Explore the New Annual Installment Billing Feature

Discover the New Annual Installment Billing Feature

With this announcement, we introduce the capability of annual installment billing. While many are familiar with the monthly and quarterly billing cycles, the new annual option offers a strategic advantage for long-term financial planning, especially for significant contributions such as a building fund, or a capital campaign.

What is Installment Billing?

In general, it’s more straightforward to bill once for an entire amount, and then to draw down the amount owed as payments are made. However, some congregations prefer to charge the membership incrementally. Depending on an organization’s policies, installment billing can occur monthly, quarterly, or now, annually.

The New Annual Billing Capability

Previously, many organizations relied on monthly or quarterly billing cycles. The introduction of annual billing offers a fresh perspective for managing long-term financial commitments. For example, if your organization is running a building fund campaign, you can now set a total amount to be billed. By selecting the annual installment billing option, the total amount is divided into yearly installments, facilitating easier tracking and management.

How It Works

Let’s consider an example involving the Goldsmith family, a part of your organization’s financial contributors. Suppose they commit to a total contribution of $5,000 over five years for a campaign like the mikvah campaign. With the annual billing feature, you input the total amount, select the installment billing option, and set the first and last bill date—say, from September 2025 to September 2029. The system automatically divides the total into yearly amounts, aligning each installment with the appropriate fiscal year.

Benefits of Annual Installment Billing

  • Long-Term Planning: Organizations can plan more effectively for future projects with clear, predictable cash flows.
  • Simplified Management: With annual billing, there’s less frequent need to manage and adjust billing cycles, saving time and reducing errors.
  • Enhanced Reporting: Financial reports can now reflect long-term commitments more accurately, assisting in strategic decision-making.

By leveraging the new annual installment billing feature, organizations can enhance their financial management capabilities, ensuring they remain agile and efficient in today’s ever-evolving financial landscape. Embrace this new capability to optimize your organization’s financial strategies and achieve your long-term goals with confidence.

To see this feature in action, please view this video.

New Features in Yahrzeit Query System

Discover the New Enhancements to Yahrzeit Queries

In the realm of yahrzeit management, efficiency and accuracy are key. Today, we’re excited to reveal enhancements to yahrzeit queries that promise just that. Traditionally, many of you have utilized the yahrzeit query to search by the name of the deceased or an observer, and more often for a specific date range. But now, we’ve introduced a significant upgrade that will enhance how you can access and utilize this data.

The cornerstone of this update is the “Yahrzeit Simple List,” which now includes additional features that broaden its functionality. Two major changes have been implemented:

  1. Enhanced Data with Tags and Plaque Locations: We’ve enriched the “Yahrzeit Simple List” by incorporating tags or attributes and plaque locations. Now, when you select a date, such as the 23rd of September, and submit your list, it opens in Excel, as before. You’ll notice that the yahrzeit name may appear multiple times, namely once for each observer. But with each entry, you’ll find valuable insights such as plaque locations. Additionally, if you’re utilizing tags to categorize yahrzeits—be it a veteran, buried out of town, and the like—you’ll see a clear indication of which tag applies to each yahrzeit.
  2. Streamlined Data Presentation: Going back to the “Yahrzeit Simple List,” there’s a new checkbox option that generates a different spreadsheet format. This version presents each yahrzeit on a single line, excluding observers, for a cleaner view. While the core data remains unchanged, this streamlined presentation focuses purely on plaque locations and tags, eliminating the repetitive observer entries.

These enhancements are designed to make your data handling more intuitive and efficient. Whether you’re managing yahrzeits for historical research, commemoration, or personal records, these updates will significantly enhance your workflow. Embrace these changes, explore the new capabilities, and experience a more powerful way to manage yahrzeit site data.

See the full video

Streamline Your Accounting with Shalom Cloud’s New QuickBooks Integration Feature

Are you using our automated interface to QuickBooks Online? Or perhaps you’re considering it? If so, we have some news that could simplify your accounting processes. Introducing our latest feature: the ability to auto-generate Document Numbers directly from Shalom Cloud.

Let’s delve into what this feature entails and how it can benefit you.

Understanding the Document Number Field

In QuickBooks Online, the Document Number field may serve for tracking and referencing transactions. If you’re already satisfied with how this field is populated, you may not need to change a thing. However, if you seek a more streamlined approach, our new feature can help.

How to Activate Auto-Generate Doc Number

Getting started with this feature is simple. Navigate to the Home screen in Shalom Cloud, select Declare Synagogue Options, and scroll to the bottom. Here, you’ll find the new option labeled “Auto-Generate Doc Number.” Initially, this setting is set to ‘no.’ By switching it to ‘yes’ and hitting the submit button, you activate the auto-generation feature.

What Happens Next?

Once activated, any new financial transactions processed in Shalom Cloud will automatically generate a Document Number in your QuickBooks Online journal entries. This number corresponds directly to a transaction in Shalom Cloud, making it easier than ever to trace journal entries back to their origin.

Demonstrating the Feature

Let’s walk through a practical example. Suppose you have a fictitious family, Littell01, in our sandbox environment, with outstanding dues of $245. When you pay this amount using a check, and refresh your journal entry report, you’ll notice a new entry with a unique number. This number ends with 593, which matches the transaction ID in Shalom Cloud.

Video demonstration

Tracking Transactions Made Easy

By enabling this feature, you can effortlessly track journal entries in QuickBooks back to their originating transactions in Shalom Cloud. This integration saves time and reduces the likelihood of errors, providing a seamless accounting experience.

A Word of Caution for Manual Entries

If you also generate manual journal entries, it’s advisable to differentiate them from those auto-generated by Shalom Cloud. Consider using a unique identifier, such as “JE-” followed by a number, to ensure clarity and prevent duplicate entries.

Conclusion

Our new feature for auto-generating Document Numbers from Shalom Cloud to QuickBooks Online represents a significant step toward enhancing your financial management capabilities. Activate this feature today to experience a more efficient and accurate accounting process. Whether you’re a current user or considering our interface, this enhancement is designed with your convenience in mind.

See the full video:

Now Available — Processing Fees on the ShalomCloud Shopping Cart

Similar to processing fees on the contribution portal, you may now offer that same capability on the ShalomCloud shopping cart.

Processing Fees Setup for Shalom Cloud Shopping Cart

Overview

This procedure outlines the steps to configure processing fees for credit card and ACH transactions in the Shalom Cloud shopping cart.

Key Steps

1. Access Processing Fees Configuration 0:25

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  • Navigate to the configuration section of the Shalom Cloud shopping cart.
  • Select ‘Processing Fees’ to access the fee settings.

2. Set Transaction Fees 0:44

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  • Specify the percentage for card transactions (e.g., 3%).
  • Specify the percentage for ACH transactions (e.g., 1%).
  • Note: Most congregations set ACH fees to 0% to encourage usage.

3. Configure Fee Options 1:07

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  • Decide if the fee will be mandatory (set to true or false).
  • Customize the verbiage for the fee prompt (e.g., ‘Please consider including…’).

4. Define User Response Options 1:19

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  • Set the phrases for user responses (e.g., ‘Yes, I’d be happy to’ or ‘Sorry, no, cannot cooperate’).

5. Select Financial Category 1:39

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  • Choose the financial category where the fee amount will be posted.

6. Test the Shopping Cart 1:51

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  • Access the shopping cart and select items (e.g., Shabbat Dinner Adult and Child).
  • Proceed to checkout and observe the fee calculations based on the selected payment method.

7. Calculate Fees Based on Selection 2:29

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  • For card transactions, calculate 3% of the total amount.
  • For ACH transactions, calculate 1% of the total amount.

8. Update Fee Settings to Mandatory (if needed) 4:25

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  • Edit the processing fee record to make the fee mandatory.
  • Change the fee prompt to a declarative statement (e.g., ‘Please be aware that we charge a 3% processing fee for card transactions’).

9. Verify Changes in Shopping Cart 5:21

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  • Test the shopping cart again to ensure the mandatory fee is displayed correctly without user options.

10. Confirm Consistency Across Platforms 6:32

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  • Please be aware that the processing fee settings apply to both the shopping cart and to the contribution portals.

Cautionary Notes

  • Ensure that the processing fee percentages are compliant with any applicable regulations.
  • Double-check the verbiage for clarity and user-friendliness.

Tips for Efficiency

  • Regularly review and update the processing fee settings to reflect any changes in policy or user feedback.
  • Train team members on how to navigate the configuration settings to minimize errors.

Link to Video

Pre-announcement — Processing Fees for the Shopping Cart

This article serves as a pre-announcement regarding the upcoming implementation of processing fees on the ShalomCloud shopping cart, which has not been available until now. As an administrator, you can make fees mandatory, and set the rates for card and for ACH, respectively.

The shopping cart will feature a new radio button for selecting payment methods, and it will automatically calculate the total including fees. If you have any questions or objections about this feature, please reach out to us, at support@shalomcloud.com, as we want to ensure everyone is aware of this change prior to its official roll-out.

Here’s an explanatory video on this forthcoming feature.

One new wrinkle for the ShalomCloud form builder

The subject is the ShalomCloud form builder. Within the form builder, you’ve been able to automatically bill a household, depending on their choice from a list of options. For example, suppose your form contained something like this (amounts are arbitrary):

In such a case, you could choose for the system to automatically create an amount owed, to the appropriate category and fiscal year, depending on the user’s choice.

All well and good. But, suppose you want to supply the ability to write-in an amount, and have that, also, be automatically billed. That is now a reality.

Here’s a video running through this new idea.

New — Complete and Fast List of Yahrzeits

ShalomCloud offers quite a few ways to handle Yahrzeits. The point of this post is a new way — a simple, all-in list of Yahrzeits, their observers, and the respective dates of the next occurrence.

Rather than providing that background in this article, we encourage the reader to visit https://blog.shalomcloud.com/?s=Yahrzeit . There, you will see explanations and videos on topics such as

We now have an additional approach. From the Queries menu, you’ll see a selection entitled Yahrzeit Simple List. This sends you to a screen with only one field — the start date for producing a list of every Yahrzeit in the system.

This list, meant to be extremely quick, goes straight to a spreadsheet. It lists all of your Yahrzeits, with a line for each related party (or blanks if there is no related party). Beginning with the start date that you’ve entered, it shows the next occurrence of the Yahrzeit.

Here is a video showing this feature in action.

Instantly See Credits to an Amount Owed

The video accompanying this post shows a before-and-after look at a financial transaction query.

In the “before” look, you could

  • Edit any item in the list, to see all the fields for that item, and to change some of them.
  • For any credit — that is, a payment, an adjustment, or financial assistance — you could select the “DR” link to see the charge to which that payment was applied.

With this change, you can traverse in the opposite direction. For any given charge, you can see the credits applied to it.

And, once you select the “CR” link, the credits appear immediately below the one you selected.

Here’s a video demonstrating both the before and the after.

Reduce Email Bombardment: When Contributors Love Summarized Notifications

You can now create summarized contribution acknowledgements.

The traditional acknowledgement, addressed in this post from January of 2023, accommodates sending a passel of donation notification from one screen. Accordingly, for each line item, you can override the description; and for each line item, you can specify a third party to be honored or notified. And, by means of a checkbox per item, you can choose exactly which payments merit an email acknowledgement.

But suppose you’re faced with a different situation. For example, over a short period of time, you receive several donations, possibly repeated contributions per household. possibly on different days, possibly via different checks or card/ACH payments. You probably would not want to issue a thank-you per transaction. Instead, you’d like to send a note containing the sum of that activity.

That’s what this new concept handles. You’ll see a checkbox to the right of the Bulk acknowledge button.

By checking that box, and then selecting Bulk acknowledge payments, you’ll see a screen with one line per household, with the total of the payments contained in the underlying query.

This promotes sending one email per household.

One caveat worth mentioning — because we’re totaling, this likely needs a simpler email template. The only elements it can handle are today’s date, the name and address of the giver, and the amount.

Two different situations. Two different ways to handle them.

Here’s a video depicting both.

For Your Convenience: Checkbox to Choose Birthday Range

A little bit of a time-saver here, in the guise of a birthday range checkbox.

From Queries -> Members, you’ve been able to choose a month and day from, and a month and day to.

Well, now, you’ll see a convenience checkbox, which will automatically populate next month’s date range:

If you want something other than next month, such as the next three months, you’re still free to pull down whatever range you want. This is merely a convenience to automatically fill out those four drop-down boxes for next month.

Here’s a video showing this feature in action.