Thank You!

Recently, you may have noticed a phone call from Sage on your caller id.  August is Customer Appreciation Month and I asked our team to reach out to each one of our customers.  We simply want to say thank you, let you know how to access our gift to you and get to know you better.

If you haven’t downloaded our gift, the Sage Quotation App, you are missing out!  It’s an inspiring collection of more than 500 quotes from leading speakers and writers.  To access the Quote app, look in your inbox for a message from Sage entitled “A Token of Our Appreciation” sent August 13^th.  You can also like us on Facebook to access the download links for the app here.  It’s available for both the iPhone and Android.

On a separate, but related note, last week I asked our team members who attended Sage Summit to answer, “What’s the best thing or most memorable moment you had at Sage Summit?”

Overwhelmingly the answers were moments with our customers. For some people it was a face-to-face discussion at one of the roundtable sessions, over lunch or one of the evening events. For others it was helping to resolve an issue in the support center and getting to connect in one of the usability sessions. Meeting our customers, getting to connect face-to-face and learning more about you – your organizations, how you make a difference in the world and also how you use our products – was by far the best thing for all of us who attended Summit.  So, I want to take a moment to say thank you for attending and engaging our team members.  They appreciate it and they appreciate you.

I also want you to let you know we listened.  Across all of our functions: product management, development, support, and marketing we will be rolling your comments, concerns and questions into what we do this next year.  If there is something you left unsaid at Sage Summit, please let us know in the comments below.

Krista K. Endsley
SVP and GM, Nonprofit Solutions

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Top Three Sage Summit Sessions Right Here

If you didn’t get to go to Sage Summit this year, you’re in luck, you can still access some of the great speakers and presentations in this blog post below.  YES!   The content from three of our popular sessions at Sage Summit was initially shared in our educational webcasts that can be found on our webcast center.

Did you miss Jamy Squillace’s Beyond the Donation Form session at Summit? Here is your chance to learn a few best practices that will help you convert more web visitors to donors by effectively using all of your online donation tools.  You’ll walk away understanding: why you need a separate form for each campaign and event.  You’ll learn how to optimize your forms to generate more donations and much more.  You can find a copy of Beyond the Donation Form slides here and view the recording of the educational webcast here.

Online fundraising, mobile fundraising, social media – where does it all live?  In “the cloud”.  Before Grant Howe presented, What Nonprofits and Governments Need to Know About Going Remote C-0365B at Sage Summit, he hosted Going to the Cloud: Ask the Expert webcast.  In this webcast, you learn what “the cloud” is and why it’s important.  You’ll learn the benefits and risks of cloud computing, as well as, the top 3 questions to consider before you “go to the cloud”. Listen to the webcast here and download the slides here.

Finally, Gail Vertz, CEO of the Grant Professionals Association presented in a number of Sage Summit sessions.  If you missed Collaboration That Yields Funding Success C-0368 you can listen to a similar webcast entitled Collaborate, Leverage, Build! Managing the Grant Pipeline here. In this webcast you’ll learn how to maximize funding and better manage your grant pipeline. Download the slides here.

Our goal is to continually develop and share helpful content for our customers and friends year round not just for Sage Summit.  If you have any ideas or suggestions for future webcasts, please let us know below.

Patricia Tynan
Social Media and Community
Sage Nonprofit

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Sage City Gives Villagers A Voice

This year our events team experimented with a new way to help attendees meet one another by organizing conference goers into their respective tribes or villages. Dubbed “Sage City” the event enabled peer-to-peer learning, collaboration and lots of networking around functional areas and topics of interest.  From my view, it was a great way to get a conference started bringing partners, customers and employees together.  Shortly after a welcome from Pascal Houillon and Himanshu Palsule, attendees were coached by Sarah Michel on how to participate and get the most out of Sage City.

• Seek out a Village that aligns with your interest or industry.

• Find a topic you want to learn more about.

• Share your challenges, solutions, best practices and knowledge around the topic.

• Capture key takeaways or outcomes. Tweet and post your outcomes to the comments wall.

Here’s a photo of the Not for Profit (Government and Philanthropic) Village, one of the more popular spots to be in the vast conference hall.

With over 2000 attendees, Sage City was an ambitious experiment in open and flexible conferencing.  It was amazing to watch how our customers found one another and how excited they were to connect. While I can’t fully capture the buzz Sage City generated in this blog, I can share some of the outcomes from the Not for Profit Village with you.

• “Grants” – staying compliant, measuring outcomes and reporting on grants was by far the hottest topic with three separate conversations taking place during Sage City.  The key to compliance is open and timely communication between development and finance.  Finance needs to know and understand every grant requirement and condition in order to set it up properly in your Sage system.  Second is again communication and training!  Your staff needs to be knowledgeable and aware of funding requirements.  Third, be sure and incorporate grant requirements into your organization’s outcome measures.  Finally, take advantage of the grant administration module in Sage 100 Fund Accounting – everyone has access to it.  (If you don’t see it on your Chart of Accounts, ask your system administrator to check your permissions.) Or take a look at Sage Grant Management, a robust software solution to help manage, report and track your grants.
• Mobility – convincing their organizations to spend money on mobility software and hardware like tablets and smart phones is the biggest barrier to “going mobile”.  The solution: determine what could be earned by having a mobile application or payment system on hand at events or even when meeting a major gift prospect.  Get input from your team in the field and ask them to help you determine the cost of missed mobile donations.
• Texting – there were many questions over “textiquette”.   The main outcome from this discussion – ask supporters to opt-in to your text communications. And, make it easy for them to give you permission to text. Place a sign up box on your website, add mobile opt-in fields on your donation forms, and include sign up boxes on forms at events.  Remember to use your supporters preferred method of communication whether it’s text or email and always be timely and respectful with your communications.
• Payment Processing – payments are a pain for many of our customers.  I overheard many who are looking for ways to automate vendor payments, as well as, process mobile and online donations.  Solutions to consider: Sage Payment Solutions and/or bill pay EFT through your bank.

Do you have similar concerns and interests? Thoughts on the topics and tips that made their way around Sage City? Let us know by commenting below.  For fun check out the YouTube time lapse video of the event too.

Patricia Tynan
Social Media and Community Manager
Sage Nonprofit

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Bank Reconciliation Made Easy: Part II

This post is a follow up to my blog, Bank Reconciliation Made Easy: Part I.  In Part I, I explain how to spot differences between your bank and cash balances and how to handle them.

No time to read Part I? Then know reconciling a bank statement is simply comparing your organization’s cash records to the monthly statement provided by the bank. Reconciling is typically a monthly process and is an important part of managing your organization’s finances.

In this post I discuss what to do after you have gone through the reconciliation process and still something is off.  In this hypothetical situation, I assume you have:

• Listed your bank balance and identified the deposits in transit and outstanding checks.
• Identified any bank errors.
• Listed your cash general ledger balance for the same ending date as the bank statement and,
• Identified bank services charges and fees and any interested paid by the bank on the account.

Yet, the two balances are still different!?!

Now what?

If your balances are different, the short answer is – something is missing. Something is either in the cash balance and not on the bank statement or on the bank statement and not in the cash balance.

Ideally, your accounting application should have reports available to assist with analysis. Cash journals, check registers, and reports that list all checks, deposits, and other cash items are useful in tracking down the offending items. The ability to filter reports to see only outstanding checks or deposits as of a certain date is a handy feature in reporting.  For your follow up “reconciliation review” be sure and

1. Identify missing checks. Is a cleared check missing from the cash general ledger? Determine if the check is incorrectly dated in your system, perhaps with a date earlier or later than the month you are reconciling. Perhaps a check needs to be voided?
2. Identify missing deposits. Does the bank list a deposit not on the cash general ledger? Does the cash general ledger list a deposit not on the bank statement? Identify the deposit and determine the correct steps.
3. Identify journals or other transactions entered to cash and not reflected on the bank statement. The reason for these entries will determine your next step: is there an error? Does a correcting journal need to be prepared and entered?
4. Look for bank errors. Yes, they happen. Some banks still enter check amounts manually! Look for checks or deposit amounts that vary from your records.

Next, examine the list of adjusting entries.  Are the outstanding checks old? Do you need to void or reissue any checks? Are missing deposits simply timing issues or do you need to develop a policy to handle cash transactions in a timely manner? Are employees cashing payroll checks in a timely manner? Would implementing direct deposit create a more efficient process, saving time and preventing lost checks?

Sage 100 Fund Accounting provides advanced reporting tools to facilitate total cash management. The Bank Reconciliation feature provides a tab specific to track suspense items, such as bank errors and or disputed transactions. The Data/Import Export module allows bank data to be imported and automatically cleared. Sage 100 Fund Accounting also offers a Direct Deposit module, which integrates with the Bank Reconciliation feature.

Regardless of the accounting application your organization uses, regular and routine bank reconciliation will keep your records accurate for your reports and ultimately, keep your board, funders and donors happy.

Do you have any reconciliation tips to share?  Let me know in the comments.

Laura Reifschlager
Trainer
Sage Nonprofit

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How To Apply The Olympic Mind-Set To Your Social Media Marketing

With the Olympics underway it’s hard not to notice and get excited by the great efforts and achievements of the athletes taking part. You may be motivated to become more active or perhaps you are having Olympics themed days in your workplace.  I’m probably the furthest thing from an athlete, but we all know the mind-set required for a serious athlete to compete in the Olympics.  So, here are my thoughts on how you can apply the Olympic mind-set to your social media marketing.

1. Give It Your All

Olympic athletes don’t do things by half. They make a commitment and pour all of their efforts into getting that medal and many train 5-6 days a week. If you are serious about social media marketing for your organization then you need to do the same. I sometimes hear people say that Facebook did nothing for their business but then I ask them how often they post and they reply once a week or that they abandoned it after a few weeks. That is not really putting in the effort required to engage with your Facebook fans. Admittedly not everyone has the time and resources needed, so if that is the case pick one social media channel that allows you to connect with your target audience and put the time and effort you can give into that one channel and really put the effort in to engage with the people that like your page.

2. Recover From Injury And Keep Going

Athletes often get set-backs from injuries or other things out of their control. When you get a set-back it can be hard to get back on the bike. Perhaps you got a negative comment from someone on your Facebook page or haven’t had the success you hoped for. Don’t give up. Take the time to recover and keep going.

3. Play The Long Game

Many of the athletes taking part in the Olympics have been training for years, since the last Olympics. They understand that gold medal success takes time. The same is true for social media. Although there can be quick wins, it often takes time to get success from your social media activity as it is about relationship building which does not happen overnight. Play the long game and don’t give up after a few months.

4. Set Goals

Olympic athletes have a very obvious goal in mind and they might have sub-goals that help them reach their ultimate goal of winning at the Olympics. Goals are very important in social media marketing. There are two types of goals you need to consider; social media goals and outcome goals. A social media goal might be something like having a certain number of social media conversations with your target audience very month. An outcome goal might be something like getting x number of donations as a result of your social media activities every quarter. Think about what sub-goals you will need to achieve in order to achieve your bigger goals. Set realistic expectations and small, regular goals, then work towards them.

5. Avoid Burnout

When you get consumed with the online and social media world it is very easy to neglect other important things like exercise and rest. Successful athletes understand the importance of rest and relaxation and taking some time out to get mentally re-energised. If you feel the onset of burnout, give yourself a day or two away from social media. Go for a walk, enjoy time with friends and family and you will be ready to go for social media gold again.

Tell us how you are going for social media gold by commenting below.

Big thank you to guest blogger Beatrice Whelan of Sage Ireland for sharing her thoughts with us.  Here is a picture of Beatrice (on the right) holding the Olympic Torch on a recent trip to Sage UK.

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Why I Volunteer: For Smiles

Imagine if you sent your kid to school on their first day with a pencil and some notebooks? While retailers are looking forward to big sales, many kids just don’t participate in the back-to-school shopping tradition. That’s why I wanted to get involved and be a part of Sage’s efforts to donate school supplies to the Boys & Girls Clubs across the United States.

I was so impressed with how the Austin office pulled together. In less than a week our team collected 65 backpacks and stuffed them full of school supplies for the Thurman Heights Club. I could barely fit all of the them in my SUV.

When I arrived at the club the Director, Ruby Preston, was shocked to see how many backpacks we collected.  She had the kids and staff come outside to help carry them all in.  They were so excited!  It was like Christmas and it felt really good to see the smiles on their faces as they picked the backpack they wanted.   I included some pictures here for you, because words are inadequate to describe the moment.

After I handed out the last backpack, I realized most of the kids had left the club.  I asked Ruby where the kids went and she told me they ran home because they couldn’t wait to see what was in their backpack.  She then said, “We never received this many donations for school supplies.  You may not realize this, but Sage has made a difference to each one of these kids today”.  Wow!

That’s when I realized how fortunate I am to be in the position I’m in.  Working at Sage Nonprofit Solutions helps me to help kids like the ones I just met – because our software supports nonprofits and people like Ruby who are doing great, amazing, impactful work each and every day.  So, thank you Boys and Girls Club for the work you do and for letting me support you and be a small part of it.  And, thank you to all the employees in Austin who helped – you made a difference and you’re the ones who show Sage Cares.

Tony Slan
Customer Care Representative
Sage Nonprofit Solutions

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