP-Enter
Invoices or JC-Enter Estimates, or when
you print a report from the Reports menu,
you’ll be prompted to enter a filename. The
system automatically starts in the Printouts
folder within your Timberline folder. I set up
a simple file structure to keep track of all
the files. I created a folder for the current
year (and would then start a new year each
January). I then created a folder for each
module. Within each module I created a
Example:
2007
AP
Enter Invoices
091707SKH.prn
091707SKHb.prn
Change Invoices
Print Checks
Record Manual Checks
Etc.
SAVE THE DATE!
2011 TUG National Conference & Workshops
April 26-29, 2011
Gaylord Texan Resort & Convention Center
Grapevine, Texas (Dallas area)
Additional information and registration
will be available soon at www.tugweb.com.
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folder for each task done in that module.
When I saved a log, I gave it the current
date and my initials (every user should do
this in order to distinguish each operator’s
files). If I happened to have multiple logs
for the same task in one day, I just added
B, C or D, as needed.
3). If you don’t want a report or other
document to Print to file, it’s easy to
change the setting on the fly. Before
clicking Start, click on Printer Setup and
uncheck the box next to Print to file. Then
click OK and click Start. Your report will
print out to the printer.
News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
November 2010
With the Right Setup, You’ve Got
A Service Management-Payroll Team
by: Karen L. Greene
Certified STO Consultant
T
he key to a smooth transition between
Service Management (SM) and Payroll
lies in the setup. Whether you’re thinking
about establishing the interface between
the two applications or you’ve been sending
service hours to Payroll for some time, here
are some pointers for you.
Consider labor expense. Entries to General
Ledger vary, depending whether or not WIP
accounting is utilized. Without the proper
setup, the system can “double up” on labor
costs. Using WIP creates the following
entries from SM: debit to the WIP account
and a credit to the inventory/variance
account. These accounts are generated
when posting in Service Management.
Invoicing in SM clears WIP and debits a cost
of sales account. These entries are also
created when SM is posted.
Now let’s look at what happens in Payroll.
When labor entries are sent from SM to
Payroll, Payroll also creates an expense
entry to General Ledger. To prevent a dual
entry to a cost or expense account, set up
the same GL account for both the inventory/
variance and cost of sales accounts.
So what happens if you’re not using WIP
accounting? Time entries in SM create
a debit to cost of sales and a credit
to inventory/variance. However, these
accounting entries do not post to any
interfacing applications. The system creates
the expense entry for General Ledger when
you post in Payroll. SM uses the following
hierarchy to retrieve the labor expense
account: Job Cost hierarchy, SM product,
then Payroll hierarchy. Watch your prefix
on the General Ledger account. If using
departments, Payroll could retrieve a prefix
for burden entries that is different from the
prefix retrieved from the job or SM.
Labor entries are automatically sent to the
New.prt file from Service Management.
The Work Order ID, as well as an SM Time
Transaction ID, are sent along with the
transaction. Job information, if entered in
SM, is also sent to Payroll. Other data stored
on the employee/technician record in SM,
such as union information, are also brought
along with the transaction to Payroll. So, if
you’ve modified
the fields on the
technician record
which defaulted
from Payroll, you
could conceivably
create incorrect
calculations during
Payroll processing.
For example, if the
union information
from SM differs
from the union information on the Payroll
employee record, the system will use the
union data on the SM-Payroll transaction for
its calculations.
So far we’ve looked at how Service
Management creates entries for Payroll. Did
you know that Payroll sends entries back to
Service Management? Actual labor cost and
related burden (employer taxes, fringes and
cash fringes) are written to the Timeentry,
Agrperiod and Woitems tables in a field called
Totalprcost. This happens automatically (no
setup required) and cannot be turned off.
This data can be viewed on the SM Time
Entries, Time Entries by Customer, and Time
Entries by Job, and by Property reports. The
Totalprcost also displays on the Work Order
Profitability report. Check it out for yourself:
print a Work Order Profitability report before
Payroll is posted and reprint the report after
posting. The labor cost changes.
u7u
More Tips
Here are a couple additional tips that you
may already know. Set up a technician not
linked to an actual Payroll employee ID to
track Parts on Order or Waiting for Approval,
etc. Check the availability of your technicians
by setting up new work orders from the
Dispatch Board. Be sure you’ve checked
the box on the technician record to Warn
if overbooked. If you’re
pre-filling time on the
register automatically
from work orders, set
the round time option
in SM Settings to meet
your needs. Do you need
to change a default on
the technician record?
Once an employee has
been
synchronized
with Payroll, the synchronized fields (such
as WC state, union information) are no
longer available. If you want to modify any
synchronized fields, uncheck then recheck
the Send time to Payroll box to access these
fields. Keep in mind that any changes here
will pre-fill on the Time record in Payroll
and may affect calculations (as pointed out
above).
Finally, the company’s workflow can affect
whether you’ll send time entries to Payroll.
Do the work orders get turned in on time
to key, process and print payroll checks? If
payroll is cut off at noon on Tuesday, but the
work orders don’t arrive until Wednesday,
the technicians are not going to get paid.
If you can’t get the timing synchronized,
your solution may be double entry— keying
in labor in Service Management for billing
purposes and keying time into Payroll for
employee pay.
November 2010
News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
Merging Estimates Makes Adjustments Easy
by: Jon K. Banse, CPE, LEED® AP
Seedorff Masonry, Inc.
D
o you have a large estimate to price and a short time to
complete the pricing? Let’s look at using the Merge feature in
Estimating to merge the estimate into itself. That way you’ll
be able to adjust one item rather than having to adjust many. This
merge increases productivity when pricing an estimate.
4. Click on the Step 2 tab.
For this merge, leave this window as shown in the following
example.
Here is how you complete the merge:
1. Here is a view of multiple items in a large estimate. This
option of merging combines multiple matching items into one
item automatically. After we complete the merge, we’ll view single
items compared to multiple items and we’ll be able to price the
estimate quickly.
2. In Estimating, be sure to close the estimate you’re merging.
Click on File. Click on the option, Merge Estimates. Name the New
estimate (if you want to place the new estimate into a different
folder than you were just in, click on the Browse button and search
for the target folder’s name).
5. Click on the Step 3 tab.
Click on the Yes option for the question “Do you want to combine
matching items?”
Click on Merge Estimates.
6. Once the merge is successful, click OK.
7. Open your new merged estimate. You’ll now be able to adjust one
item (matching items that merged) in lieu of adjusting many items.
3. Click on the Step 1 tab. Select the estimate to be merged into
itself. (Add the estimate to the right-hand side of the window.)
PLEASE NOTE: When merging, original estimates remain unaffected
by the merge. That was mergers. Now here’s to the acquisition of your
next project award.
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News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
November 2010
Part 1: This is the first of a series of articles on independent contractors
The “Employee vs. Independent Contractor” Challenge
Co-authored by: Tim Cummins, Fred Geber, and Christopher Lee
Aronson & Company, Rockville, MD
B
oth the federal government and
some states have modified the
rules to determine how employees
and independent contractors should be
classified. To protect your construction
business, you should re-evaluate your
current practices and never assume your
company is in compliance with the law. This
paper identifies the federal government’s
new considerations and a recently enacted
law and executive order currently effective in
the State of Maryland. The Internal Revenue
Service is slated to review
this issue, along with other
issues surrounding fringe
benefits,
compensation
packages and reimbursed
expenses, beginning in late
2009. Several new state laws
specifically target businesses
in the construction services
and landscape services
industries.
With
this
knowledge, now is the time
to prepare in the event your business is
selected for an exam. We would be pleased
to help you evaluate your situation.
THE IRS Worker
Classification Attack
To help determine whether an individual is
an employee under the common law control
rules, the IRS developed a checklist in 1987
of 20 factors for use in determining whether
a person is an independent contractor or an
employee. This 20 factor test has since been
reduced to focus on three areas:
1. Behavioral control – This category covers
the amount of control that the company has
over the worker with regard to when and how
the job is done. The presence or absence
of instructions and training regarding the
work are especially relevant. Workplace
developments, such as evaluation systems
and concerns for customer security, are
other aspects considered in evaluating
behavioral control.
2. Financial control – This area of focus
considers how much control the company
has over a worker’s pay, business expense
reimbursement, and the tools
and supplies necessary to
complete the job.Specific factors
that support an independent
contractor relationship include
a significant investment by
the worker, unreimbursed
expenses of the worker, making
services available to others in
the relevant market, providing
services for a flat fee, and the
opportunity or exposure for
profit or loss to the worker.
3. Relationship type – The type of relationship
between the parties focuses on how the
parties deal with each other. The focus of
these tests include the intent of the parties
in their written contract, whether employee
benefits are provided, the ability to discharge
or terminate a worker, the permanency of
the relationship, and whether the services
performed are regular business activities.
Businesses must weigh all three factors
to determine if a person is an independent
contractor or an employee. In most cases,
some factors may indicate the worker is
an employee, while others may indicate an
independent contractor status. There is no
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set number of factors that make a person
an employee as opposed to an independent
contractor. The key to making the
determination is to view the entire relationship
and consider how much control and right to
direct one may have over another.
Firms and workers who are having trouble
determining the status of a worker may file
Form SS-8 with the IRS for a determination.
This form is a three-page questionnaire
addressing a number of factors used to
evaluate whether the worker is an employee
or an independent contractor. Should you
decide to file this form, recognize it may take
up to six months to receive a determination
from the IRS. More importantly, caution
should be exercised in the decision to file an
SS-8. The form requests critical information
that could expose the contractor to an audit.
Furthermore, when the form is filed, the
IRS often contacts both the contractor and
the worker to obtain a clear understanding
of the facts. With this background in mind,
professionals generally advise against filing
the SS-8 unless the contractor is prepared
to accept an adverse ruling and understands
the audit risks involved.
Businesses that do not follow the letter of
the law may find themselves the subject
of an IRS payroll examination to determine
whether the company has improperly
classified other employees as independent
contractors. The results of such a
determination, should they be adverse,
could be devastating to a company. The
deficiency assessed for back payroll taxes,
interest and penalties and the cost of
remedying violations of wage laws could
literally put the company out of business.
November 2010
News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
Using Crystal with PJ Forms:
The Whys and Hows of Saving the (T)
and Menu Versions of Report Templates
by: Tom Moore
Webster Moore Group
S
age Timberline Office provides Crystal Reports templates for
each of the PJ Forms: RFI, Transmittal, Change Request, etc.
There are two separate Crystal template files for each form,
one with a “(T)” in the filename and one without. As you begin
to customize your system, you quickly learn that you must make
every form modification twice: once to the (T) version and once to
the other version. This article shows you a time-saving workaround
to create a single “master” version of each form. This will enable
you to use the Save As feature to save both versions of the form
from the same template.
Why Two Versions of Each File?
The (T) indicates the “Task” version of the report template; it’s
the version that the Timberline task (for example, the RFI data
entry screen or the Change Request data entry screen) looks for
when you press the Print and Send buttons on that task. The other
version is the “Menu” or “regular” version that appears in the PJ
Reports menu so that you can run a report to view an RFI form
or to view a change request form. The two versions are visually
identical when viewed. However, what differentiates the two files is
how Crystal accesses the Timberline data. The Task, or (T), version
uses an internal database tracking number (the tsDocIndex) to
locate the information. The Menu version uses parameters input
by the user to identify the Job Number and the RFI Number (or
Change Request Number, etc). Each of the two Crystal Reports
template files has different Crystal parameters and a different
Record Selection formula.
The How-To Instructions
Following are the step-by-step instructions to do this, using the RFI
form as an example. This method will work for all PJ forms except the
PJ Transmittal. That form has some additional parameters and subreport formatting that require additional steps which are not included
in this article.
Open the “Regular” Version and the (T) Version of the RFI Form
1. Open Crystal Reports and Select File, Open.
2. Select PJ RFI Form 1 (CR).rpt.
3. Click Open.
4. Again, select File, Open.
5. Select PJ RFI Form 1 (T) (CR).rpt, then click Open.
Combine the Parameters and File Selection Formulas into one
Template
1. Select Window, PJ RFI Form 1 (CR).rpt.
2. Select File, Save As.
3. Type “!MyCompany” at the front of the filename.
Make Edits to One Template, Then Save Two
Versions of the File
The workaround is to add both sets of Crystal Parameters and the
code for both Record Selection formulas into a single report. Then,
you can control which set is “active” and which is “inactive.” You
can make the tsDocIndex parameter active in the Record Selection
Formula. Then, use the Save As command to save the (T) version.
After that, make tsDocIndex inactive while making the Job Number
and RFI Number parameters active. Finally, use Save As to save
the Menu version.
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News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
4. Select Window, PJ RFI Form 1 (T) (CR).rpt. This will switch you back
to the (T) version.
November 2010
10. Select Window, PJ RFI Form 1 (T) (CR).rpt. This will switch you
back to the (T) version.
11. Select Report, Selection Formulas, Record.
5. Expand the Parameter Fields list and drag tsDocIndex onto
the report.
12. Highlight the entire formula and right click. Select Copy.
13. Close the Formula Workshop window.
6. Right click on the tsDocIndex field and select Copy.
14. Select Window, !MyCompany PJ RFI Form 1 (CR).rpt. This will
switch you back to the “regular” version.
15. Select Report, Selection Formulas, Record.
7. Select Window, !MyCompany PJ RFI Form 1 (CR).rpt. This will
switch you back to the “regular” version.
16. Paste the selection formula copied from the (T) version.
17. Click the blue//icon to make that portion of the formula inactive.
8. Right click on the report and select Paste. Click to paste the
tsDocIndex field.
18. Select Save and Close to save the Record Selection formula and
to close the Formula Workshop window.
19. Select File, Save to save the modified master template.
9. Click the Delete key to delete the tsDocIndex field from the report.
(The parameter will remain in the Parameter Fields list, but not on the
face of the form.)
Sometimes, putting a little work into a workaround is well worth
the time.
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November 2010
News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
Property Management:
Stay Current and Make
Those Old Leases History
by: Eire Stewart
JP DiNapli Companies, Inc.
Y
ear end is a perfect time to archive those
backdated old leases that haven’t been
active for years. To help you learn more
about using the Archive Leases function,
don’t miss the Property Management portion
of the Year-End Training Webinar hosted by
TUG on December 2.
Archive Leases enables
you to trim that overly
long pick list of leases by
removing historical leases
that have reconciled
deposits
and
zero
balances. As a bonus,
Archive Leases improves
processing time both
in running tasks and in
printing reports. You can still run reports on
archived leases and view them in Inquiries,
but those leases will be out of the pick lists
when running tasks and will no longer appear
in ranges when you look at active leases.
Although you’re unable to run reports using
both Active and Archive files, you can access
both through ODBC and can consolidate the
information through Office Connector. With the
Archive Leases feature comes a requirement
in many report and task
functions to select files.
The Wizard, located under
Property Management,
Tools, Archive Leases, is
very intuitive. Because
master files are affected,
Archive Leases will require
that all users are out of
Property
Management
and Accounts Payable
(Invoice Entry runs a verification process with
PM for the Pass-Through feature). If you have
difficulty figuring out who may be tying up a
file, Security Administration now has a Task
Activity tab that allows administrators to view
file usage by user. (See the accompanying
article, “Who’s On First,” on page 14.)
3. Run Clear Paid Items one last time to
clear any transactions out of the Current.pmt
file. The Archive Lease process will ultimately
reject archiving any lease with transactions
in Current.pmt, even though that lease is
selected for archiving.
4. If you use the Issue Manager feature of
Information Assistant, you’ll need to close
any issues related to the leases you wish to
archive, to avoid those leases being rejected
in the final process.
The Steps to Archiving
1. Click on Property Management, Tools,
Archive Leases. A window will open asking if
you want to “upgrade” the PM Archive Lease
custom fields. Click Yes. If you have not done
Step 1 of the Preparation Steps, the process
will abort.
The Preparation Steps
1. Set all custom fields so that they are
available for general use. Click on File,
Company Settings, Custom Fields. Click Yes if
you see the message “Do you want to make
these custom fields available for general
use?” This will need to be done for each of
the lease custom field options.
2. All leases being archived must have a
status of Historical. Using the Task, Manage
Leases, Terminate Lease function, move any
terminated leases that you wish to archive to
Historical status.
2. A succession of windows will open
prompting you to create archive files for
each of the PM Master file types. Answer OK
to all of these.
3. Next, you’ll be asked to select NEW.pmt
and CURRENT.pmt files.
4. A wizard will open to guide you through
the process. A series of windows will open
as follows:
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News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
a. Important Reminders: You
will need to click Yes to each of the
“Important Reminder” questions
before you’ll be able to proceed.
b. Lease Cutoff Date: Select by
either Actual Lease End Date or
Actual Move-out Date and select
the appropriate properties from the
list provided.
c.
Select Leases: A list of leases
matching the cutoff criteria will
appear in a grid showing the
Property, Lease, End Date, Move
Out Date, Primary Tenant, and a
host of other information. Select
the leases you wish to archive and c
lick Next.
d. Log: Next you will be prompted to
either save the log to *.pdf or to
print it.
e.
Review: This is your last chance to
bail! A list will appear with much of
the same information that was
featured on the Select Leases screen.
Review this list. If you find any
leases that you don’t want to
archive, you’ll need to click the
Back button. You do not have the
option of de-selecting on this screen.
Once you have reviewed the list,
click Yes and then Start. The process
can take several minutes. Our first
session of Archive Leases moved
108 leases within nine minutes.
f.
Finished: You are done! Review
the log to see which, if any, leases
were rejected. Reasons for rejection
can include Open Issues in
Information Assistant and paid, but
uncleared, transactions in the
Current.pmt file.
November 2010
Final Step
Once the Archive Leases process has finished,
you may want to use File Doctor to compact
your master files. Archive Leases removes
the records from the “active” master files,
creating open pockets. Re-compacting the
files will help performance time and will
lessen chances for file corruption.
We took advantage of the Archive Lease
feature and archived historical leases older
than three years. We can still view the leases
and transactions and haven’t come across a
situation in which we’d need to consolidate
information between the archived and active
master files. What’s even better is that the
process of archiving leases is simple and
intuitive and the wizard prompts are clear
and easy to follow. Who could ask for more?
I’ll ask: Can we have an Archive Properties
feature next?
A Big Thank
You to BBP
With the transitioning of
administration for Timberline
Users Group, we would like to
give a Big Heartfelt Thank You
to Carolyn and Scott of Boettner
Business Professionals. We extend
our gratitude for their many years
of service and commitment to
TUG. As TUG administrators, they
have been a true asset to our
user group organization and they
have served us admirably. Many
of us who have had the pleasure
of working directly with them can
testify to their passion for TUG and
their friendship. We wish them
well in their future endeavors.
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November 2010
News and Information for Users of Sage Timberline Office Software
Who’s On First? See Who’s Using What
On a single screen, Security allows administrators to see which users are in which applications AND performing
which tasks. No more racing around the office to see who is in the GL when you want to close, or whom you can
kick out of Project Management because all your licenses are in use and you need to get in.
Task Activity is logically set up with “filters” that can be saved to simplify viewing even further. Filters include
Available Tasks, Unavailable Tasks and Applications
and can be set by an assortment of items on a pick list.
As an example, create a filter so that you just see tasks
with the General Ledger by filtering for “Application,”
“Starts with,” “G.”
Want to know which user has opened Select Invoices,
and then gone out for a cup of coffee, totally tying up
your check printing process? Now you know who’s on
first—literally!
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