Technology in Practice

If your nonprofit is struggling under the inefficiency of an outdated or underpowered accounting system, you already feel the pain. The extra work involved to evaluate software and build a business case will be worth it when your organization strengthens its financial management. Right-sized, full-featured fund accounting software designed for the needs of nonprofits contributes directly to mission impact. Even if you decide to stay with your current system for now, evaluating all your options unlocks invaluable insights about your organization’s future needs. Here are six common reasons organizations change fund accounting software: Reporting is a struggle that takes too much time. Your organization relies too heavily on inefficient, error-prone manual processes. You depend on unwieldy spreadsheets to analyze performance, sometimes causing reporting errors or version control problems. The number of your locations, programs, grants, and/or projects has grown rapidly and, as a result, you’re considering adding additional accounting headcount. Backward-looking reports no longer cut it for making decisions. Management and the board need real-time visibility, as do external third parties. You need to perform consolidations. If you need guidance on breaking the software evaluation and selection process into manageable steps, access this this guide: 5 Step Plan for Selecting the Right  Fund Accounting Software for Your Nonprofit to walk through a step-by-step plan for defining your requirements, building a business case, and evaluating your options.

Are you interested in isolating items in the Left List? Do you want the ability to slice the Left List data into pieces and be able to review it one piece at a time? Without any fancy customizations? Let’s examine a quick and simple way to go about it. Note: Content for this blog post was originally posted on Sage City by Pam Nightingale, November 30, 2021. A simple option is to utilize the filters at the top of the Left List columns. Clicking on the Funnel icons will display the following filter options: Contains, Starts with, Ends with, Greater than or equal to, Greater than, Less than or equal to, Less than, Equal to, or Not equal to. If you only want to see invoices for Bill-to customer NA009, for example, you can select the filter Equal to and enter NA009. The problem with this solution is that its isn’t permanent and it is limited to visible columns. Now let’s look at something that we can save. Head to the Right box and expand Selection. From there, click on Advanced selection. Create the same filter for NA009 Bill-to customer in Advanced selection. Next to Memo where you can save the filter. Memo code: this is the name of the selection criteria that you will save. If you name the Memo code STD, this memo will be loaded every time you open the screen. Global: if this is selected, everyone will have access to this Memo code. If not selected, it is your own personal code. Description: Brief note that tells you about the Memo code Click OK to save the memo Now, note that under Selection, you have the option NA009. Do you want to show only unposted invoices for NA009? The posted status isn’t one of the visible columns in the Left list. However, you can add an “AND” line to the Object selection and by drilling down can select Field INVSTA with the Value Not posted. You can create a Memo for this that isn’t Global—is it just usable by you. Once you do, you have NA009 with Not posted… in your Selection section. What if you want to see the Not posted status in your Left List? You will need to add it to the Invoices drawer. Go to Development, Script dictionary, Window management. If you aren’t comfortable modifying Windows, please contact your Sage Business Partner for assistance. As with any customization or modification, vet this thoroughly in your test environment before attempting in production. Select the Window OSIH. Remember don’t select the Windows beginning with “W”. Those are system generated and will be overwritten upon validation. On the Browser tab, go to the Object grid and Jump to the SIH Object. In the Selection screen grid, add Table INVOICEV with Field INVSTA. Click the Save icon and Validation. Return to Window management, click the Save icon and Validation. Go to Sales, Invoices, invoices, expand the Left list and note that the Status column is now visible. If you click on NA009 with Not posted…, you can verify that the selected invoices for NA009 are Not posted. What if you want to see invoices that were created today for NA009? Not those with today’s accounting date, but invoices that were actually created today. On the Expression line of the Object selection, enter CREDAT = Date$. The Expression field is linked to the other grid lines with “AND”. After clicking OK, you can see the 3 NA009 invoices created today with various accounting dates. If you want invoices created yesterday, enter: CREDAT = Date$ – 1. This is great for spotting keying errors or checking dates on items coming over from a 3rd party system. To get rid to the Advanced selections, click Advanced selection. Click Delete Memo on the Object selection screen. This will bring up your personal Memo to delete (Global is not selected at this point). To delete the Global memo, select Global on the Delete memo screen and you will have a Memo selection screen. Select the Global memo that you want to delete. We hope this helps you to slice up the data in your Left list for easier review. If you have any questions, please contact us.

Cyber liability insurance is gaining in popularity as a tool to help companies hedge the financial losses caused by the rising threat of cyber incidents. However, recent changes are making cyber coverage harder to buy. What is the state of cyber liability insurance? Do you need it? Can you afford it? Can you even get it? A brief history of cyber liability insurance Cyber liability insurance began gaining popularity in response to the dot-com bubble in the 1990s. Early policies only covered damage to third parties, offering no protection to the insured. However, coverage quickly evolved to provide first party protection, providing a layer of protection for companies against unauthorized system access, computer viruses, and data loss. Since then, the market has grown steadily and changed radically. The scope and breadth of cyber risks facing businesses today could hardly have been anticipated 25 years ago. Demand, losses, and premiums are all on the rise The demand for cyber insurance coverage is skyrocketing. At the same time, insurance providers’ losses are growing. High demand in combination with high payouts lead to increased premiums. Businesses report premium hikes of 50% and even 100% year over year. Insurance payouts are rising in large part because of the increase in ransomware attacks. In the past, the biggest cyber threats were data breaches. Without minimizing the devastating consequences of a data breach, losses associated with a breach tend to be spread out over time, rather than as a single, sometimes multi-million dollar, ransomware payout. Insurance companies are well equipped to handle risk. Their actuaries are experts in forecasting longer-term payouts. But increasingly, the losses are single events where the full loss coverage is reached in a single day — a model insurance companies do not embrace. New mandates Naturally, insurance companies want to mitigate risks by recommending — or even mandating — that their insured take the proper precautions to protect against lost. The newest and most significant of those mandates is the requirement for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). In early 2020, President Biden signed an Executive Order intended to deter cybercrime. The Order mandated all federal agencies use Multi-Factor Authentication. Insurance companies rapidly took the opportunity to require their insureds have MFA in place before providing a quote — or a renewal — for most accounts. Consider your risk threshold Every company will need to analyze their own risk tolerance and make the decision whether to purchase cyber liability insurance accordingly. Premiums are expensive, ranging from $1,500 annually for a small company to tens of thousands for larger companies. As you’d expect, premiums vary based on a number of factors, so be certain you understand what you’re buying and shop coverage carefully. Before you decide against purchasing coverage, it’s worth keeping in mind that the potential cost of hacks may be larger than you think. The Hiscox Cyber Readiness Report found that the average cost of a cyber incident for businesses with 50 to 249 employees in 2019 was $184,000. Part of the security armor Cyber insurance does not replace the need for cybersecurity. Insurance cannot protect your company from phishing attempts, malware, or insider threats, it can only help minimize the financial damage caused by incidents like these. While we believe that insurance is important, it is of secondary importance to a robust security infrastructure. Think of this way — just because you have homeowners insurance doesn’t mean you shouldn’t lock the front door. A robust security infrastructure is a mandate for businesses, and we believe that requiring MFA as a condition of cyber coverage is a smart move. We recommend MFA for our clients regardless of their insurance status. MFA is an integral part of that security infrastructure, as is email security and 24/7 network monitoring, and increasingly — a Zero Trust Policy, something we’ll cover in an upcoming post. Questions about MFA and your company’s security strategy? Contact one of the security specialists at Net at Work.

A year-end ERP checklist can assist you in preparing your systems for the coming year. This checklist not only provides a straightforward plan for ending the year on a happy note, but it also assures that all of the hard work you’ve put into your ERP system over the year won’t be for naught. Year-end is right around the corner, use the steps below to prepare now: This year-end ERP checklist was created to ensure your ERP system is ready for the new year. If you require additional assistance, please contact us, our experts are here to help.

On December 9, a critical vulnerability was revealed in Apache’s Log4J, a popular Java open source logging system by developers of web and server applications. The vulnerability affects a broad range of services and applications on servers, making it extremely dangerous—and the need to update those server applications urgent. Impact The vulnerability allows unauthenticated remote code execution (RCE) on any Java application running a vulnerable version of Apache’s Log4j. Recommendations Net at Work customers subscribed to our NOC services with proactive maintenance plans will get updated as we receive security patches and workarounds from your appropriate hardware and software vendors. We recommend that customers check with their business application software providers to determine if any applications are impacted by the Log4J vulnerability and work with them to update those applications as soon as possible. If patching is not immediately possible there are a couple workarounds: You can set the JVM parameter “log4j2.formatMsgNoLookups;” to True Put a WAF or Proxy in front of the vulnerable Java app and block access to connections with the User Agent header string “jndi:ldap” and “jndi:dns” Additional Resources For more information about the Log4j vulnerability, please refer to the following resources: Apache Log4j Vulnerability Guidance published by the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) A list of known impacted applications here. If you have questions about the Log4j vulnerability and how it may impact you, please contact us, our experts are here to help.

100-year storms. Global pandemics. Supply chain gridlocks. Over the last several years, businesses experienced multiple waves of serious and disruptive events. Some were crippled by the unexpected. Others didn’t miss a beat. Of those that fared well, many worked with third-party IT service companies known as managed service providers (MSP) to handle important security and operational tasks. Think working with an MSP might be key for your business continuity, too? This primer covers what they offer and how to choose. What is a Managed Service Provider? Managed service providers (MSPs) offer businesses a way to outsource everyday IT services from server management to network maintenance. They handle the physical infrastructure as well as any specialty apps the organization requires. Since their work can be handled remotely, it generally results in operation enhancement as well as overall cost savings. So long as it’s not a customer-facing task, these efficiency experts usually come out ahead when compared to other on-demand models. These efficiency experts usually come out ahead when compared to other on-demand models. Benefits to your business The advantages of working with an MSP are multifold. When a business initially engages a managed service provider, they’ll conduct a thorough review of its operational processes around everything from payroll to vendor relations. In doing so, they can identify areas of inefficiency and streamline different procedures throughout the organization. What other improvements can you expect? Let’s start with cost. If cashflow is a consideration (and really, when is it not) MSPs offer businesses insulation from the unexpected. Most charge a flat monthly fee that covers unplanned repairs or services. They also reduce the on-staff IT personnel and tools needed in-house. MSPs can make your business more cybersecure. They work to protect your network from attack and help implement disaster recovery plans to prevent data loss. They increase your uptime. 24/7 network monitoring is a proactive approach that keeps eyes on your system at all times. MSPs also perform necessary routine maintenance that helps avoid issues in the first place. Reporting overviews are another draw. The more insights decision-makers have, the better they can manage. MSPs provide a bird’s eye view of the entire enterprise and help with data analysis. What to look for in an MSP Whether it’s your first time using a managed service provider or you’re not happy with the one you have, consider these questions as you start your search. Does the MSP have different bundled offerings?All clients are different, and good MSPs understand that. They typically pre-package a few services together to accommodate specific needs, but don’t operate on an ad-hoc or break-fix approach. Do they bill up front or on a recurring basis?Some charge a fee once you sign with them and then bill you monthly. Whatever the payment terms, you should be invoiced at the same time each time. Read your contract and if there’s mention of fees outside this monthly scope, look elsewhere. How responsive are their technicians?You want to ensure the MSP employs expert technicians. Since they’re the ones who will be servicing your business’ greatest assets (your data and network), it’s important they’re dedicated and know what they’re doing. Remember that responsiveness should extend to their help desk services, too. Are their reviews plentiful and positive?A good managed service provider will have lots of public reviews across different platforms, in addition to customer testimonials. Use these to verify they have demonstrated value for other organizations who have hired them. Also look to see if they respond to negative reviews, and how. Sense them getting defensive or acting unprofessional? Move on. In short, if your SMB could use some help keeping its IT infrastructure cyber safe and always on, an MSP, like Net at Work,  should be the next call you make.

In March 2019, a 14-hour outage cost Facebook (now Meta) an estimated $90 million. Another six-hour outage hit the social media giant in October of 2021, inflicting what could have been another $38 million hit. Coincidentally, as I’m writing this, Amazon.com and Prime Video went down due to a “cloud server outage.” If mega companies and tech giants like Meta and Amazon can’t avoid downtime, clearly, we’re all vulnerable. While Meta and Amazon can easily absorb the financial costs of the outages, small and midsized businesses (SMBs) aren’t as fortunate. SMBs reported estimated downtime costs ranging between $10,000 to $50,000 per hour in 2020. Given our reliance on technology — and technology’s inherent vulnerabilities — such events have become a near certainty. What is the real costs of downtime and what tangible steps can you take to decrease downtime events and its associated costs? Defining downtime Different companies may define downtime differently. For example, some use the term when they lose internet connectivity and cannot access their cloud-based applications. Others use the term when an in-house server or network crashes, or when their hosted eCommerce application or vendor portal goes offline. For our purposes, we’ll use “downtime” to refer to any time you cannot use one or more critical business applications — customer facing or not. Causes of downtime The causes of downtime are varied, but most can be attributed to one of these events: Cyberattacks Natural disasters Network outages Hardware component failures Software bugs Human error Components of downtime costs You can find downtime calculators on the internet, most use a formula that considers annual revenue, the size of your workforce, employee cost per hour, and lost sales revenues. If you’re curious, go ahead and run the calculations, but your time might be better spent figuring out ways to avoid downtime altogether. There are other, less tangible costs of downtime too, including: Lost productivity In addition to accounting and sales personnel left idle, an unplanned outage could shut down a manufacturer’s entire production line. And even when service is restored, longer-term downstream effects and workflow backups can continue for days. Lost business opportunities During the Prime Video outage, millions may have switched the channel to Netflix, a costly move for Amazon. Advertising revenue is lost and we could all find a new favorite series on Netflix (here’s looking at you Tiger King 2) and not return to Prime for weeks. Seriously though, for companies that depend on eCommerce revenue, even a short outage can result in tens of thousands in lost revenues. Downtime might also prevent employees from providing technical and sales support, driving away existing clients and dissuading prospects. Damaged brand image Your software is your brand. When it goes down, your brand can sink with it. Even a single downtime event can put your company’s reputation at risk. Bad reviews and cancelled subscriptions damage your image and your bottom line. Data loss Some downtime events, such as those due to cyberattack or server crash can result in corrupt, damaged, or lost data that can be difficult, expensive, and time-consuming to restore. Prevention and mitigation The downtime prevention and mitigation measures your organization deploys will depend on many factors. The state of your in-house infrastructure, whether you’re running primary cloud-based SaaS application, the offerings available from your hosting provider, whether you rely on a Managed Services Provider, and the level of risk you’re willing to assume are all considerations. However, there are some universally good recommendations of ways to help prevent downtime and/or mitigate its impacts, including: Consider 24/7 network monitoring Configure multi-factor authentication Work to improve email security Use Advanced Endpoint Detection tools Create a disaster recovery/business continuity plan Use the best security software available Consider offsite backups and data storage Consistently update your software applications Have a planned maintenance strategy in place for equipment Work with the most reputable technology vendors Engage resources to help Staying out in front of the vulnerabilities that can lead to downtime requires a high degree of technical knowledge, time, skill, and effort — something many SMBs lack. A Managed Services Provider (MSP) like Net at Work can provide these resources, and many more — helping your organization minimize downtime events, keep your data safe, your team productive, and your customers buying.  

If you’re considering a software or hardware purchase, but just haven’t been able to pull the trigger – ask your tax advisor about Section 179 and the benefits of making purchases before December 31, 2021. Or, contact Net at Work about any potential technology-related purchases & we can connect you with the appropriate tax and leasing advisors. What is Section 179 and How Does it Work? Section 179 of the IRS tax code allows businesses to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment (which includes software, hardware) purchased, leased or financed during the tax year. For all the qualifying equipment you buy or lease, you get to deduct the full purchase price from your gross income. If you elect to take Section 179, the full price of your equipment will be taken up front and not written off over time, like most practices do for their equipment. For complete details visit: www.Section179.org. 2021 Deduction Limit is $1.05 Million! This year, the deduction limit is $1,050,000. This is a substantial deduction and means businesses can deduct the full cost of equipment from their 2021 taxes, up to $1,050,000. This can really make a difference to your bottom line at the end of the year. To take the deduction for tax year 2021, the equipment must be financed or purchased and put into service between January 1, 2021 and the end of the day on December 31, 2021. Use Form 4562 to claim your deduction. Lease & Still Take Full Advantage of the Section 179 Deduction The main benefit of a non-tax capital lease is that you can still take full advantage of the Section 179 Deduction – yet make smaller payments. With a non-tax capital lease, you can acquire and write-off up to the deduction limit worth of equipment this year, without actually spending that amount this year. An Illustration of Section 179 at Work for 2021: How Much Money Can Section 179 Save You? Use the Calculator and Find Out! Try It Now. Act soon, buy your business equipment & software before December 31 to capitalize on tax savings!

Accounting Today, the most comprehensive view of the accounting industry, has named Net at Work co-presidents Alex and Edward Solomon to their “2021 Top 100 Most Influential People in Accounting”. This annual list recognizes the thought leaders and change-makers who are shaping the future of the industry. This year’s Top 100 Influential People, as with past years, are all honored for their high-profile roles in advancing the profession, but are far from a comprehensive listing of accounting’s biggest difference-makers. Instead, they have made an exceptional impact over the past year and are primed to exert that influence in the year ahead. The complete listing of the Top 100 People, including  thoughts on the profession, their careers, and advice to the next generation of influencers can be found on here on AccountingToday.com