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Recent Improvements to IconCMO+

November 27, 2012 By Robert Leave a Comment

What is IconCMO+?

IconCMO+ is a specialized version of our flagship IconCMO package. It allows an organization to view approved information from multiple churches. District offices use it to monitor the health of all their churches; they can easily decipher which churches need help and which churches are flourishing. Many parishes use it to manage multi-site churches.

What’s New?

Previously, IconCMO+ did not have the ability to track donations that were given directly to the district or head office. Many of our customers at district or head offices have requested that we add this capability to the system.

We are excited to announce that IconCMO+ now offers the ability to manage organizations, people, groups and contributions at the district office level!

Here’s the Complete List of New Features:

  • List any and all organizations you want to track.
  • List individuals who interact with the head office (e.g. pastors, special donors, lay leaders).
  • Retain pertinent information about individuals (e.g. birthdates, ordained dates).
  • Easily communicate and manage lists by grouping churches and other organizations together.
  • Manage individual groups.
  • Create pastoral rosters.
  • Record donations and supply giving records back to churches and individuals for tax purposes.

End Road Work sign from Improvements to IconCMO+ Multi-Site Church Software

IconCMO+ meets all of your district or head office needs and is a great way to monitor the health of your entire organization.

Learn more about IconCMO+ at https://www.iconcmo.com/products/iconcmoplus/.

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: church plant, communication, contribution statements, denomination software, groups, multisite churches

CMO Goes HTML

November 15, 2012 By Robert Leave a Comment

IconCMO Reports Now Available in HTML Format

html tag italicized by Jesper Rønn-Jensen
“html tag italicized” by Jesper Rønn-Jensen

Sometimes having an extra option can make life much easier. Some of you have suggested that we add a formatting option to IconCMO reports – HTML.

So we have. You can now generate almost any IconCMO report (membership, groups, contributions, finances and so on) in HTML.

Advantages

1. You now have another option for the appearance of your reports.

2. You can run IconCMO reports online from any computer without having Excel or Adobe Reader installed. The report just appears in a new window without any hassles on your end. You can print it straight from your browser and even adjust the overall size of the document before printing.

3. HTML files are easier to manipulate than the other formats. For instance, you could save one of your reports on your computer and open it with Microsoft Word. From there, you could delete words, delete lines, delete entire columns, change fonts, change font sizes or colors, include your church’s logo… You get the idea.

So really, to be precise, we didn’t add an extra option; we added many. Just one more step in our tireless efforts to give you outstanding service and ease your church management experience.

Selecting HTML Format

HTML Option for IconCMO Reports

 

Sample HTML-Formatted Report

Sample HTML Report from IconCMO

 

Try out our new reports and tell us what you think!

 

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: church management software, church membership, communication

Do You Take Advantage of Bulk Mail Discounts? Read This.

November 1, 2012 By Robert 4 Comments

Did you recently receive a letter from the USPS?

Every so often, we get a question from one of our customers regarding the use of barcodes for bulk mailing. The question typically comes up when a church receives a letter from the post office saying something like this:

Effective January 28, 2013, mailings of letter-size and flat-size mailpieces, as well as postcards, will need to have an Intelligent Mail R barcode to be eligible for automation prices.

The letter is full of jargon and somewhat confusing so we emailed Chad at our local post office to find out exactly what this meant for our customers.

To cut a long story short

If your church is not currently using barcodes, these changes will not affect you.

Bulk mail resources for churches | picture of vintage mail bag
Photo Credit: Marcin Wichary

Interested in the long story?

Below are some additional explanations and resources so you can learn more about bulk mailing.

Postage Pricing Calculator

http://dbcalc.usps.gov/

Note: When using the calculator, start by selecting ‘Standard’ from the drop-down list under ‘Letter’.

Nonprofit Postage Discount Calculator Standard Letter

Automation vs. Machinable

Nonprofits work on two levels: Automation and Machinable.

Automation mail is mail that is 100% barcoded and prepared for the Postal Service’s high-speed mail processing equipment.

In order for automation mail to be cost-effective, an organization would have to send thousands of mailings multiple times a month.

Machinable mail is presorted and does not require barcodes. This type of mail is divided into one of two levels, AADC and Mixed AADC. This will be determined by the post office when you drop off the actual pieces of mail.

Another good site to reference

http://savepostage.com/

This site lists and explains each of the different levels of discounts. An organization receives the biggest savings when mail is sorted by zip code.

Please note: IconCMO, our web-based church management and accounting software does offer the ability to sort mailings by zip code.

The next level of discounts requires that the mail pieces have a barcode and are address verified using a CASS or PAVE system. The report that is given once the address list is matched to the USPS zip code database is called USPS Form 3553. The additional cost of the permit and the software essentially wipes out any discounts that the church would have received. The cost savings also vary depending on if mail pieces are going to the same 5 digit zip code or different ones.

Another SavePostage page with additional information about CASS:

http://savepostage.com/bulkmail101/cass.html

Why does the post office send these letters?

This letter was intended to inform you that Intelligent Mail barcodes will be replacing the POSTNET barcodes as of January 2013. Again, you can just disregard this letter if your church is not currently using barcodes.

 

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: church management software, communication, non-profit

Announcement: New IconCMO Integration!

September 26, 2012 By Robert 2 Comments

Icon Systems is excited to announce our partnership with SecureSearch. Our church management software, IconCMO, is now directly integrated with SecureSearch so you can easily obtain background information when recruiting staff and volunteers for the church.

Read the full press release: Icon Systems and SecureSearch Partnership.

Lauren Hunter also posted about the integration on Church Tech Today. Read her article: 3 Simple Steps to Ensure Every Volunteer is Background Checked.

Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about the integration!

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: church management software, church technology, iconcmo partners

Fine Tuning: Some Recent Improvements to IconCMO

September 12, 2012 By Robert 4 Comments

Fine Tuning: Some Recent Improvements to IconCMO

Changes to IconCMO End Road Work Sign

I’ve listed some of our latest improvements under the windows to which they apply.

 

Banking: Checkbook: Checkbook Activity

1. Fiscal Year
This window now displays transactions by fiscal year instead of calendar year, which should make transactions less confusing for anyone whose fiscal year doesn’t match the calendar year.

2. Checkbook Drop Down
The Checkbook drop-down list in the upper left no longer says ‘Select-a-Checkbook’. Now when you open the window, this list automatically shows the first checkbook in the list.

3. Enter Key
You can now enter the check number at the bottom of the screen and press enter instead of clicking ‘Find Check’.

change to checkbook activity in iconcmo church management software

Question: So how do you make the account you use most often appear at the top of the list?

Answer: Go to the chart of accounts (General-Ledger: GL: Chart of Accounts) and click on the desired checking account. Under ‘Account Name’ near the bottom of the window, change the name. By adding an a or a 1 to the beginning of a checking account’s name, you can make it appear first in the drop-down list in ‘Checkbook Activity’.

 chart of accounts in iconcmo church management software

 

Banking: Credit Cards: Credit Card Activity

Like the ‘Checkbook Activity’ window, this window now shows the fiscal year and automatically starts with the first credit card account in your list.

change to credit card activity in iconcmo church management software

 

People: Groups: Grp-Households or Grp-Members

The groups windows now link households or members in the group lists to the actual household or member data. Now, you can click on the last name of someone in a group list to pull up their information.

So, if I’m looking at the group below and want to get Maritsa Ashton’s contact info, I can just click on her last name.

change to member groups in iconcmo church management software

Up will come her membership form with her contact info.

This will come in very handy for group leaders. If they go to a list of their group members and click on someone’s name, they can make calls, update records, make notes, and send individual emails, all in one spot. However, group leaders won’t be able to do any of this unless administrators give them security access (‘Read Only’ or ‘Read – Write’) to the membership list.

 

Contributions: Batches: Enter

Some changes have been made here that will alleviate some of the confusion that users have had.

Create Batch & Enter Contributions
The ‘Add Batch’ button is now called ‘Create Batch & Enter Contributions’. This button now creates a batch and opens the ‘Enter Contributions’ window. In the ‘Enter Contributions’ window, note that when you type an envelope number in the search box near the top, you can simply tap your enter key instead of clicking on ‘Find’.

 change to entering donations in iconcmo church management software

Modify Batch Info
If you click on a batch, you’ll find that ‘Change Batch Date’ and ‘Change Batch Name’ have given way to one new button for all your batch changing needs—‘Modify Batch Info’.

 

Duplicate Batches
From now on, duplicate batches are not allowed (with the exception of EFT batches). When you add or modify a batch, the system will check to see if a batch with the same name and date already exists. This feature should help to avoid accidental double entries and confusion about your records.

 

AP: AP Activities: AP Reports

We added the city, state and zip code to the address in the ‘Vendor Contact List’ report.

 

Organization: Preferences: Church Membership

The ‘Save New or Modified’ button and the ‘Delete Selected Option’ button have caused confusion, so we removed them. Now, there’s one button that says ‘Save New’, ‘Modify Drop Down’ or ‘Delete Selected Option’ depending on what you’re trying to do.

Let’s take one of our drop downs—‘Status’—to see how this button of many faces works.

Save New
With the ‘Current Values’ field on ‘Add New Entry’, we can type in a new status (maybe ‘New Member’) and click ‘Save New’. ‘New Member’ is now part of your status list.

change one to membership status in iconcmo church management software

Modify Drop Down
If we select something from ‘Current Values’, like ‘New Member’, and leave the dot by ‘Modify’ selected, we can type in our modified status name (maybe ‘Recent Member’) and click ‘Modify Drop Down’. Once we click ‘OK’ in the popup, the status has been successfully changed. Like the popup says, any people whose statuses we had changed to ‘New Member’ will be switched to ‘Recent Member’.

change two to membership status in iconcmo church management software

Delete Selected Option
But what if we decide we didn’t really need a new status after all, be it ‘New Member’, ‘Recent Member’ or otherwise? We can delete the status by choosing ‘Recent Member’ for ‘Current Values’ and clicking the dot next to ‘Delete’. In the ‘New / Modified Value’ field we then need to ‘Select a Replacement Value’ like ‘Active’ and click ‘Delete Selected Option’. If we click ‘OK’ in the popup, the status will be deleted and all ‘Recent Member’ people will be turned to an ‘Active’ status.

change three to membership status in iconcmo church management software

System Defaults in Drop Downs
You may notice that the system defaults no longer appear in the ‘Current Values’ drop down. We took them out of the list because, after all, they can’t be changed anyway.

 

Thank You!

We’d like to thank our customers for the valuable feedback and suggestions that lead to such improvements, and we hope these changes will ease your IconCMO experience.

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: church management software, church membership, fund accounting

Now You Can Watch IconCMO Training Videos Anytime!

August 24, 2012 By Robert 4 Comments

Earlier this year, we surveyed our customers. Many of you told us you have full-time jobs and just work part time or volunteer at the church during the evenings and on weekends so it doesn’t work with your schedules to attend the training webinars during the day. A lot of you also mentioned the hour-long training sessions can get a bit overwhelming – especially when covering fund accounting.

Picture of a cute dog watching an IconCMO training video
Photo Credit: Jesse757

We have been working on recording shorter training videos that you can watch on your own time, at your own pace. Below is a list of some of the instructional videos we currently have available for IconCMO. We are planning to add more in the near future!

Contributions:

Creating Contribution Funds and Entering Pledges (#1679)

Changing the Fiscal Year and Assigning Envelope Numbers (#1680)

Creating, Editing, Posting, and Reversing Contribution Batches (#1683)

Contributions: Management: Cont-Transfers (#1609)

Contributions Year End Processing 2011 (#1237)

Fund Accounting:

How to Add a General Ledger Account (#1810)

How to View or Print the Chart of Accounts (#1809)

How to Transfer All Transactions from One General Ledger Account to Another (#1795)

How to Setup, Modify, and Delete Accounting Fund (#1807)

How to Close or Re-Open an Accounting Fund (#1808)

To access IconCMO training videos in the support forum*:

1. Sign in to IconCMO.

2. Go to the ‘Help’ menu in the upper-right-hand corner.

3. Select ‘See instructional videos in our support forum’ from the menu.

4. Click on the title of the video you wish to watch.

You can also directly access any of the how-to videos by searching in the support forum for the post number listed after each title.

What would you like to learn next?

Please feel free to leave a comment below with your ideas for future training videos!

*Please note: Only IconCMO customers have access to the support forum. If you have signed up for a free 10-day trial of IconCMO or are not currently a customer, you can view the training videos by visiting our YouTube channel.

 

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: church technology, donations, fund accounting, videos

More Updates to IconCMO!

August 10, 2012 By Robert 2 Comments

A couple of weeks ago, we announced that we had made some awesome new changes to IconCMO. This week, we have even more exciting changes to add to the list!

Changes to Check Writing and Credit Card windows:

After a vendor is selected from the drop-down, the focus moves to the check amount field (this is only done on the check writing window since we fill in check number and date automatically.)

The debit field fills in automatically when you enter the check or credit card amount.

screenshot of changes to IconCMO check writing window
Click image to enlarge

Changes to Grp-Households and Grp-Members windows:

Most of the options (e.g. Instant Message, Group Email, Add All) are disabled when you open either of the groups windows.

Members or Households in a group display automatically when a group is selected and instructions on how to add Members or Households to that group are displayed.

The ‘Add All’ button on the Grp-Members window has been renamed ‘Add All Members’ and moved underneath the ‘Remove All Members’ button to match the Grp-Households window.

Members or Households are automatically displayed in the list when the Status is changed; you no longer need to click the ‘Display Members’ or ‘Display Households’ button.

Screenshot of changes to IconCMO group members window
Click to enlarge image

And last, but certainly not least:

You can print a single mailing envelope for a household, but many customers have mentioned it would be extremely helpful to have the option to print a single label for a household instead. So we added the option to print single label from the household form!

Screenshot of IconCMO household form single label button
Click to enlarge image

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: church management software, church membership, church technology, groups

Check Out the Awesome New Changes to IconCMO!

July 24, 2012 By Robert 10 Comments

We’ve made a lot of changes over the past couple of weeks in response to suggestions customers have posted in the support forum. We re-arranged and renamed many of the buttons to make both the Household and Member Record forms more user-friendly. There are a few other additions as well. A few changes were also made to the Parishioner Security window.

Changes to IconCMO End Road Work Sign

In case you missed any of the announcements, here is a complete list of the enhancements:

Household Form in the People: Households: Hse-List Window

  1. Clicking on a member’s name links directly to the individual’s record. This link will save you an extra step, instead of clicking on the ‘Add/View Members’ button and then selecting a name.
  2. ‘Add/View Members’ and ‘Refresh Members’ have been moved. They now appear under the Family Members list.
  3. The ‘Save’ button changes to ‘Modify’ after the record has been initially saved.
  4. The ‘Clear’ button has been renamed ‘Add New’. This button clears the data and returns the screen to ‘Add Mode’. It will not automatically save the existing data on the form.
  5. The ‘Household List’ button has been renamed ‘Go To Household List’.
  6. In ‘Add Mode’, non-applicable buttons are disabled (not pictured below.)
  7. A ‘Last updated’ date has been added so you can see when changes were last made to the household record.
  8. An ‘Add/View Notes’ button has been added so you can quickly access household notes window while looking at a record.
New Changes to the IconCMO Household Form
Click image to zoom in.

Member Form in the People: Members: Mem-List Window

  1. ‘First Name’ and ‘Last Name’ are labeled as required fields.
  2. The default gender is now ‘Female’ so it matches the default relationship of ‘Daughter’. It used to say ‘Daughter’ and ‘Male’. The correct ‘Denomination’ should also be the default in the drop down.
  3. The ‘Save’, ‘Add’, and ‘Delete’ buttons have moved to the bottom right corner of the screen so they are more consistent with other windows in the program.
  4. Just like the household screen, the initial ‘Save Member’ button will change to ‘Modify Member’ when modifying the record.
  5. The ‘Clear Fields’ button has been renamed ‘Add New Member’.
  6. An ‘Add/View Notes’ button has been added so you can quickly access member notes window while looking at a record.
New Changes to the IconCMO Member Form
Click image to zoom in.

Web Services: WS Setup: Parishioner Security Window

‘Household status’ and ‘Assign Access’ drop-downs have been added to the Web-Services: WS Setup: Parishioner Security screen. This enables you to quickly sort the list of names and assign access based on status codes.

Important: a household email address is now required in order to give a household access to parishioner module.

New Changes to the IconCMO Parishioner Security Window
Click image to zoom in.

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: church management software, church membership

Happy Independence Day!

July 3, 2012 By Robert Leave a Comment

vintage barn with flag
Photo Credit: Ren_041

In observance of Independence Day, the Icon Systems office will be temporarily closed on Wednesday, July 4th.

We will resume normal business hours on Thursday, July 5th.

Have a safe and happy holiday!

– The Team at Icon Systems

Filed Under: Updates

Supreme Makeover: Support Forum Edition

May 17, 2012 By Robert Leave a Comment

Supreme Makeover: Support Forum Edition

We are excited to announce that the IconCMO support forum has been completely revamped! These changes make it even easier for you to access the support forum and find an answer fast.

Aside from the fresh new look, here’s what’s new:

  • The support forum is now fully accessible within IconCMO! To access it, just click the ‘Help!’ icon located on the left side of the title bar in any window (see circle #1 in the picture below.) You can open it up in a separate window or tab if you wish by clicking the double-rectangle icon on the right side of the title bar (see circle #2 in the picture below.)
  • The manual itself is now entirely contained within the support forum. Not only does this help us keep content up-to-date, it also lets you ask questions on specific screens immediately.
  • The search function within the support forum has been improved and now sorts the results by relevance so it’s easier to find exactly what you are looking for. If you know the post number (such as post # 1678, How to Add a Household), you can view that post immediately by typing in the number and pressing “Enter.”
  • And last, but certainly not least: MORE VIDEOS! Many of you have told us that you would like to have more training videos available to watch on demand. We are working on recording videos that will be replacing the majority of our live webinars. These videos will be available to watch any time in the support forum as well as on YouTube. To access a list of video posts, just click the ‘Videos’ link in the support forum (see circle #3 in the picture below.) To access the videos outside the forum, visit our IconCMO YouTube Channel.

IconCMO Church Management Software Support Forum

Filed Under: Updates Tagged With: church management software, church technology, saas, videos, web-based

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