December 2009

As another year comes to close, December’s Featured Article is an End of Year Message from our President, Will Anderson, reflecting on 2009 and looking forward to what you can expect from Jonas in 2010.

For information on 2010 tax changes effective January 1st, check the Important Reminders section.
  
For this month only, we added a new section - Continuous Improvement - that highlights exciting new changes coming in 2010.

Read the News and Events section for information on the upcoming AHR Expo in Orlando, Florida in January 2010. 

In our third month of Stump the Staff, launched for the first time ever in October, the Jonas Support Team has once again met the challenge!

Read about one of the newest additions to the Jonas Support Team, Matt Snyder, in the Know Your Support Rep section.

In this issue, the FAQ’s and Helpful Hints include important information about how to process the last payroll for 2009. 

If you have missed previous issues of the Insider, please click here. Please remember to share the Insider with your staff.

We want to hear from you!  If you have ideas or suggestions for improving the Jonas Insider, please forward these to us via e-mail. We look forward to launching a new design for our 2010 Jonas Insider newsletters.

End-of-Year Message

In this month’s newsletter, we look back on what was accomplished in 2009 and what we are planning for 2010.  2009 was certainly a challenging year in our industry but, thanks to our loyal customer base, we have been able to continue to invest in and improve our product and services even as we see our new sales decline.  In the latter half of the year we saw sales come back and start to grow again so we are optimistic about 2010.  

2009 Highlights

• Direct Answer Support: We launched this initiative in the second quarter of the year. At present we answer roughly 50% of calls directly (with another 20% coming in via the web) and close about 30% of all calls on first contact. Our objective is to take 80% of calls direct or via the web and get 40% resolved on first contact.
• Account Management: All clients now have an assigned account manager that is tasked with checking in every 6 months to make sure things are going well and to sort out any nagging problems. If you have not heard from an account manager please email Karoline Lapko and she will get you set up.
• Enhancements: We released 11.9 with over 300 enhancements including Design Your Own Forms, Project Management, new Report Codes, Multi-sub ledger check processing, and the ability to allocate revenue to service items in the work order system.
• New Products: We launched eTimesheets (remote time entry from the field) and eRouting (provide a mapping integration between Jonas and various GPS solutions) as our latest portal products. We have also just finished a new version of Jonas mobile that can work on laptops and tablet PCs. It is ready to launch on XP and is being tested on Windows 7 as we speak.

Coming in 2010:

• Version 12.0: The latest version of Jonas is current in Beta form and will be ready for mass release in February or March with 180 new enhancements and counting. The biggest change you will notice is a major clean up of all the screens to improve consistency and flow. You will also notice changes in the Set up / Edit Work Order screen where we have provided users with new configuration options to see the fields they want. Also look out for a new AP entry screen with improved integration to Digio (Document Management) and Purchase Orders.
• Customer Portal: By the end of Q2 we will have launched a new customer portal where you will be able to log and review calls. In the new portal you will have much greater visibility especially around projected completion dates for coding items. Over the following year we will expand the portal to include a knowledge base, web-based training videos and to allow users to log, view and vote on product wish lists (this will be the primary way to add new features to the product.) Our objective at Jonas is to become more transparent and this portal will give us the tools to provide our clients with much great visibility into our development and support processes.

During 2010 we will also be working hard on Jonas version 12.1.  After several years of building a lot of functionality, we are now turning our attention back to ease of use.  We are going to go back and review our core modules to rethink processes to offer the same functionality in a more streamlined way.  Of course, you will still see some new features but the overarching philosophy for 2010 is to make the product easier to use.

At Jonas, it is our goal to continuously improve both our product and services.  I hope that you have seen a benefit through our work in 2009 and are enthused by the changes coming in 2010.  We are always interested in hearing your feedback, whether it be in our annual surveys, user groups, or any other forum.  I would invite anyone with comments or ideas about our product or service to feel free to email or call me at any time.  We are focused on delivering what our clients want us to deliver and the best way to achieve that is to spend a lot of time talking to you!

On behalf of everyone at Jonas, please have a happy holiday season and let’s all hope for bigger and better things in 2010.

Sincerely,


Will Anderson
President – Jonas Construction Group
will.anderson@jonassoftware.com

Payroll Tax Changes for 2010

Both the Canadian and U.S. governments have declared changes to the payroll taxation structure effective January 1st, 2010.  

These changes will be available on the Jonas website www.jonassoftware.com as of December 16th, 2009.

Version 11.6 will have a product update for payroll changes only available on the website.

Versions 11.8, 11.9 and 12.0 will have a payroll changes only product update as well as a full product update which will include the payroll changes as well as all other program modifications. 

NOTE: The update can be downloaded and installed at any time.  There is no need to wait as the changes are date-sensitive and will not become effective until you run a 2010 payroll.

Canadian Payroll T4 printing:

Only clients running v 11.9 will be able to use the Custom T4 form option.  All others can either order the forms from the CRA or download from the CRA website.

For a list of year-end payroll procedures, click on the appropriate link below.
Canadian Payroll Year-End Checklist
U.S Payroll Year-End Checklist

Jonas New Look & Feel for V 12.0

Beginning with version 12.0, Jonas Construction Modules have been enhanced with a new and improved display for better usability.  The goals we achieved with this change are as follows:

• Look & Feel – the enhanced look makes the screens visually more appealing and the right justification of the labels give it a “cleaner” appearance.
• User Experience – The separation of standard functions (Ok, Exit, Print, Undo, etc.) from the program functions( Add, Delete etc. etc.) make the program more consistent and easier to use. 
• Standard Functions – have been added to the tray.
• Program Specific Functions – are organized on the right hand side of the screen in a new “hyper link” format.

The Jonas commitment to continuous enhancement is visually evident in the newest release, V.12.0.

Below is an example of the New Look & Feel screen for posting an A/P Invoice.

AHR Expo 2010

January 25th 2010 10:00am - January 27th 2010 4:00pm

Jonas Software is proud to announce its attendance at 2010 AHR Expo. This year's show will take place January 25th - 27th at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida

Visit us at booth # 2093.

Visit our booth for free gift giveaways this year!

For more on the AHR Expo, visit the show site: www.ahrexpo.com

We introduced Stump the Staff in the October edition of the Insider.   We asked you, our clients, to submit questions you would like answered in upcoming editions.  We will publish the best questions on any Jonas topic, complete with the answers from your Jonas Support staff.   Your name will be entered in a draw quarterly to win valuable Jonas prizes!  You can enter as many times as you like!  Send your entries to Evelyn Garnet.  December’s Entry Stump: Why am I not able to use the Spreadsheet Upload entry method in payroll when I have full access to Payroll module? I am getting the  message below: Staff: There is a flag that is turned on under Special Payroll Options restricting access – Do NOT display pay rate in Time entry. This month’s Stump was submitted by Clark Hunter from Haller Enterprises Inc.

Q. How do I find an amount that was posted in my a/p without knowing the supplier or invoice number?

A. Run a detailed a/p listing to View and use the binocular function in the Report Viewer to search for your amount.

When your amount is found, it will be highlighted in the report.  If this is the incorrect record, you can continue searching for the next occurrence of this value.  You also have an option to search backward in the report.  This option is available on any report you run through the Report Viewer.

Canadian Payroll

IMPORTANT  PAYROLL YEAR-END REMINDER

Does your pay date (cheque date) fall on a Friday?

If so, January 01 (New Years Day) falls on a Friday this year.  If you will be paying your employees on the 31st instead, then ensure you process this payroll as a 2009 payroll and not a 2010 payroll (‘Tax Year’ field when you setup the Pay Period should be “09”. You can also confirm payroll is set to the correct year by checking the YTD details on the pay stub).

If you pay on a weekly or biweekly basis the above situation may result in a 27th or 53rd pay period for your employees.  If this was recognized at the start of the year and the # of pays in the Payroll Profile was set to 27 or 53 then you will not have any issues.  However if the # of pays was not changed, then the following step needs to be done when you set up that pay period:  In the Setup New Pay Period screen, you need to check on flag “Do not take CPP exemption”.  If this flag is not checked,  you may end up under-withholding CPP resulting in a PIER report.

If you will be paying employees on the Monday instead (January 04th) or if your cheque date will fall on any other day in January,  the payroll should be processed as a 2010 payroll with ‘Tax Year’ set to “10”.  The Tax Year can be defaulted to “10” by going into your Payroll Profile and setting it under ‘Current Tax Year’.  Again to verify payroll is being processed as a 2010 payroll, double-check the YTD on the pay stubs (should be same as the pay period amounts).

U.S Payroll

IMPORTANT  PAYROLL YEAR-END REMINDER

Does your pay date (cheque date) fall on a Friday?

If so, January 01 (New Years Day) falls on a Friday this year.  If you will be paying your employees on the 31st instead, ensure you process this payroll as a 2009 payroll and not a 2010 payroll (‘Tax Year’ field when you setup the Pay Period should be “09”.  You can also confirm payroll is set to the correct year by checking the YTD details on the pay stub).

If you will be paying employees on the Monday instead (January 04th) or if your check date will fall on any other day in January, the payroll should be processed as a 2010 payroll with ‘Tax Year’ set to “10”.  The Tax Year can be defaulted to “10” by going into your Payroll Profile and setting it under ‘Current Tax Year’.  Again to verify payroll is being processed as a 2010 payroll, double-check the YTD on the pay stubs (should be same as the pay period amounts).