Perryman Software Blog

Find Historical Information in Sage PFW

Take control of how the Find Historical feature functions in each entry screen. In past versions, this powerful feature has provided the ability to use a past transaction as a “template” for a new transaction. However, the historical transaction was pulled into the new record using predetermined methodology to populate the terms key, pricing, etc. In Sage PFW we combined the power of our Templates Feature with the Find Historical Feature. Now you can use Templates to specify which information will be populated. For example, when entering a sales order using the Find Historical feature, you can select if you want the price to populate from the historical sales order. If you select to not populate the price, then the system will determine the price from the current system information.

HIRE Act Update from Sage Abra

The primary focus of the HIRE Act legislation is to accelerate the hiring of unemployed workers. It has provisions that affect employers, including a payroll tax exemption. The provisions include reduced payroll taxes and increased tax credits for employers that meet certain eligibility requirements.

All eligible employees must complete a Form W-11, Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment (HIRE) Act Employee Affidavit, to confirm that they are qualified employees under the HIRE Act.

Sage will be addressing the HIRE Act in Abra SQL HRMS (Payroll), with updates available in the Q2 Tax Update. Here is an update of what Sage is planning to provide:

1. A new field, HIRE Act Qualified Employee, has been added to Employee Tax UI.
2. When the Sage Abra user calculates payroll for an exempt employee the employer portion of U.S. Social Security will not be calculated.
3. The line representing the Employer Portion of USSS will not appear on the Pre-Check Register and the Payroll Register reports.
4. The 941 form will be updated based on the new 941 form issued by IRS.
   

Necessary changes for Year-End reporting are planned to be included in the Q4 Tax Update.

Customer and Vendor Statuses in Sage PFW

Statuses can now be assigned to vendors and customers through file maintenance to control several of the entry menu items.

Vendor Statuses:

·        Active

·        Active, No New Purchases

·        Inactive

Customer Statuses:

·        Active

·        On Hold

·        In Collections

·        Prospect

·        Inactive

Removing Terminated Employees from Employee Earnings, Employee Deductions or Tax Withholding by Tax Code Report in Abra

When running the Standard Payroll Reports in Abra: Employee Earnings, Employee Deductions or Tax Withholding by Tax Code report, these reports will bring up terminated employees if they are "run for all earnings or deductions on file" or in all periods. This can cause a lengthy report to generate with a lot of unnecessary information.  Create an expression using the custom criteria builder for each of those reports to remove employees from the report who do not have earnings in the current year as follows:

 

ERR.YTDAMOUNT < > 0.00	Earning Codes with current Year to Date Amount greater than 0.00
OR
VDR.YTDAMOUNT <> 0.00	Deduction Codes with current Year to Date Amount greater than 0.00
OR
TXE.YTDAMOUNT <> 0.00	Tax Withholding Codes with current Year to Date Amount greater than 0.00

These steps will remove employees without earnings, deductions, or taxes in the current year. When necessary, substitute The QTDAMOUNT and MTDAMOUNT fields for the YTDAMOUNT field to exclude employees without earnings in the current quarter or current month.

Sage Abra Toolkit with Crystal Reports

The basic Abra toolkit comes with the Abra HRMS system and is a great little tool. If you need advanced features the advanced toolkit is available. This extra functionality provides you with tremendous flexibility to maximize the benefits of Sage Abra HRMS to meet the unique demands of your organization.

It includes features and functions that enable you to create menus, processes, actions, reports, custom fields and screens so you can get the most out of your Sage Abra HRMS solution.

To add a Crystal Report to the Abra HR reports menu. The working Crystal Report must be saved in product folder under the Crystal folder. i.e. C:\Abra Suite\Programs\Crystal\HR. You should be the only user in Abra and you should have a good backup before proceeding.

Go to System Process

Customize Report Menu

Select HR under product

Select Report under Activity

Click the Add button on the bottom

Type Custom in the report group field

Double click on the new Custom Group

Click Add button. In the report dropdown field select the report that you want to add to the new custom group.

Click OK

You will be prompted to rebuild system files select yes. This will rebuild the system files and bring you to the login screen. When you login under HR reports you will find a new group named custom with the report that you just added.

Using Sage Abra Absence Points System

By using the Absence Points system, you can monitor absence points to highlight or track attendance problems.  You can set the threshold value on the Point System tab of the Attendance Plan Detail panel.

The Threshold Value is used for the maximum number of absence points at which your employer takes action.

The One Point = here you would assign how many occurrences equals one absence point.

And Hours (or Days) assign the minimum number of hours required for the occurrence to count toward the absence points

Per - here you specify the period for which you want to track absence points.  90 days. (for reference only - not used by the system in calculations.)

Sage PFW Security Group Reports

Go to System Manager - Reports - Security Group Report

The Security Group Report allows you to print the information setup in the Security Group Wizard. This report offers three sorting methods; Security Group, Application or User. Each report provides ranges that allow you to restrict the information you want to include on the report.

This report can not be run by the Admin user, but while logged in as the Admin user, you want to make sure to give the correct security group access to the report through the Security Group Setup wizard.

Note: You should limit access to this report to only administrators or managers as security sensitive information is included on the report.

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PFW Bank Book Reconciliation Import

You now have the ability to automate your reconciliation process by importing transactions into the reconciliation screen using the bank statement file downloaded from your bank. The new Bank Reconciliation Import supports either a Microsoft Excel (.xls) or Comma Separated Value (.csv) file format, and it includes the ability to define the .xls file format layout during the import. When you download the file from your bank, select one of these file formats. You can define the column numbers where the Date, Check Number, Description, Debit, and Credit information reside within the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. During the import, the system compares each item in the bank statement file against items currently in Bank Book and matches up the appropriate records.

You have the option of creating new transactions for the information appearing in your bank statement but not in Bank Book. The transactions are generated as open journal transactions using the default distribution types set up in the new Reconciliation Import Configuration Setup menu item and are modifiable via the Journal Correction menu item. The import can be run in trial and final mode. A simple report provides information on the import for your records. Once you access the Account Reconciliation menu item, all discrepancies are noted and corrections are recorded.

Mass Updates for Abra

The Mass Update process allows you to change the value of a field within an Abra Suite database for an entire group of employees. That is, you can change data for a group of records rather than change the data for each individual record. You can update most, but not all, fields in mass.

Follow these steps:

• Backup your Data file.
• Run a query or report to view data to be changed.
• Run Mass Update.
• Run the query or report again to confirm changes.

You can test or practice the Mass Update in your Sample Data before processing in your live data.

Warning! The Mass Update process can change a significant amount of information. We strongly recommend you back up your data before mass updating employee information. Backing up your data before you change it ensures you can always restore the original data and repeat the process.