Shepherd's Staff version 9.0 is here! This latest upgrade wraps up a multi-year project of updating
the interface, with the release of the new Finance module. The new software conventions that you have seen in Membership, Attendance, Contributions and Scheduler are now also available in the Finance module, including:
- Finance will now open as part of the main program as opposed to creating a separate window with it's own icon on the task bar.
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The data grid format, like in Membership, Attendance, Contributions and Scheduler, has filters and search options, to make the data easier to find and use.
- You can export data to Excel and/or print reports directly from the grids, in addition to the options in the Other Reports tab.
Other key additions, improvements and changes specific to the new Finance module are outlined below.
In the Tools/Settings section
- Settings:
- You can now select between the terms Book or Fund for a collection of accounts (previously only called Funds).
- Each user can choose which of your church's Books/Funds Shepherd's Staff will default to when you log in.
- Tools:
- You can now re-open a previous bank statement reconciliation to make needed corrections. You can also re-print a report.
In Activities
- Rather than a Checks section, you will now see a Payments section, and rather than Deposits, you'll see Receipts.
- When you create a Payment, you will have the ability to select between creating a Check, an EFT (Electronic Fund Transfer), or a Charge Account payment.
The Plan/Analyze tab
This section includes some tools you had before in other places, along with new items and improvements including:
- In Budgeting, you can now create incoming and outgoing budgets for your Dedicated accounts in addition to the usual budgets for Income and Expense accounts.
- A Period analysis tool has been added, where you can review your Income, Expense, Dedicated in and Dedicated out across various time periods.
- The Bank account balance analysis allows you to compare your bank statement balance to your Shepherd's Staff bank account balance by subtracting all transactions that haven't been cleared in your bank statement reconciliation.
- Activity and Ledger line searches are new tools to allow you to quickly and easily search for either whole transactions (in the Activity search) or line items within transactions (the Ledger line search) more quickly.
Other Reports
- There are a variety of changes in Other Reports, as some items have been consolidated or become formats of the remaining reports, and others are have been added or expanded. See details of all 9.0 Finance reports here.