April
Spring has officially sprung and April’s Insider is here!
This month’s Featured Article is a about a Jonas success story – Contech Construction Ltd. Read what they have to say about their Jonas solution.
As May 1 swiftly approaches, check the Important Reminders for updates on the HST implementation for British Columbia and Ontario. If you operate in Ohio, please read about the changes to the Ohio School District Tax. Find out about changes for U.S. Payroll and the HIRE ACT outlined here, also.
Instead of a series of Webinar training sessions, this month we are including a listing of Upcoming Product Demo’s of the newest Jonas modules:
e-Timesheet, e-Routing, Project Management, and Digio. Space is limited so register as soon as you can so that you don’t miss out on these informative sessions.
Welcome the Support Team’s newest member, Dolores Chiasson, in Know Your Support Rep.
Check out this month’s Stump the Staff submission. We are still welcoming your entries. You could win a valuable prize! Enter as many times as you like. Submit issues you are having trouble with to Evelyn Garnet.
Learn valuable tips and tricks in FAQ’s and Helpful Hints.
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.
 Executive Summary
Hal Andrews used the construction slowdown as an opportunity to improve his company’s operational efficiencies. Jonas Software, with eTimesheets and Document Management, proved to be an efficient, practical – and affordable – technology solution.
Customer Profile
Contech Construction is a versatile commercial specialty contractor specializing in architectural concrete formwork, structural wood framing, heavy timber work and seismic upgrades. Founded in 1987 by Hal Andrews, an Honours Graduate of Engineering from the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), Contech performs a wide range of professional carpentry services throughout the Greater Vancouver Regional District.
Click here to read the rest of this article.
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Effective May 1, 2010 clients who conduct business in British Columbia or Ontario, Canada must begin the implementation of HST Harmonized Sales Tax.
For detailed information on the tax changes, please refer to the appropriate government agency’s website which are included in the instruction booklet below.
Please note that you must upgrade your Jonas software to version 11.9 or higher by May 1, 2010 to properly implement the modifications for HST.
If you have not already done so, and cannot locate your v 11.9 CD, please contact our Support Team for a replacement at your earliest convenience.
Please click HERE to access the Jonas instruction booklet.
You can now view two previously recorded HST sessions.
# 1 -Topic: Jonas Presents “How to Handle HST Changes within Jonas Software”
Presented by: Anne Stevenson
Recorded on April 12th, 2010
# 2 -Topic: CFMA Presents “How Constructions companies should handle HST”
Presented by: Ronald McKenzie
Recorded on April 22nd, 2010
NOTE:
If you cannot view the recordings you will need to download Windows Media Player.
If you are having difficulty loading this, please try the link below.
http://old.jonas-construction.com/webmedia/news/HST/hst-recordings.html
When calculating School District tax for Ohio residents, the calculation has been improved to take into account any Ohio state exemptions claimed by employees.
The changes are now available for versions 11.9, 12.0 and 12.1 on the Jonas Support Website. Please login and navigate to Support>Enhancements >Product Updates in order to install the product update. If you do not wish to perform a full product update, there is also a Payroll Only Update which will update the withholding tables when run.
NOTE: For a full update, Construction clients must download the DN version e.g. PU119DN.exe.
If you have any questions, please call client support at 1-800-352-6647, or email support@jonassoftware.com.
The HIRE ACT was signed into law on March 18, 2010. The HIRE act basically allows employers to be exempt from paying Employer portion of Social Security for any new employees that are hired who have been unemployed for at least 60 days. For more specific details on the law click on the following link:
http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=220326,00.html
To assist with reporting of this change in Jonas the following changes have been made and are available via Product Update (Note change requires you to be on at least version 11.9):
- Flag has been added to Taxes screen in Maintain Employee Records; “Employer Exempt Soc. Sec”. If new hire meets the date requirements for the exemption then this flag needs to be checked (Important: DO NOT check flag that says “Exempt from Social Security” as this flag exempts the employee and this exemption only applies to Employer)
- When running Cost Allocation report in Processing, program will look to see if flag is checked and if it is will not calculate employer Social Security for that employee
- When running End of Payroll Update report, the Remittance Summary that prints will reflect the reduced Employer Social Security amount. This in turn will be reflected on the 941B section of the 941 Report in Jonas.
At this time, how and where on the 941 Report the employer credit amount needs to be reflected and support documentation that will be required has not been confirmed, these details are something that will likely be handled outside of the Jonas program.
The changes are now available on the Jonas Support Website. Please login and navigate to Support->Product Updates in order to perform the product update. If you do not wish to perform a full product update, there is also a Payroll Only Update which will update just the payroll changes.
If you have any questions, please call client support at 1-800-352-6647, or email support@jonassoftware.com.
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Date: Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Time: 11:00 am Eastern
Length: 30 minutes
Here's what we'll cover:
- How users can enter time for one or more employees for Jobs, Work Orders, Equipment, GL accounts.
- Customized eTimesheet Home Page Announcements.
- Security and administrator controls including approval processes.
- Simple data replication to speed time entry.
- Review prior to the update of payroll.
- Integration to Jonas Software.
- Reporting.
Date: Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Time: 1:00 pm Eastern
Length: 30 minutes
Jonas eRouting is an easy-to-use live mapping tool that lets service contractors track the location of their technicians , trucks and work orders in real time. eRouting uses the proven technology of Google Maps™ to display the location of your work orders . It can also be integrated with your GPS tracking system to display the location of your vehicles.
With eRouting you can select the closest qualified technician to the job simply by plotting positions on a
map.
With the map in view, you can click on a work order to see its location. You can also click on a
truck to find its location, and view what work is being performed at that site.
Date: Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Time: 2:00 pm Eastern
Length: 30 minutes
Here's what we'll cover:
- How Project Management will help keep files for a project in a centralized location
- How Project Management can easily create and track RFI’s, transmittals, submittals and proposed change orders
- How to manage cost and non-cost related information
- How to get quick and easy access to a job log – subcontractors, employees, significant events
- How to easily update project details and assign appropriate resources such as labour, material, equipment etc.
- How to track what purchases need to be made and when
- How to track proposed change orders/CCN's and customer change orders
Date: Thursday, April 29th, 2010
Time: 3:00 pm Eastern
Length: 30 minutes
Here's what we'll cover:
- How Digio Jonas improves productivity, reduces costs and saves your organization valuable time by reducing time spent searching for documents using full text and tag-based searches.
- How Digio Jonas increases accountability and tracking by setting approval processes and routing key documents to users
- How Digio Jonas reduces information loss and provides additional security
- How Digio Jonas automatically saves relevant Jonas documents and integrates tightly with Word, Excel and Outlook
If you are interested in pursuing training in any of these or other areas, please email Karoline Lapko or call us at 1-888-789-9073 to schedule your training session.
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Dolores has a long history in the Construction industry and also using Jonas Software, specifically the Accounts Payable, Purchasing and Change Order modules.
Prior to working with Jonas, Dolores was employed for 30+ years as a Parts Manager in the Aviation Industry whose duties included Purchasing, Sales, Inventory Control, Job Costing, Service and Work Orders. She experienced the transition from a manual system to a computerized system during that time.
Dolores’ personal interests centre around alternative healing modalities including teaching, practicing and studying.
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This month’s “Stump” was submitted by Hussein Sheriff from Atlas Power Sweeping in Burnaby, B.C., Canada.
Stump
“In Service Billing, I can’t get part of my Description of Work to print on my ticket. Why won’t it print “& verbal instruction from Brian”?”
Staff
The reason this is not printing is that it is hard-coded into all work order ticket designs NOT to print any lines of description of work that begin with the special character “&”. If your staff want this to print on the ticket, they must ensure that they enter the word in full as “and”.
This feature allows certain notes on the work order to be omitted from the hard copy.
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Q. Why is the Automatic Time-out in the System Parameters not working on my workstation?
A. The setting in the system parameters can be overridden by the setting for the defaults for the individual workstation as below.
Q. Why am I not able to print all the pages of my P.O.?
A. There is a setting in the P.O. System Profile - Printing screen which allows you to restrict number of pages to print for a P.O.
What is a Corrupt File?
Unreadable Data Records
Computers store their information in Data Records. Software programs instruct the
hardware to both read and write data records constantly through the working day.
Today’s PC Networks are called Distributed Processing Networks. The processing load
is distributed to the PC’s on the network and the data on the server is shared. This
makes the network very powerful, especially relative to the cost. That’s the good news.
The bad news is to make use of the processor in each workstation data must be
continually transferred from the server to the workstation, processed on the workstation
then transferred back to the server. As the data is being transferred it is running through
network cards, connectors, cables, switches, routers, hubs, etc. If just one component
on one workstation is defective or not configured correctly the data records can become
damaged and unreadable.
Every time information is entered at the workstation the data is requested from the server. In fact every response on the workstation prompts data transfer between the server and workstation. Billions of bytes of data are flowing through the network continuously through the working day.
If a programmer looks at the raw data records that the machine had stored they would
look something like: APD SL A/R BOM01 M12345 001 IN 20000831 etc. This
makes sense to a computer program because it is expecting to see the data in a certain
order with fields of a specified length. If you took the spaces out of the sample above
the information would be unreadable to the machine.
APDSLA/R BOM01M12345001IN20000831 With the spaces removed the data is not in
the correct location. The program will display an error message usually 26 or 47.
In another example of unreadable data the record will have characters in it that are not
even part of the character set of the computer language. For example:
APD SL A/R BOM01 ☯ 2345 001 IN 20000831
This record is said to be “corrupted”. The program cannot read the data. In fact the data
may not make any sense. When the program cannot read the data the data file has to
be rebuilt.
Rebuilding the data means read all the records you are able to read and save them.
This means that the unreadable records are discarded. Which records were discarded?
What data is lost? This is impossible to determine because the machine can’t read the
record! Sometimes the record is not damaged badly enough to be discarded in the
rebuilding processing however the data contained in the record is out of order. This
means that when the record is used the machine will return an error message or report
incorrectly.
This is not a software problem. Somewhere the hardware/network is not capable of
transferring the data records accurately.
Many other generic programs like a spreadsheet or word processor might still work fine.
This is because, until the processing above:
the document is read in once to the workstation, all at once
it is not shared simultaneously with other users
data does not leave the workstation until you are finished, and ‘save’
So in such a program, only 2 data transfers occurred: one at the beginning, and one at
the end. This is not a fair comparison to a multi user shared accounting program
moving data constantly. To allow sharing the data must be moved constantly.
Causes of Data Corruption
I would like to say that we have seen it all but I’m sure we haven’t.
Electrical
Power Surges
These are known culprits. Any device when turned on affect the circuit it is on. The
degree of effect depends on how much power it draws. So devices that draw a lot of
power have lot of effect on the circuit.
Electric heaters, coffee pots, powerful lights, printers and electrical storms are all
suspects
Loose cables
Most devices have removable power cords. If the cord isn’t tight the electrical
interference will cause problems.
Cabling
Electro-Magnetic Forces
Cables must be protected from outside influences. Electro-magnetic forces will disrupt
flow of data. Keep data cables away from electrical cables, electric motors, and places
where they will be stepped on or unplugged.
Too Long
There is a maximum length for data cables.
Connections
Make sure the connections are not lose, subject to moisture, dust or any other
contaminants. If the area is subject to vibration then the connections need to be
checked to make sure they remain tight. Areas close to train tracks have reported this
problem.
Defective Hardware
Network cards, hubs, routers, switches, processors, and other pieces.
Network Protocols
IPX/SPX is an extremely slow protocol and is known to have caused problems. It must
never be used.
Data Transmission Interference
Electrical fields around wiring motors, etc. will disrupt the flow of data.
Control-Alt-Delete
Rebooting a workstation that has a file open may cause that file to be damaged.
Sometimes a workstation may appear to be locked up when it is not. If the terminal has
gone into “sleep mode” (power saving feature) it may not “wake up” as fast as you would
like. This gives the appearance of being locked up and gets re-booted unnecessarily.
The same is true if a question window is open behind your active window. The machine
appears locked up. In reality it is waiting for you to answer a question. To be sure
minimize the Window you are on to be sure there isn’t one open in behind.
Network Operating System
Improper installation of network or terminal operating system. Creating the wrong
environment or protocols can create havoc for data files.
File and Printer Sharing
Must be turned off. If they are on it creates a lot of unnecessary network traffic.
Network collisions and “freeze ups” are the result of sharing. File sharing on the server
is the obvious exception.
Screen Savers
They have been known to go off during a batch update and “freeze” the machine.
Disable them.
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"No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We've been working on it for months. Now go act busy for a few weeks and I'll let you know when it's time to tell them."
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