Yahrzeit Letters – Tabular Format

by Norman Snyder, posted in Yahrzeits

If in your congregation, it is common for one person to receive multiple Yahrzeit reminder letters in the same period, you can now use the tabular format. In this format, the Yahrzeits appear in neat columns, in the middle of the page. In contrast, in the traditional format, the Yahrzeits were in-line with the rest of the text.

There is one thing you should be aware of, though. The tabular format is fixed–it has the name of the deceased, relationship to the living person, and Hebrew and Gregorian dates. There is no flexibility to include or exclude fields in that table.

With the Yahrzeit letters tabular format, you still do control the rest of the text of the letter–the areas above and below the table are free-form.

Here’s a video (3:51) showing how this works.

Yahrzeit letter tabular format

Tax Statements by Email

by Norman Snyder, posted in General

You can now send links to your memberships’ tax statements by email.

For some time, ShalomCloud could send tax statements by printed letter. As with the periodic statements, you can now send links by email to your members. By accessing the link, each member can see, print, or download the tax statement.

There are two “must-have” items for this process. One — the actual tax letter. Two, an email template entitled, specifically, “send_tax_statement_link.” If you already have a “send_statement_link”, you can copy that one, and change it for tax purposes.

Here is a video showing the tax email process in action:

Tax statements by email

Tax Letters by Email
Tax Letters by Email

Labels for Checked Members

by Norman Snyder, posted in Membership Communications

From the member query screen, you can now print labels specifically for members selected by checkbox.

Prior to this relatively small enhancement, if you wanted to finely select your audience for labels, you’d have to make a member attribute, and tag the selected members with that attribute.

Now, you can create an ad hoc set of labels, just by checking or unchecking names that appear in the query.

Here’s a two-minute video showing how to use this new feature.

Labels for checked members
Labels for checked members

Aged Accounts Receivable Reports

by Norman Snyder, posted in How to, Synagogue Finances

ShalomCloud now has available four aged accounts receivable reports.

The four reports are:

  • By family, summarized.
  • By family, detail.
  • By category, summarized.
  • By category, detail.

If you’ve entered Due Date in the charge, that is the field that determines the age of the receivable item. Lacking due date, the system chooses effective date. Lacking effective date, it’ll fall back to the date the transaction was entered.

There is also a selection to include fiscal year in the categories. Here’s what that means. If you already include the year in your categories–that is, if you set up new sets of categories each each, then you won’t need to include fiscal year, because it’s already there.

On the other hand, knowing that ShalomCloud carries an explicit, separate field for fiscal year, you may adopt the practice of not setting up new categories each year. In that case, if you wish to separate the commitments by year, you would want to include fiscal years on the reports.

Here’s a six-minute video that runs through how to create these reports.

A/R Aged
Aged Accounts Receivable Reports

How to Reassign Payments

by Norman Snyder, posted in How to, Synagogue Finances

This is an instructional article on how to reassign payments.

To explain, let’s run through a typical example.

Let’s say you’ve created outstanding items for two categories — a pledge for $800 and religious school tuition for $400.

A check arrives for $50, and you’ve applied it to the pledge, leaving a pledge balance of $750.

The video steps through how to find the $50 payment, and how to reapply it to the school tuition. The result would be a pledge balance of $800 and school tuition balance of $350. View the video

Reassigning a payment
Reassigning a payment

Recurring Payments

by Norman Snyder, posted in General

There’s a new feature available in regard to recurring payments.

Previously, there were only two time periods for recurring payments–weekly or monthly. Now, though, you can specify the number of weeks or months between payments.

For example, if you specify a month-type payment, but with an interval of 3, that charge will happen every 3 months.

If you’re unfamiliar with the whole idea of recurring payments, as implemented within ShalomCloud, you’ll likely find this video helpful.

List of payment plans
Payment Plans

Copy email and letter templates

by Norman Snyder, posted in Membership Communications

It is now possible, and rather easy, to copy email and letter templates.

In both cases, the procedure is simple. Under the Configuration menu, go to either letter templates or email (a.k.a. multipurpose) templates. From the list, choose the new link that says Copy.

The system will duplicate the document, appending a -copy to the name. You can then edit the document as usual.

Here’s a short video showing the feature in action.

Statements by Email

by Norman Snyder, posted in Membership Communications, Synagogue Finances

We now have the ability to send statements by email.

Button to send statements by email.

Taking our cue from banks and brokerages, we’ve opted not to send the actual statement by email. Instead, we send a rather long link that, when selected, takes the congregant directly into that family’s statement.

There are a few very simple setup steps:

  • Make an email template named send_statement_link.  This is an ordinary email template–so that you can insert pictures, and other customized language. The only requirement is that the template contain, in squiggly braces, the phrase {magic_link}.
  • When you go to produce the statements by email, you may choose to send the links to only certain roles, such as Parent or Adult. And, as with letter statements, you can select specific billing statuses, and/or certain family attributes.
  • Do know that the system will tell you any families for whom there are no email addresses. In that case, without leaving the screen, you can print statements for those families. Then, before the next statement period, perhaps you could work on retrieving email addresses for those families lacking one.

Here’s a video that takes you through the process.

Reassign Categories

by Norman Snyder, posted in Synagogue Finances

You are now able to reassign categories for financial transactions. That is to say, if you have an obsolete category, and you wish to move all the activity to a new category. you can now do so in one action.

If you wish, you can delete the old category once the activity moves.

Here’s a two-minute demonstration of this feature.

One Donation Letter per Household

by Norman Snyder, posted in Membership Communications, Synagogue Finances

Frequently, when congregants make contributions, they include requests to inform others about the gift. Until now, the system dutifully created precisely one letter per individual. For example, if David Davies contributed $18 to a fund, and wished to inform Earl Everett and Eva Everett about the contribution, the system produced a letter to David (as the contributor), a letter to Earl, and a letter to Eva.

With this change, the system recognizes those cases where the honorees reside in the same household, and produces one letter per household

This video illustrates a case, where, in fact, the last names of the honorees are different, but reside in the same household. You’ll see in the video one letter to the honoree’s household.