Year: 2026

Batch Yahrzeit Reminders: Streamline Email Sending Now

If you’ve ever clicked Send and then had to wait—watching your screen sit there with no real sense of how long it would take—this update is for you.

Who this change helps (and who it doesn’t)

  • Helps: Anyone sending Yahrzeit notifications by email, especially in larger volumes.
  • No change: If you send Yahrzeit notifications by hard copy, your workflow stays exactly the same.

What’s new: your screen is no longer tied up

Previously, sending Yahrzeit emails could lock up your screen while the system worked in the background.

Now, after you select your search results and choose a template, the system immediately takes you to a feedback screen.

A progress bar you can actually follow

On the feedback screen, you’ll see a progress bar that moves across the page while emails are being sent. Instead of wondering whether anything is happening (or how close you are to done), you get clear, real-time visual progress until completion.

More detailed sending results

Along with the progress bar, you’ll also get clearer delivery feedback, including:

  • How many emails the system attempted to send
  • How many emails were successfully sent

If those two numbers don’t match, it’s typically because some recipients can’t be emailed (for example, they don’t have an email address on file). In the demo scenario, a few messages could not be delivered for that exact reason.

Why this matters for high-volume sending

When you’re sending dozens—or even hundreds—of Yahrzeit notifications, small delays and unclear status updates quickly become frustrating. This new flow is designed to:

  • Keep your session responsive
  • Reduce uncertainty during sending
  • Provide immediate clarity when some messages can’t be delivered

What’s coming next

This progress-and-feedback approach is a technique we expect to apply in other parts of the system as well—especially anywhere a process currently ties up your screen for a while.

If you regularly send Yahrzeit emails in bulk, this update should make the experience noticeably faster, clearer, and more reassuring—especially with the added delivery details and the interactive progress bar.

See the full video: https://share.shalomcloud.com/d5uqb8Bg?sa=blog_post

Now Available — Printed Letters for Individuals

Reaching members isn’t always a one-channel game. Email is fast, text messages are immediate, and attachments make it easy to share documents. But sometimes the most effective message is the one that lands in a mailbox.

That’s why this update matters. You can now generate hard copy printed letters directly from an existing email template. And include personalized fields, such as first name.

The idea: reuse what already works

If you already maintain email templates (even simple ones filled with placeholder text), you’ve done the hard part: you’ve written and approved messaging that matches your organization’s tone.

Those templates often include personalization tokens—such as a first name substitution—so each message feels relevant to the recipient. When you run a member query, the system can merge that personalization for each selected individual.

What’s new: printed letters from email templates

Until now, your options were essentially digital:

  • Send an instant email you write on the spot
  • Send a text message
  • Choose an existing email template (optionally with an attachment) and email it to your list

Now you can take that same email template and choose to create printed letters for the members you’ve selected. The result is a set of letters generated from the template, ready to be produced as hard copy.

Why printed letters still win in key situations

Email is efficient, but hard copy has advantages when you need higher visibility or a more formal touch. Printed letters can be especially useful for:

  • Board communications that require a more official presentation
  • Fundraising outreach where a mailed letter may get more attention than another inbox message
  • Committee or leadership groups where you want the communication to stand out
  • Targeted audiences based on role or member attributes, rather than blasting everyone

In short: you’re no longer limited to emailing when your goal is to reach specific individuals with a tangible, high-impact message.

How it fits into your workflow

A common workflow looks like this:

  1. Start with an existing email template (even a basic one).
  2. Use a member query to select recipients.
  3. Apply personalization (such as first-name substitution).
  4. Choose the option to create printed letters for the selected recipients.

That’s it—same messaging assets, expanded delivery method.

The takeaway

This isn’t a brand-new concept so much as a smart expansion of what you already do: build templates once, personalize them through queries, and deliver them to the right people.

The difference is you can now deliver that message as printed letters, not just email—making targeted member outreach more flexible, more intentional, and often more effective.

See the full video here: Video

Now available — per transaction override for QB account to debit

For those who regularly post transactions to QuickBooks Online using ShalomCloud, a new feature might significantly streamline your workflow. Until now, the financial category mapping determined where the debit and the credit would post, for each payment to that category. With this change users now have the flexibility to redirect these debits to a different account.

Understanding the Default Posting Method

In ShalomCloud, each financial category is mapped to a corresponding pair of accounts in QuickBooks. For instance, when a payment posts to the Camp Scholarships Fund, it would debit Undeposited Funds and credit Scholarships. This method has been the standard practice, ensuring consistency across transactions.

Introducing Flexible Debit Posting

The latest update allows users to choose a different account to debit for a specific payment. Suppose you prefer the debit to go to a Money Market Account instead of Undeposited Funds. Now, you are able to make this entry directly during the posting process.

How It Works

  1. Select a family/household.
  2. Choose the category and fill out most of the screen as usual.
  3. Just above the save button, you’ll see a new field, “GL to Debit.”
  4. If you leave that field alone, the journal entry will post to the category default.
  5. Instead of using the default debit account, you may select something different.

This enhancement, while modest in scope, offers more control over your financial postings. It’s particularly beneficial for users seeking to customize their accounting processes without additional manual entries QuickBooks.

To see a short (4m 29s) video of this feature in action, access this link.