Thank you for ordering the new COMS and/or EFA for Windows! If this text is hard to read and you are using Notepad, pull down Format and select Word Warp if needed. Please read this document completely before installing. The instructions on this sheet show you: 1a- Required UserName when starting the COMS for Windows. 1ab- Required Password when installing COMS for Windows. 1b- Setup.exe and Windows 7,8, 10, and 11 installation issue 2- Training Videos are included. 3- License.mem is required. 4- How to contact Specialty Software if you need help and download free updates. 5- How to install this application from a CD. 6- How to install this application from a web (internet) download. 7- Regular Installation and locations of files 8- LAN or Multi-User Installation 9- Computer Hardware Suggestions and Requirements. 10- Application Menu Structure – Ver8menu.pdf 11- How to convert your old COMS for Windows v.5.x files to the new COMS for Windows version 10.x or higher – and key differences between version 5.x and version 10.x or higher. 12- Online and also Nationwide Seminars Coming! 13- Enter Giving New Features. 14- New Family & People Browse Grid Form (quickly view and edit data) 15- New People Browse Grid Form (quickly view and edit data) 16- New Simple Filter in both above Browse Grid Forms 17- How To Reset the COMS Data path 18- How to move saved filters from COMS version 8.xx or 9.xx to the version 10.xx. 19- New EFA for Windows - see the sheets attached to your order. 20- EFA Correct Payroll Employee Check Stub 21- EFA Reinitialize AP 1099 report data 22- EFA $ sign printing out on checks 23- Backup and Restore enhanced for COMS and EFA 24- Import Giving from ComsCSV - Major+ Upgrade! - Discontinued Feature 25- Import Giving from ComsCSV, Excel, and Online - Major+ Upgrade! Discontinued Feature 26- Import Giving from ComsCSV, Excel, and Online Entry Code - Discontinued Feature 27- New Canada Donar Tax Statement - Detail *********************************************************** 1a-Required UserName when starting the COMS for Windows *********************************************************** After you have installed the COMS for Windows program, it does require a Username (butno password) – and the Username is found in this paragraph. So, after the application is installed and you dbl click on the COMS for Windows icon, you will have to: enter a Username of: ‘Administrator’ (without the quotes) and leave the password blank and hit Logon. This will allow you to get into the COMS program. Obviously once in you can change-add new Username’s, etc. A Username is always required as this is a very secure application. If you wish, you can always use Administrator as your Username. You can have the software save the username if you wish by checking the box "Remember username." *********************************************************** End of 1a-Required UserName when starting the COMS for Windows *********************************************************** *********************************************************** 1ab- Required Password when installing COMS for Windows. *********************************************************** Installing the COMS for Windows product requires the: The Password that was provided on paper with the CD you are installing from (and the Password is also found on the CD). or The Password that was current when you downloded the Setup file from our website. You will need the Password that has been provided to you by SpecialtySoftware.com by email or postal mail at the time of your Maintenance-Club Renewal by Dec. 31 of earch year). If you have misplaced the Password, please email tech@specialtysoftware.com and request a replacement (please include your Church name and also your Serial# if known in the Subject line of the email) - and we will send it to you again. *********************************************************** End of 1ab- Required Password when installing COMS for Windows. *********************************************************** *********************************************************** 1b- Setup.exe and Windows 7, 9 10, and 11 installation issue *********************************************************** Since Windows Vista was introduced several years ago, software installation has become more "guarded" by the Windows operating system. This has continued to be so in more recent versions of Windows including Windows 7 through 10. Over 90% of users will never have any warning dialogs when installing software. Installation warnings are normal in Windows nowadays and Microsoft has published the solutions. You only need to do the following "if" you are having problems installing the COMS program. If you have had an issue running the Setup, the following are the normal Windows solutions you should apply so you can successfully complete the Setup. 1- Right click on the Setup icon and select the option "Run as administrator." If the Setup still doesn't finish installing correctly go to step 2 below (after this Setup program has been exited). 2- Right click on the Setup icon and select the option "Properties." Within the "Properties" dialog select the tab titled "Compatibility." In the section titled "Run this program in compatibility mode for:" select the option titled "Windows XP (Service Pack 3)" or "Windows XP (Service Pack 2)." 3- Run the Setup again. *********************************************************** End of 1b- Setup.exe and Windows 7, 9 and 10 installation issue *********************************************************** *********************************************************** 2-Training Videos are included *********************************************************** Please notice the software does not come with any printed manuals as it is so easy to use. Training is done through Training Videos. After you install the software you will see an icon on your desktop titled ‘COMS Tutorial Videos’ which you should double click on and view. It takes less than two hours or so to view all the videos. You do need speakers! You should at least view the first one (titled Introductory Video as it explains all the special features of the software, etc. that you might not ever find without view that video). If the application is installed from a CD, the Training Video’s are automatically installed. If you have DownLoaded the application from our web site, you will also download the Training Videos from there as well. *********************************************************** End of 2-Training Videos are included *********************************************************** *********************************************************** 3-License.mem is required *********************************************************** If your order was by CD and you did not receive a diskette from Specialty Software titled ‘License Diskette,’ please email tech@specialtysoftware.com and request that we email the ‘License.mem’ to you (it opens the software for full use). In the email subject line enter your Serial# and also the words License.mem. However, you can start using the software, converting your data, etc. before you receive this file or diskette from us. *********************************************************** 3-End of License.mem is required *********************************************************** *********************************************************** 4-How to contact Specialty Software if you need help and download free updates. *********************************************************** If this is a first time order and you received this application by a CD, there should be a sheet within this package explaining The Club Membership and your Support Plan options, expiration date of your support, etc. Or, you were emailed this information. If you need technical help, your best and least expensive option is to visit the Club Membership site at: http://www.specialtysoftware.com/club.htm Click on the 'Member Login.' You will then need to enter the Username and Password that was provided to you by either Specialty Software (if you purchased a retail package or upgrade), or by The Club. This information was provided to you by either a sheet which initially shipped with the CD, or by email. If you have lost this sheet or email, you can email and request this again by emailing: club@SpecialtySoftware.com In the subject line of your email you must put your Serial# or your Church name. In the body of the email, be sure and give your name, church name and address, and also that you need the Club Username and Password. You can get to this site from within the new COMS for Windows program by pulling down Help… and selecting Updates & Technical Help. This site will allow you to enter The Club where you can post questions and receive answers. The chances are the question you have has already been asked by someone else, so you can just search this area for the question and answer you are looking for. And, this site is free as long as you have a current Club Membership - which is very low cost. It’s a great resource, so use it – as it gets better the more people that use it. And, if you have a current 800 Technical Support Plan from Specialty Software, you can also contact a Specialty Software technician through email at the above site, or at tech@specialtysoftware.com or call a technician at 1-800-568-3977 (if you do not have a current support plan, you can pay by the call or email). Most calls are returned within an hour or two, but sometimes it can take up to 24 hours during a busy time. Most email is answered within just a couple hours. We monitor our email seven days a week – including weekends and holidays. The http://www.specialtysoftware.com/club.htm site will also allow you to download any ‘updates’ we have made to the software so you can make sure you are using the latest version. If you are having difficulty with a feature in the software, or you think a feature is missing, we highly recommend you visit this site as the software might already have been updated with that feature or fix. We will try to give a list of what has been changed in each ‘update.’ By the way… updates and upgrades are free with your Club Membership. So, take advantage of those updates as we work hard to make the software the finest on the market. The Club Membership is a small yearly fee so you can plan this within your budget. You will be able to renew within the Club Membership site. Also, if you change your email address please notify us so we can make that change on our system. Did we say this before? Yes… but it's every important! Do we have your email? If you don’t think that Specialty Software has your current email address, please email us at club@specialtysoftware.com with a subject line including your Serial# and the words “Update My Email.” We never sale our email list, nor send you any 'junk' email. However, we can notify you of changes to the software, updates which are available for download, etc. and also notify you when it's time to renew your Club Membership. As we make changes to the software, you can download these changes to your computer. For best performance in downloading, you need either a Cable, DSL, or T1 connection to download the software - and it takes about 90 seconds. If you have an old phone style modem - it takes about one hour, so go have a cup of coffee while the download is taking place. Also, any Club Member can order a new CD which we will ship by postal mail at anytime for only $10 S&H. To order this, email club@SpecialtySoftware.com and tell us to charge your Visa/MasterCard that we have on file for the $10 (don't send your Visa/MasterCard in an email if we don't have it on file, but rather tell us to give you a call and get the card information from you). Club Members can also send a check for $10 along with your Church Name, Church mailing address, and also your Serial# if known to: Specialty Software CD Please PO Box 110277 Palm Bay, FL 32911 *********************************************************** 4-End of How to contact Specialty Software if you need help and download free updates. *********************************************************** *********************************************************** 5-How to install this application from a CD *********************************************************** Put the CD in your CD drive, and the Installation program should come up all by itself. If it doesn’t, do this: Press Start… Run… and type in the following (this assumes your CD is drive letter E: and if it isn’t then substitute your correct drive CD drive letter): E:\Setup.exe (then press the ENTER key) Now, continue with the installation by reading the section titled ‘Additional Required Installation instructions.’ *********************************************************** 5-End of How to install this application from a CD *********************************************************** **************************************************************** 6-How to install this application from a web (internet) download **************************************************************** The following instructions apply if you did not receive this application on a CD, but are downloading it from the web: Go to this site to download the software: http://www.specialtysoftware.com/club.htm Click on the 'Member Login.' You will then need to enter the Club Username and Password. This information was provided to you by either a sheet which initially shipped with the CD, or by email. If you have lost this sheet or email, you can email and request this again by emailing: club@SpecialtySoftware.com In the subject line of your email you must put your Serial# or your Church name. In the body of the email, be sure and give your name, church name and address, and also that you need the Club Username and Password. Save the Setup.exe to your desktop or wherever you would like. You can save it under a different name if you wish so that you don’t accidentally overwrite another setup.exe. After you have saved the Setup.exe to your desktop, double click on it to run it. You can also just Open the Setup.exe from the web site and then install it after it downloads. However, we prefer to save it first to our desktop so that we can install it again if needed. Hint: more and more software is now being ‘downloaded’ from the web instead of being shipped on a CD – and our company has moved in that direction as well (although we will continue to ship CD’s by mail). At first we did not like this as we were worried about losing the file(s) we downloaded, but now we love this! Here is what we did. We created a special folder titled DownLoadedApps on our hard drive (like C:\DownLoadedApps). Any time we ‘purchase’ a piece of software that we don’t want to lose, we download it into this folder. So, for this application we would create a new folder titled SpecialtySoftware within the DownLoadedApps folder (so now we have C:\DownLoadedApps\SpecialtySoftware) and save the Setup.exe within that folder. Then, we just run the Setup.exe from within that folder. Now, here is the important step: we take a rewriteable CD and copy the DownLoadedApps folder to that CD, and we do this any time we add a new app to that folder. We must have 50+ apps in our DownLoadedApps folder already – and it all fit's on one CD whereas before it would have taken 50 CD’s. You can ignore this advice if you wish, but it has worked perfectly for us. Now, continue with the installation by reading the section titled ‘Additional Required Installation instructions.’ **************************************************************** 6-End of How to install this application from a web (internet) download **************************************************************** **************************************************************** 7-Regular Installation and locations of program files **************************************************************** This section applies to you if you have the single user version. It also applies to the LAN user who just wants to install the software on their computer and will not be sharing their important data files with other users. The software location applies to both single and LAN users. When you run the Setup.exe file (see below) to install the COMS for Windows program, the software default location will be in the following folder/directory: C:\Specialty Software This is a change from COMS version 8.00 to version 9.99. In those versions, the COMS was installed in the following defaultfolder/directory: For 32bit versions of Windows (XP, Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8), the COMS was installed in: C:\Program Files\Specialty Software and for 64 bit versions of Windows (Vista, Windows 7, and Windows 8) it was installed in: C:\Program Files(x86)\Specialty Software The change was made in COMS version 10.x and higher to default install into C:\Specialty Software beginning with COMS version 10.x. This change came because of technical issues with our user base (which is mostly churches and non-profits who do not have a professional IT person on staff). This will also overcome other new Windows issues that Microsoft might introduce in the next few months and years as they continue to change and develop the Windows Operating System. Now, here is all you do to install the software: Run the installation Setup.exe as you normally would any Windows setup.exe. Allow it to pick the folders to install itself in, as it uses the correct ones. The setup will place a new COMS for Windows icon on your desktop. It will also place an icon titled COMS Tutorial Videos which is the help for this product since it does not ship with any printed manuals. Also there will be an icon titled COMS Must ReadMe! After the installation is complete dbl click on the COMS for Windows icon and answer each question. You will eventually see a setup screen that will allow you to pick the folders titled 1) ComsData (which is the folder that contains your important data files the program uses) 2) MyReport which is used by the Report Writer program and 3) Visuals which is used by the Visuals program. These three folders are automatically created for you and automatically selected. Remember - once in you will be have to: enter a Username:‘Administrator’ (without the quotes) and leave the Password blank and hit Logon. Once in, pull down the File menu and select Exit. If you are using a Windows2000, WindowsXP Pro, Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 computer, when you install the software make sure you have ‘Administrator’ privileges so that all the software can be installed. See your system administrator if you have a question about this. For older Windows XP and Windows 2000 We install a special ‘printer’ driver titled ‘Specialty Report Writer’ which allows the software to generate PDF, RTF, and HTML files. **************************************************************** 7-End of Regular Installation **************************************************************** **************************************************************** 8-LAN or Multi-User Installation **************************************************************** If you are not on a LAN, or just plan on installing the program on a computer that will not be sharing it's COMS data, then ignore this section and follow the information found in the previous section for Regular Installation. If the following three items are all true – then proceed with these special LAN or Multi-User Installation instructions: (1) you are on a LAN (2) you have a LAN (multi user license) from Specialty Software (3) you wish the Data Files which the COMS program uses to be shared by more than one user on a shared LAN drive (a shared LAN drive must grant all users who will share that drive read-write access) If all three of the above are true, go to a workstation that you know is connected to the shared LAN drive before attempting any of the following installation procedures (after all, how can you create a folders, or see a shared drive, etc. on a LAN if your workstation is not connected? The answer is – you can’t). Also, all the ‘real work’ in setting up the application to be used on a LAN is done on the first workstation. How can you tell if a computer is connected to a shared drive? It's easy, and you should do this: start Windows Explorer (or whatever it is called in your version of Windows) and in the left pane open up My Computer. You MUST see the shared drive within the My Computer folder. If you do not, then this computer is not correctly connected to the shared drive and you must stop and have your network administrator correct this for you now. DO NOT open up the folder titled My Network Places and find the shared drive!! This is not correct!! and can cause problems if you attempt to share the drive from there. Run the installation Setup.exe as you normally would any Windows setup.exe on this one workstation. Allow it to pick the folders to install itself in, as it uses the correct ones. You will work on one workstation at a time – and make sure that one is working correctly before proceeding to the next workstation. After running the Setup.exe, do NOT start the COMS for Windows program! but rather keep reading for additional instructions! Before you actually start the application for the first time you need to understand that the each workstation will require access to three required folders titled: MyReport Visuals ComsData MyReport folder: will nearly always go on the local workstations hard drive, and it should be placed right off the root folder. This folder is used to store reports that the user might have modified with the Report Writer. So, it will be located at C:\MyReport. You don’t have to create this folder. When you actually start the COMS for Windows program a little later in this section this folder will be automatically created in the correct location – such as C:\MyReport. It is also OK but normally not required (the exception would be if you have some custom reports that you wish to share among more than one user) to create a MyReport folder on your shared LAN drive if you wish (just like you will do with the ComsData folder). Visuals folder: if you do not use the Specialty Visuals program, then the Visuals folder should be placed in a similar location to the MyReport folder. So, it will be located at C:\Visuals. Just like the MyReport folder, you don’t have to create this folder, as when you actually start the COMS for Windows program it will create this folder in the correct location – such as C:\Visuals. However, if you do use the Specialty Visuals program and plan on sharing Pictures with other users across the LAN, then another Visuals folder should also be placed on the shared network drive – similar to what is explained in the next paragraph about the ComsData folder. So, if this is the case you will need another Visuals folder on the shared LAN drive (at which point you could then use Windows Explorer to delete the C:\Visuals folder off the local drive – or just leave it there as it will not cause any problems). ComsData folder: should be placed on the shared LAN drive so all LAN users have access to it. The ComsData folder is where all the important data files used by the application are stored. If the shared LAN drive is drive letter K:, then you will need a folder titled K:\ComsData (and perhaps K:\Visuals if you plan on placing the shared Visuals Pictures there). These folders should be within the My Computer folder! so that when you start Windows Explorer on this workstation you can open up the My Computer folder and see the drive and folder. As an example, if you start Windows Explorer and open up My computer, you will see a drive K: in this example, and when you open up the drive K: you will see a folder titled ComsData within the drive K: Do NOT map the ComsData folder to a drive letter! Remember - you MUST have a folder titled ComsData - so in this example it would be located at the location of K:\ComsData. Now – there is actually two different ways to create these folders, and we will explain each of them – starting with the easiest to the more difficult. 1- First Way: Start the COMS for Windows. You will be asked something to the effect of ‘Is this the first time this program has ever been installed on this computer?’ and you should respond with ‘Yes.’ A couple dialogs later, you will be asked ‘Would you like to create the folder titled C:\ComsData now?’ and you should respond with ‘No’ because you are on a LAN and would like to create or select the ComsData folder on a shared LAN drive. At that point a dialog will appear giving special LAN instructions. Read it and press ‘OK.’ Another dialog will appear titled ‘Store Your Data’ with the question ‘Where’s the ComsData folder?’ This dialog allows you to see all the drives that are connected to this workstation. Open the one that is your shared LAN drive (it must be within the My Computer folder), and see if you see a ComsData folder there. If you plan on placing the Visuals folder on your shared LAN drive, see if it is there also. If you would like the Visuals folder on this shared LAN drive, press the ‘New Folder’ push button and title the New Folder it creates Visuals. Next – if you already see a folder titled ComsData in the shared LAN folder simple touch that ComsData folder with your mouse pointer and then press the ‘OK’ push button. If you do NOT see the ComsData folder on the shared LAN drive, then press the push button titled ‘New Folder’ and type in the word ComsData (note: it's important after you type in ComsData you take your mouse pointer and touch another folder or drive so that the folder that was titled ‘New Folder’ is now titled ‘ComsData’). Now, again take your mouse pointer and touch the ComsData folder on the shared LAN drive that you have just created and then press the ‘OK’ push button. At this point, another dialog will appear and you can continue answering questions. One of these dialogs will verify that the correct paths to the ComsData, MyReport and Visuals folder are correct. Look at them carefully. The MyReport should probably be C:\MyReport\. However, the ComsData should be the letter of your shared LAN drive (ex: if the shared LAN drive is K:, then the path would be k:\comsdata\.). Verify the Visuals folder as well (you determine if it is on the local hard drive or the shared LAN drive – and change the path if required). Now, press the ‘Finish’ push button, and if you see the message ‘Shared path does not contain some of these required files: appdata.dbc’ press the ‘OK’ pushbutton, then press the push button titled ‘Create Default Data Files in Shared Data Folder’. You can now press ‘Finish.’ Remember - once in you will be have to enter a Username, so use ‘Administrator’ (without the quotes) and leave the password blank, and hit Logon. You may now continue reading the section following the ‘The Second Way.’ *** THIS IS THE END OF THE FIRST WAY *** 2- The Second Way is to create the ComsData and maybe the Visuals folders is to use the Lansetup.exe which is available since you have already run Setup.exe. Run the included utility titled ‘Lansetup.exe.’ It is probably found in the following folder-location (unless the application was installed somewhere else by you or your computer): C:\Specialty Software\ComsWin\Lansetup.exe Type the above line in the Start… Run… line, or press the Start… Run… Browse… and find the Lansetup.exe file in the C:\Specialty Software\ComsWin folder. If you can’t find it, it means you are still not looking in the Specialty Software\ComsWin folder – it's there – just keep browsing till you find it! This utility will allow you to create the ComsData, Visuals, and MyReport folder. However, you will not need to create the MyReport folder – unless you plan on sharing modified reports by all users. If this is the case, you can also create a MyReport folder on the shared LAN drive. Also, you will not need to create the Visuals folder unless you need to place it on a shared LAN drive. To recap what has been said: the ComsData folder is the folder that will actually contain your important data files, and would normally be placed on a shared LAN drive. The Visuals folder might also be placed on a shared LAN drive if you plan on sharing Visual Pictures. And finally, the MyReport folder would normally be placed on the Local hard drive of each workstation – and this is done automatically when you start the application – so you do not normally need to do this with the Lansetup.exe utility. So, in reality the only folder you ‘must’ create on the shared LAN drive is the ComsData folder (you can always move the Visuals or MyReport folder to the shared LAN drive at anytime in the future – using Windows Explorer). After you have run the above mentioned Lansetup.exe utility press the ‘Find or Create ComsData Folder’ pushbutton. Either create or made sure the required ComsData folder does exist on the shared LAN drive. Close the Lansetup.exe when you are finished. You only need to use the Lansetup.exe on the first workstation you work on! This is all very simple. Finally, start the COMS for Windows program by dbl clicking on the COMS for Windows icon on your desktop. At this point you will basically follow the instructions explained in the ‘first way ‘above! so go back and read that now. As explained in the ‘first way’ you will eventually see a form that will allow you to select these three folders. You will also be able to press a pushbutton to create empty Data Files in the ComsData shared data folder – and this is required when setting up the first workstation. Remember - once in you will be have to enter a Username, so use ‘Administrator’ (without the quotes) and leave the password blank, and hit Logon. *** THIS IS THE END OF THE SECOND WAY *** The Setup.exe did places a new COMS for Windows icon on your desktop. The Setup.exe will also place an icon titled COMS Tutorial Videos which is the help for this product, and also an icon titled COMS Must ReadMe! That’s it! You have now successfully: 1) Run Setup.exe on the first workstation 2) Created the ComsData folder on the shared LAN drive (and perhaps the Visuals folder) and 3) Double clicked the COMS for Windows icon to start the COMS program and selected the location where the three required folders are found – and also created the empty Data Files for the ComsData folder. All the hard work is now done in setting up this application to be used on a LAN. Now that you have workstation one up and working, you can now proceed to the second workstation. You will need to run the Setup.exe on the second workstation, and on each additional workstation, and you will be able to select the ComsData and other folders that are found on the shared LAN drive. In other words, you created the folder(s) which will be on the shared LAN drive while working on the first workstation – so you do not need to repeat that procedure on any other workstations. Just follow the instructions found in the ‘First Way’ in the prior section. So, the only think you will do on the second and additional workstations is to run the Setup.exe and start the application so you can select the three folders when you see the screen that prompts for this information. It’s very easy as you can see. Also, please note the program itself is normally always installed on the Local Computer (workstation). Once in, pull down the File menu and select Exit. If you are using a Windows2000 or WindowsXP Pro computer, when you install the software make sure you have ‘Administrator’ privileges so that all the software can be installed. See your system administrator if you have a question about this. We install a special ‘printer’ driver titled ‘Specialty Report Writer’ which allows the software to generate PDF, RTF, and HTML files. If we had one word of advice in setting up the program on a LAN it would be this: just take your time and do one workstation at a time and don’t proceed to another one until that one is working correctly. Also, in the future if you ever need to ‘move’ your ComsData (or Visuals) folder to a different location using Windows Explorer – that is OK. After the folder(s) is moved and when you start the COMS for Windows application, you will automatically get a setup dialog so those moved folders can be ‘re-selected’ in the new location. **************************************************************** 8-End of LAN or Multi-User Installation **************************************************************** **************************************************************** 9-Computer Hardware Suggestions and Requirements. **************************************************************** Just about any computer that can run Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, or Windows 8 will be powerful enough to run the COMS program. The COMS program is not a very memory intensive program. However a Windows computer will run much better if you keep the following spec's in mind: A 64bit version of Windows really needs 4gig of RAM, and 6 or 8gig of RAM is much better. A 32bit version of Windows usually works good with only 2 or3gig of RAM. The COMS program will run on older versions of Windows - but they are so old it is not recommended and you will find the performance much slower. **************************************************************** 9-End of Computer Hardware Suggestions and Requirements. **************************************************************** ******************************************************************** 10-Application Menu Structure – Ver8menu.pdf ******************************************************************** In the folder where this application is installed is a file titled Ver8menu.pdf. This short document has nearly all the Menu’s found in the COMS for Windows application and their purpose. This is an excellent tool to ‘find your way around’ when using the program, so it is highly recommended you have this short document on hand and read through it. This file is normally found in the ‘C:\Specialty Software\ComsWin’ folder. However, if you can’t find it there, using Windows Explorer you can search for this ‘Ver8menu.pdf’ file. When it is found double click on it and it will open up. It is an Adobe Acrobat file - so your computer needs the Adobe Acrobat Reader file installed in order to ‘open’ it – if you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed, you can download it for free over the web from Adobe at: http://www.adobe.com Just search the Adobe site for a Windows version of the Adobe Acrobat Reader and download it. ******************************************************************** 10-End of Application Menu Structure – Ver8menu.pdf ******************************************************************** ******************************************************************** 11-How to convert your old COMS for Windows v.5.x files to the new COMS for Windows version 10.x or higher – and key differences between version 5.x and version 10.x and higher. ******************************************************************** This section only applies if you are ‘upgrading’ from an older COMS for Windows version 5.x to the new COMS for Windows version 10.x and higher. Run the conversion routine to convert your old COMS for Windows v.5.x to the new COMS for Windows. Make sure no one else is using your old or new COMS for Windows program. Select the Start… Run… and type in: "C:\Specialty Software\ComsWin\convert.exe" and then press the OK button. If this doesn’t find the convert.exe file (perhaps your version of Windows put it in a little different place) then after you press Start…. Run… press the Browse button and work your way into the C:\Specialty Software\ComsWin folder and find the convert.exe file. Then, once the convert program starts running, just answer the questions you are presented with. In our office it is converting a church of 2,500 with a couple hundred thousand giving records in about two minutes. We know you are anxious to jump right in and start using the new COMS for Windows version 10.x, and we are excited about it also. However, please do the following: 1- Make sure all your converted data looks correct. The Conversion program performed some very complicated routines to convert from the old COMS v.5.x to the new version 10.x as these programs are dramatically different. Go in the COMS for Windows version 10.x, pull down Forms… select Family & People Form… and hit Next/Prev, etc. on the Toolbar and check some records to make sure they all look OK. The best way to do this is by checking your own records if you are in the system, as you are familiar with how it should all look. You want to make sure all your data looks correct before you actually start entering data into the new program. If you see some discrepancies, go back and check your old COMS for Windows v.5.x and see what is different and you will probably see what happened. If not, email tech@specialtysoftware.com with a complete explanation (put your serial# in the email subject line) and we will help you find the problem. 2- Play with the new version 10.x a day or two before you actually discontinue using the old COMS for Windows v.5.x. Enter some sample data, delete some records, run some reports, etc., etc., etc. If you are on LAN, have one person do this and then that person can instruct the other’s on how to use the new program. Then when you are finally comfortable with the new program, run the Convert.exe again so you will have up-to-date convert information and you are now ready to put the system on line in live mode. The following are some items you should be aware of once you start using the new version 10.x. Although this is called an upgrade, in reality it is a brand new program built from the ground up – and about the only thing the same is your converted data and the name COMS for Windows. However, you will feel at home in the new program as it is so easy to use, and the familiarity of your data. But, it is a new program and some things are different. A few things found in the old program are not even found in the new program as it just didn’t ‘fit’ in. Here are a few you should be aware of: 1- Pledges: This was dramatically changed to make it easier. Check the Pledge Form out to see what is different – it will all make sense as soon as you look at it (like being able to enter pledges for each period, locking pledges in place with different amounts for each period, etc.). Also, because of this you will not need or get a complicated Report Form Pledge Setup screen when printing pledge reports. You will love this – as this was always the place that confused people. 2- Giving (use to be called Donations): Don’t forget to Activate Pledges if you use pledges before you actually start entering Giving. You can now enter Giving by individual or Family – it makes no difference. If you enter by Family the system will present you with a list of those who are the Family Contact (this is the person you will use to enter the giving by family – and is the person with a Family Sequence of 1). There is really no way you can “mess” this up because even if you accidentally enter giving to another person in the family, you can still print out Family Grouped Giving or Pledge reports. And, all Giving and Pledge reports can now be grouped by Family if you wish – with no work on your part. Also, if you use Pledges… the Enter Giving form forces you to ‘pick’ from an existing Pledge for the person (such as Building Fund for Pledge Year 2004) so you have to pick the wrong one to make a mistake. Your really only big choice in this is just to determine which ‘period’ you want the monies to post to. Also, the Giving does NOT automatically build a Pledge Form on the person if there is a missing item such as Building Fund – which will stop you from making a mistake here. You can just ‘enter’ a new Pledge for that person right on the Enter Giving Form. Got to love this! 3- Enter Groups Form will mainly be used to just quickly enter groups, as people can now be entered-deleted, etc. right from the Family & People Form. However, you can still globally delete people from a group here as well (one change from old program here: when you delete people in the Enter Groups form, you will see everyone in the list for that group – not just those already a part of the group – so just delete the ones you wish.) 4- Family & People Form: the Giving, Pledge, Attendance, Service, Committee, Prospect, etc. are all accessed right from this one central form. Also, the Family & People Form is now used for a family of one (single people, etc.) The top part of this form pertains to everyone in the Family (even a family of one) and the Bottom part gets more detailed (birthdays, etc.). Notice in the bottom part you can ‘override’ the Family phone numbers and address if required. Also, notice if you pull down the Family Menu while in the Family Form there is a nice selection for moving people from one family to another. Also, you can just ‘order’ people by changing the Family Sequence any way you wish. Just remember – only have one person in the Family with a sequence of one (1) and if you are entering Family grouped giving-pledges you should not change his sequence or that will break the family grouped giving-pledges. (Note: if you had people in the Members Form in the old COMS v.5.x they were NOT part of a Family Form, the conversion created this individual his own Family & People Form). 5- Friends Form: the Visuals have been added to this form, and you place pictures in this form even if you do not have the Visuals program. 6- Inventory Form: Visuals was added to this form. 7- When you ran the conversion, if you had people in the old COMS v.5.x that had been excluded from either the Family Phone number or Family Address, those will also be excluded in the new COMS as well. Notice a quick change here though: the new COMS does not allow you just to exclude one phone, but if you exclude one you exclude then all. This is better as the old was got to be very confusing and was difficult to deal with in the report area of the program. 8- You can now enter a ‘special’ note for each person if you wish that will print out on giving-pledge statements. You can find this in the Family & People form, in the lower part of the screen on one of the tabs. You can also ‘list’ the people who will print out in Family giving-pledge reports in a similar manner. All this is a dramatic improvement – and often requested feature. 9- We haven’t included any special ‘help’ for each form, as all this is done in the new training videos. Your computer will need speakers, so if you do not have any yet – run out and get a set (they cost as low as $10). This is a requirement. 10- One more thought on the Family & People Form: when you have the Form open, to see a listing of all Families, press CTRL+L. To see a Listing of all People (no matter which family they are in) press ALT+L and when you select a person, you will automatically go to their family! To add a new Family press CTRL+N and to add a new person to a family press ALT+N. We worked hard to make the software work without having to ‘mouse’ around and this type of thing is true in every form. 11- Also, when you press ALT+L as mentioned in the prior paragraph you will see that the only people who have a FamilyName listed are those that have a Family Sequence of 1. This is correct, as the person with a Family Sequence of one is the ‘household’ contact. This is very valuable especially when entering Giving or Pledges as you can quickly see in the list that if a person has a Family Sequence of 1, and there is a FamilyName for that person – then you know this person is the Family Household contact. Obviously, you can change this Sequence to any family member at any time, however if you have entered Giving and/or Pledges and want them to eventually be grouped by Family you should not change this Sequence until you start a new Giving-Pledge year. All this is a dramatic improvement over the way the old COMS v.5.x handled this, and will for all practical purposes eliminate casual user entry data problems. 12- The old COMS v.5.x used a FamilyID which the new COMS for Windows does not require. However, we did move these to the new COMS for Windows v.10.x just in case you want to continue to use them (you just create new ones on your own if you wish). They are found in the new Family & People Form Info_1 line. In addition, the NumberID is found in the lower part of this form on one of the tabs and also is not required. If you have a NumberID greater than 9,999,999 when you add new people, one will not be added – or it would create an error (numeric overflow – which it did in old program). This was actually a user problem as some churches would have a number of 9,999,999 in the program which was the max, and then tell the system to increment this by another 10. So, the new program catches this user entry error. And finally, since the NumberID is not really important either except for those churches who use it to enter giving, etc. – the new program no longer ‘checks’ for duplicates of it. However, this is a good feature because you can now ‘change’ the NumberID on any person at will. If you see you have a duplicate – just change it (you can print out a NumberID list to check for duplicates if you wish. 14- If you used the old Password system in the old COMS v.5.x, the passwords did NOT transfer to the new program. The new COMS version 10.x does not have a password system, but rather an industrial strength Security System. The Username and passwords are totally different and much more extensive in the new system. When you first start the program, you can use ‘Administrator’ as the Username (without the quotes) to get in, and you can leave the password blank. A Username is always required to enter the system (finally! real security). 15- When the files were converted, there was one difficult place – and it pertains to the old Specialty Visuals on a LAN. This does not apply to a single user system. If you are on a LAN and used the Specialty Visuals in the old COMS v.5.x, the conversion program looked in the old COMSWIN folder for a file titled SVPATH.MEM which pointed to where the pictures were stored. Then, if you had a folder titled COMSLAN on your local workstation (which you should have) it looked in that folder for the SVPATH.MEM file – and it used that location to point to the pictures. If you wanted to force the conversion utility program to use the one in the COMSWIN instead of the COMSLAN one, just delete the one in COMSLAN titled SVPATH.MEM using Windows Explorer. 16- When printing reports the application ‘processes and gathers’ all data before you actually print the report. Sometimes this happens immediately, but other times it can take a few seconds or longer. If it takes a few seconds you will usually see a progress bar that will show you how much longer it will take before all the data is gathered for the report. This is especially helpful if your data is located on a shared LAN drive, as that data has to be ‘gathered’ from the LAN drive to your local computer. Also, when a report is being printed you can go ahead and do your work in other parts of the application. 17- The EFA for Windows was not upgraded and still remains at version 5.5. Continue to use the EFA just as always. However, the new COMS for Windows does have an option to Backup-Restore the EFA data files (as this was required on Windows 2000 and XP computers). So, you can now make your EFA backups or restores from within the new COMS program. Hopefully, these observations will help. ******************************************************************** End of 11-How to convert your old COMS for Windows v.5.x files to the new COMS for Windows version 10.x and higher – and key differences between version 5.x and version 10.x and higher. ******************************************************************** ******************************************************************** 12-Online and also Nationwide Seminars Coming to Greensboro & Winston-Salem, North Carolina area! ******************************************************************** Check our web site and sign up for our Seminar which is held in the Greensboro & Winston-Salem, NC area. Three (3) people can attend the live seminar and the cost is only $995 total. We also do the exact same seminar online and the cost is only $695. This is a one day seminar. ******************************************************************** 12-Online and also End of Nationwide Seminars Coming ******************************************************************** **************************************** 13-Enter Giving New Features *************************************** The Enter Giving Form has been dramatically changed with update 8.62 and higher. Please read this section carefully so you will completely understand all the advanced features. The Enter Giving Form works "exactly" like it did in prior 8.x releases, with the exception of the new "Start" wizard. When you press the "Start" wizard, at that point the Enter Giving form will allow quick entry of giving (and pledges if you have activated pledges). However, there are a few things you need to be aware of. If you do not read this section and do not follow these instructions, then the Start wizard will actually take longer when entering Giving. However, if you use the Start wizard as it is designed, you will find the Enter Giving time will be substantially reduced. Let's work through an example of using the Start wizard. (a) Press to the Start wizard to activate it. At this point, you are done using the Mouse (as entering giving takes to long if you are mouse dependent). You will be asked "Would you like to Select a person and then add a new Giving item for that person?" If you say Yes, you will activate the Start wizard (whereas a selection of No will turn off the Start wizard). Since "Yes" is already the selected choice, for this example just press the ENTER key. Note: right below the "Start" wizard button is a checkbox that is titled "Find." If you check the "Find", you will actually be able to enter a NumberID or an Envelope# in a line instead of using the default "Locate" form which allows you to scroll through the people found in your system. (b) After you press the ENTER key, the Lookup form (or the Find form if you have checked "Find") will appear so you can find the person of your choice to enter the giving on. For this example, we will assume you are using the Lookup form. On the Lookup form, find the person of your choice (remember - the Lookup form is an incremental search so as you type in the word " s m i t" it will go to the first person named "Smit?" (perhaps Smith). Using the arrows on the keyboard, arrow up/down and select the Smith of your choice, then press the ENTER key. At that point, the Lookup form will close and you will be returned back to the Enter Giving from. (c) Select the Category (or if pledges are activated you will select a Pledge category) from the drop down list. Press ENTER (if the drop down list is open, you might press ENTER an additional time to close the drop down list). (d) Enter the information in the additional columns. IMPORTANT! If you have an additional giving item to enter on this person do NOT press the Save button, and do NOT press CTRL+S. Instead, press either the Down-Arrow key or press the CTRL+N key combination (both of these will allow you to enter an additional giving item on this person. You can enter an unlimited amount of giving items on this person. (e) When you have finally entered all the giving items on a person, you can now press the CTRL+S key combination (or press the Save button with your mouse - but this is way to slow). As soon as you do this the record will be immediately saved, and again the Start wizard question will ask you "Would you like to Select a person and then add a new Giving item for that person?" To locate another person to enter a giving on, again press the ENTER key and the Lookup (or perhaps Find) form will appear. At this point you just repeat steps (b) through (e) until you are done entering giving. (f) When you are done entering giving, just say No to the question asked in section (e) above. We hope you enjoy the new Start wizard, and thanks to all the churches that gave us their input on how to speed up the weekly data entry of giving. If you have pledges activated, you will also find them much easier to enter as well, as many enhancements have been made to the way the Giving Form interacts with the Pledge Form. ************************************************ End of 13-Enter Giving New Features ************************************************ ******************************************* 14-New Family & People Browse Grid Form ******************************************* Beginning with COMS for Windows version 8.80 we have added a major new way to view and edit most of the Family & People Form data within a browse or grid window (similar to how data looks within a spreadsheet like Excel). You can press Edit to edit data, or View to just view data. When you edit data and click on a different person's file, the edited record is automatically saved - as you can see this makes for quick data editing. As you click on the heading in the Family grid (example: clicking on Last), that column will be placed in alpha order for easy scrolling. Setting a column order is available in several columns including Last, FamilyName, Location, and Mailing Group. Incremental search is available in the column as well. As you move through the Family grid, you will also notice the People grid changes as well so you can see and edit people's data. Everything about a Family & Person is not available within the grid (such as address and phone numbers), so those will need to be edited and viewed as always within a regular Family & People Form. Including those within the grid would have caused a substantial performance issue and make scrolling the grids slow - so that is the logic for those not being within the grid. We hope you enjoy the new Grid's. ****************************************************** End of 14-New Family & People Browse Grid Form data ****************************************************** ******************************************* 15-New People Browse Grid Form ******************************************* Beginning with COMS for Windows version 8.87 we have added a major new way to view and edit most of the People Form data within a browse or grid window (similar to how data looks within a spreadsheet like Excel). We had already done this in the Family & People Form, but now the People Form has it's own form as well. You can press Edit to edit data, or View to just view data. When you edit data and click on a different person's file, the edited record is automatically saved - as you can see this makes for quick data editing. As you click on the heading in the Family grid (example: clicking on Last), that column will be placed in alpha order for easy scrolling. Setting a column order is available in several columns including Last, First, NumberID, and Envelope#. Incremental search is available in the column as well. We hope you enjoy the new People Grid. ****************************************************** End of 15-New People Browse Grid Form data ****************************************************** ******************************************* 16-Simple Filter now in both the Family & People Grid, and also the People Grid. ******************************************* Beginning with COMS for Windows version 8.87 we have added the Simple Filter to these two Grids. You should be familiar with the Simple Filter, as it is basically the same system used in the COMS Report Manager. This way you can set a filter on just about anything in the Grid. Also, you can turn off the Simple Filter, and it is saved automatically. This way it is available the next time you need it. Notice it only saves the last Simple Filter you set. We hope you enjoy the new Simple Filter, as this took a tremendous amount of programming time to integrate it within the grids. ****************************************************** End of 16-Simple Filter now in both the Family & People Grid, and also the People Grid. ****************************************************** ******************************************* 17- How To Reset the COMS Data path ******************************************* In COMS version 10.x and higher, there is a new option that allows you to reset the COMS paths that are found in the Windows Registry. Select this option in the Program grouping titled Specialty Software Office, and within this grouping is an option titled Tools. In this Tools grouping you can select "Reset Program Paths." Make sure you have exited all programs before you select this option. You will be asked something similar to "Are you sure you want to remove the registration information for this application?" A few other items are also reset as well (are you allowing your screens to be resized, are you having the logon screen remember your Username, etc.). You can reset those once you have the COMS up and running again. As soon as you press Yes, the screen will exit. The next time you start the COMS program you will again be presented with the initial questions you received when you first installed the COMS program such as "Is this the first time the software has been installed on this computer?" If you are on a single user computer, you should select No, as the c:\ComsData folder already exist. However, if you select "Yes" the software will recognize that you already have an existing C:\ComsData folder and a new one will not be created. On the next screen setup section you can just accept the default data path locations of C:\ComsData, etc. However, if you are on a LAN, you should definitely select "No", otherwise a C:\ComsData folder will be created in your local Root Drive C. Since you are on a LAN you should say "NO" and then you can select exactly where the LAN settings are on the next setup screen section. As an example, perhaps your data path location is K:\ComsData where the K: drive is your shared server drive. You will see a little "open dialog" button where you can browse and select your LAN setting for the ComsData folder (and perhaps the Visuals) since you are on a LAN. ****************************************************** End of 17- How To Reset the COMS Data path ****************************************************** ******************************************* 18- How to move saved filters from COMS version 8.xx or 9.xx to the version 10.xx. ******************************************* Since the COMS version 10.xx is installed in a different location than the prior version 8.xx and 9.xx any filters you might have saved will be not appear. We suggest you rebuild your filters as in time they do get corrupted with heavy use. However, you can move the old existing filters from the COMS version 8.xx and 9.xx to the new COMS version 10.x. In the COMS 10.x or higher pull down the "Tools" menu and select "Maintenance Procedures." Then select the "Update" tab. How press the "Import Filters" button. If your old filters from COMS version 8.x or 9.x can be found they will be copied to the new COMS program version 10.x. You must exit the COMS program after you take this "Import Filters" option. ****************************************************** End of 18- How to move saved filters from COMS version 8.xx or 9.xx to the version 10.xx. ****************************************************** ******************************************* 19- New EFA for Windows - see the sheets attached to your order. ******************************************* The EFA for Windows (titled Essential Fund Accounting) has now been released and immediately replaces the older EFA (titled Easy Fund Accounting). Any current user or the COMS or the older EFA is entitled to a substantial discount of this new product. Call 800-568-6350 to order this product immediately. The EFA for Windows is a full fund accounting package and includes General Ledger, Accounts Payable, and also we include a Free Payroll module. Enjoy! ******************************************* End of 19- New EFA for Windows - see the sheets attached to your order. ******************************************* ******************************************* 20- EFA Correct Payroll Employee Check Stub ******************************************* This option (Which is found in the Utility Tab of the EFA for Windows) allows you to correct the data which appears on the check stub and also the W2 information of any employee(s). By chance if you have printed a Payroll Check twice, the amounts which print out on the check stub and also on the W2 informational report will be incorrect by one pay period to much. This option will reduce the amount found on the check stub and also the W2 information by one pay period. An additional feature in this option is a push button titled "Browse Employee Data." This push button will allow you to make changes to the actual employee file (their data will appear in a browse window - which looks like a spreadsheet format). However it is not advisable to make changes using the "Browse Employee Data" push button. This feature appears only as a last resort to correct highly corrupted employee data which prints out on the check stub and W2 information. ******************************************* End of 20- EFA Correct Payroll Employee Check Stub ******************************************* ******************************************* 21- EFA Reinitialize AP 1099 report data ******************************************* This option (Which is found in the Utility Tab of the EFA for Windows) allows you to change the data which appears on the AP 1099 Information report in case you are not getting the results you expect. The 1099 report receives it data from the "AP Add/Edit Vendor info" form - in the field titled "YTD Purchase." This field is a user defined field which means you can edit the amount in this field if needed. However, when you selected "Post to Paid Items and General Ledger" this field is updated for you for each Vendor which is paid. In addition the Paid Items" report is also updated. By chance if you find that this field does not match your records (perhaps someone accidentally changed it), you can rebuild the amount from the Paid Items report file. When you select this option you will enter the beginning and ending date for your current Calendar year - such as 01/01/2015 to 12/31/2015. If any discrepancies are found from what is found in the actual Vendor YTD Purchase field and the Paid Items report, you will be given an option to make the change, not make the change, or exit this option. This field should normally never need to be changed - but perhaps a hard drive failure, user error, or network issue, a failing computer, or if anything corrupts the YTD Purchase amount - this is the option to help recover the correct amount. ******************************************* End of 21- EFA Reinitialize AP 1099 report data ******************************************* ******************************************* 22- EFA $ sign printing out on checks ******************************************* The EFA for Windows now allows you to either user the $ sign (this is the default) that prints out on printed computer checks or not use the $ sign. You can make this change in the Utility Tab, in the Check Setup selection. A reason you might not use a $ sign is if your check already has $ signs printed, and you do not wish the software to print additional $ signs. We have found some who use QuickBook™ checks to prefer not to use a $ sign. ******************************************* End of 22- EFA $ sign printing out on checks ******************************************* ******************************************* 23- Backup and Restore enhanced for COMS and EFA ******************************************* The Backup/Restore routine found in both the COMS and also the EFA has gone through a major overhaul with version 10.19 and higher. You can now backup just like in prior versions, but you can now also quickly backup to the Desktop or your Documents folder. In addition, you can also have the backups dated automatically for you instead of replacing the backup that is already found on your computer. ******************************************* 23- End of Backup and Restore enhanced for COMS and EFA ******************************************* ******************************************* 24- Import Giving from ComsCSV - Major+ Upgrade! - Discontinued Feature - and is no longer supported or forsale with the yearly Club Plus Plan. ******************************************* The ComsCSV is a ready to use file that is exported from within the COMS For Windows program. For many churches this will replace the use of the Enter Giving Form on a weekly basis as it is so much quicker. Most churches do not require as many "bells and whistles" as the Enter Giving Form has, and that will lead them to this new ComsCSV feature. Note that Excel is NOT required to use this new ComsCSV feature. We expect that most churches who use the ComsCSV file will NOT use Excel, but the built in ComsCSV feature instead. However, those who use Excel on a regular basis can use Excel if desired (just remember that if you open the ComsCVS file with Excel and make changes, you must save the ComsCSV in the Excel file format of Excel 2003 or lower, but no lower than Excel 97). All versions of Excel - and there are now many - can save in a lower Excel version for compatibility reasons. Important!!!! If you are using the ComsCSV feature, you MUST not change the file name. ComsCSV is the only file name allowed for this file (as it contains the required fields which the COMS for Windows program exported in the correct order, etc.) Remember - do not change the name of the ComsCSV file or you will not have all the features we have designed. The ComsCSV feature provides the following easy to use features: 1- With just the click of a couple items, you can create a form that will contain any or all People who are found in the People Form. These individuals will be exported to your desktop in a file titled ComsCSV. (To use this feature in the lower right hand part of the Form click the option titled "Create the ComsCSV File", then "Select Sort Order", and finally "Click Here To Create The ComsCSV (CSV file) Now". You will be asked a few questions) and it is self explanatory. 2- You will then select the Option titled "Import File." See the following section titled "Import Giving from Online" (see section number 9 and 10) as it has complete details on using the "Import File" selection. Please note that this ComsCSV file will remain on your desktop and can be used over and over. Or you can create a new one weekly if needed so the file will contain new People that you might have added to your People Form within the COMS for Windows software. One of the more exciting features when using the ComsCSV file is that when you can save all your work and then import it again next time (example: this Sunday you entered giving using the ComsCSV feature and then you saved this ComsCSV file. Next Sunday you imported the ComsCSV feature you saved from last week without losing all that work from last week. With one press of a button you can change the date from last week to this week and just update the giving for this week. We believe most churches will use the ComsCSV as it will reduce the entry of giving substantially. For complete instructions on using this feature, please see ReadMe item (25) below titled "Import Giving from ComsCSV, Excel, and Online - Major+ Upgrade!". Enjoy! ******************************************* 24- End of Import Giving from ComsCSV - Major+ Upgrade! - Discontinued Feature - and is no longer supported or forsale with the yearly Club Plus Plan. ******************************************* ******************************************* 25- Import Giving from ComsCSV, Excel, and Online - Major+ Upgrade! - Discontinued Feature ******************************************* The Import Giving from ComsCSV, Excel or Online is currently provided as part of the Club Plus yearly Maintenance Plan. If you are not a Club Plus Maintenance Plan user, you can contact Specialty Software Sales at 800-568-6350 and upgrade your basic Club Maintenance Plan to the Club Maintenance Plus Plan. If you have not already read the above ReadMe item (24), you should do so now before you read item (25) as it contains additional helpful information. Purpose of the Import Giving from ComsCSV, Excel, or Online: - Will provide the quickest way to enter giving manually in the ComsCSV or Excel file, or even from an online source for most churches. - Most churches will use the new ComsCSV feature, as this file is exported from within the COMS for Windows People Form and is ready as is to enter Giving (and even Pledges if desired). - Excel is NOT required to use these new feature!! as we show your data within a Form that looks like Excel (we call this a Browse window.) We believe most churches will use this feature without Excel. - Excel CAN be used if a user prefers!! Perhaps one prefers to enter the churches giving at their home using Excel and then brings the Excel file to the church and then imports the Excel file into the COMS program. - Many in not most churches will completely use this new features to enter all their giving (and Pledges) going forward as it is so quick. When we were in this design stage of this exciting new feature, or initial intent was to provide a quick easy way to Import giving from any Online source. This new feature could import giving so quickly we decided to provide this speed of entry for all users EVEN if they did not accept Online gifts. This is why we have made the ComsCSV feature available. If you are accepting Online gifts, this form will allow you to take a download file from the source you use to receive Online giving and import it into the COMS program. The COMS will easily and quickly allow you to match the file you are importing into the COMS program with the names found in the Family & People Form. After you do the initial setup in just minutes the Online Giving Form will remember your settings for future imports of your Online Giving data. There is no danger of importing incorrect data into the COMS because after your process the Online Giving data it will be placed into the Enter Giving Form. As you know, the Enter Giving Form will allow you to do any additional additions or corrections before you actually Post Giving permanently into the COMS giving file. Information on Downloading Your Data from an Online source: For Online Giving you have to download data from your Online Giving source. PayPal and nearly all other Online giving processors/banks allow you to download your financial information into what is referred to as a "CSV" file. CSV stands for "Comma Separated Values." What this means is you can download a CSV file from PayPal or a Bank in CSV form to your computer - we suggest your Desktop. The file will be titled something like Download.csv. Important! Notice the file Download.csv has an extension of .csv. It will look something like the following if you open it within a text editor like Windows Notepad: First,Last,Email,Amount "Joe","Johnson","joy@theemail.com","199.99" "Jill","Johnson","jill@theemail.com","1,899.99" "Henry","Jessup","henry@theemail.com","299.99" Hint: since this example file Download.csv ends in .csv it can also be opened within Excel as the .csv informs Excel that it is a spreadsheet file - and it's icon will most likely look like a Excel file. BUT if you ever open and modify the data you have downloaded within Excel, you MUST MUST MUST save it back to your hard drive as a .CSV file type or it will not be useable!!! However, the handy part is you can clean up downloaded data before importing it into the COMS if needed. Just remember to save it back as a type CSV file in the Excel Save As..... dialog. Now back to the above illustration: notice the first line list the Names of the fields and each additional line list individuals information. The best CSV files like the above example put all actual data within Quotation signs. In this example each field is also separated by a comma. PayPal always does this correctly, and hopefully your Online Giving source does also. Hint: notice in the above example the Amount field is also enclosed in quotation marks. This is important because what if the amount has a comma like "1,999.99". Without the quotation marks this would confuse the data because of the comma found within the Amount. The quotations inform the COMS to ignore the comma within the Amount field. Nearly all sources you will be downloading from will enclose all fields within quotation marks. If your source does not, we would suggest you give the Online Giving provider a call and ask them how to correct this as you might just be missing a step - or you could use the TAB, Semicolon, or Vertical Line solutions as found below. Many banks and even PayPal also allow you to download the file with a TAB separating each field (instead of a comma like in the prior example). Usually the only difference is that instead of the above fields being separated by a comma, they are separated by a TAB stop. There is one more difference most of the time. Instead of the file being downloaded with a name like Download.csv, it will be named perhaps Download.txt. As you can see, this is a plain text field that can also be loaded into Windows Notepad - and the using a naming extension of ".TXT" instead of ".CSV". In addition, some banks and other sources will not use a comma or TAB to separate your fields of data. They might use a semicolon or a vertical like. Currently PayPal only uses a comma or TAB. The COMS program can deal with all the above - regardless it is a comma, semicolon, TAB, or Vertical Line. How to use the Import Giving from ComsCSV, Excel, or Online: Here is the procedure in numbered order (notice this procedure is the same regardless if are using just the ComsCSV file, Excel, or an Online source): (1) Download your .csv or .txt file from your Payment source (PayPal, your bank, Excel file). (1a) Or, create the ComsCSV file by clicking on the option "Create The ComsCSV File" in the paragraph titled (3) below. (2) Open the "Import Giving from Excel or Online..." Form, and you will be requested for your Entry Code which has been provided to you by email or on paper with your Club Plus Renewal each year. If you are not a Club Plus Maintenance Plan user you can call 800-568-6350 and update to the Club Plus Plan. Once you enter a valid Entry Code you can proceed to the following paragraph. All Club Plus Plan users will receive a new Entry Code each year. (3) The main Options on the Import Giving from Excel or Online Form are numbered as you can see from Step 1 to 3. To the lower left of the form you can enter a default Giving Category like GF - General Fund, BF - Building Fund, etc. Select a default Giving Category to save some time as many sources you will be importing will not have the Giving Category. There are also a couple other self explanatory selections you can optionally make. It is on this form that you can create the ComsCSV file by clicking on the option "Create The ComsCSV File." If you select this option, it is self explanatory on creating this ComsCSV file. Remember that Excel is not needed when using the ComsCSV file. (4) In the top right of the form you will see a checkbox titled "First row of File contains field names." We suggest you always keep this check as it is the norm for nearly any file you will ever import. (5) In the upper middle section you will see another check box titled "Save File Path for Next Time." We would suggest you keep this checked as it will remember the file name you downloaded and also the type of file you have downloaded for the next time. Each time you download a file from your payment source you will probably over-write the one you downloaded in the past. You can save yourself a couple steps this way. (6) To the upper far left you will see 3 steps and they are self explanatory. (7) Step 1 - Select the File Type. From the drop down list select the type of CSV you have downloaded. The file types were explained at the beginning of this document. (8) Step 2 - Select the File. To the far right you will see a little folder that you click on and you should find and open and choose the file you have downloaded from your Payment source. As an example, in a PayPal Business account you will select the Option "Report", then select "Activity Download." Then in the field titled "Transaction Type" you would select "Completed Payments." PayPal Business account gives you a box where you can also select the Date Range of your choice for your download in the field titled "Date Range." There is also a field titled Format and you can select the type "CSV" or "TAB" (we normally select CSV but the COMS can use the TAB as well with the same results.) Then press the button titled "Create Report" and PayPal will prepare the download (they call it a Report) for you and will notify you by email when it is ready for download. Our experience is this takes less than 3 minutes. When the download is ready, you will see it toward the bottom right of this screen in the "Action" column. Click on the "Download." At this point - depending on your version of Windows - you will receive a Windows Dialog that will allow you to save this file to your computer. We suggest your Desktop so you can easily find it, but the choice is yours. In a PayPal Personal account you will select the Option "Activity", then to the far right above the amount column, you will see the column title "Statements" with a down arrow. Click on the "Statements" title and a drop down will allow you to select "Activity." At this point you will be taken to a page where you select a Range for the Download. There is a drop down titled "File Types for download" and you should select "Comma Delimited - Completed Payments." Then press the "Download History" button toward the right hand bottom part of the screen. At this point - depending on your version of Windows - you will receive a Windows Dialog that will allow you to save this file to your computer. We suggest your Desktop so you can easily find it, but the choice is yours. (9) Step 3 - Press the Import File Button. When you press this button you will be taken to a new form titled "Match COMS Fields To Your Imported Fields." If you are using the ComsCSV file you will notice that Specialty Software has already done this match for you. This form is where you match the COMS field names with the names of the fields you imported (sometime the field names you imported will look strange - but most of them have an example of the data they contain which should help you make a match). At the bottom of this form is a checked box titled "Save Destination Field Name selections for Next Time" and you should check this. This will remember the match for the next time you import data! The good news is once you have made a good match and you continue to use the same Giving Payment source it will remember the selections you made. You can only change the far left column in this form when making a match using the drop down selection. Each row has a drop down selection and if this is the first time you have used this form - they will all be titled "Do Not Import." Look through the form and find the column that contains the Date of the Online Gift or Payment. When you find it drop down the menu on its row and select Date. Repeat the procedure for Name and also Gross Amount (notice there are a number of other selections in the drop down). Date, Name, and Gross Amount are always required! After all, how can you import some imported giving amounts without the Amount, the Date money given online, and the persons Name? Next, if you can find an email in the imported file that would also be helpful (because fields like Name and email will be used in the next Form to attempt to find the correct person who gave the money). The Name you selected might have been a full name like Joe Johnson or just a last name like Johnson. If you can find a row that contains the First name, select that as the First name in the drop down. This will be helpful when you are making sure on the next form that you are applying the monies to the correct person. By chance if your Payment source was able to provide you with the COMS NumberID or Envelope# that would also be helpful (PayPal will not do this). There are a few other selections in the drop down you can attempt to match up if you find it helpful. However, the COMS can normally get a close or exact match if you provided Name (if the name matches what is found in the COMS program), or an email. By chance if your Payment source was able to provide you the COMS NumberId or Envelope# you would also get an exact match. When done press the OK button. Don't worry if you have made a mistake, nothing will be actually posted to the COMS until you are 100% positive everything is correct. Press "OK" to continue to the next form. (10) "The Matching and Correcting Imported Data with the COMS" form appears. This is the form where you will actually match the imported data with the People found within the COMS program. It is recommended you select the option titled "Step 1 - Preview/Print" as this will generate a report that will contain the information before you actually begin any Name matching. You can view this report on the screen, and also print it if needed. Next select "Step 2 - Match Rows." The push button titled "Match to People Form" will attempt to match the data you have imported with the People Form found in the COMS program. Several fields will be search in an attempt to find a match. The Name and email fields often find a Match - but you should scan through those rows that were matched to make sure you agree. Some might be flagged as Match Found!!! or Maybe a Match. You can highlight with your mouse any row, then press the pushbutton titled "Manual Match" where you can pick the actual match from a People List (the Manual Match will always be a perfect match since you selected it manually). In addition you can select "Ignore This Row" from the drop down list to ignore the row altogether. You can select "Match to People Form" as many time as you wish as you make changes to the form. One often used change is entering a Number ID or Envelope # that you know belongs to a person and then again select "Match to People Form." Using the Number ID or Envelope # column(s) is the best way to match a person, with the exception of using "Manual Match." You can enter their NumberID or Envelope# in their row. Before "Step 3 - Save and Close" can be completed, no rows can be flagged as "Match Not Found." You can select "Step 3 - Save and Close" as many time as you would like, and it will continue to give you information on what you need to match or correct before the Save can be completed. If there are rows you do not wish to import into the COMS program you can select "Ignore This Row" in the drop down. Normally all this will only take a handful of minutes or less. When everything is Matched to your approval, the "Save and Close" button will allow you to print a report of what has just been placed in the "Enter Giving" form (the same as if all this Imported data had been manually entered into the Enter Giving form!). As mentioned above, if needed you could now go to the "Enter Giving" form and make any corrections or additions. Remember, the Giving data you just imported has now been placed in the "Enter Giving" form, but not yet posted to the COMS giving file. If you printed the Enter Giving Report and are happy with the results, you could even select the option "Post Giving" now. At the top of the "The Matching and Correcting Imported Data with the COMS" form you will find the following buttons which will help you populate this form quickly: Edit Selected Row - when clicked on will allow you to update other data on the selected person. Change All Dates - will do a global replace on all Dates on this form in one second. Change All Categories - will do a global replace on all Giving Categories on this form in one second. Change All Amounts - will do a global replace on all Giving Amounts on this form in one second. Change All Pledge Years (if pledges are activated) - will do a global replace on all Pledge Years on this form in one second. Change All Pledge Periods (if pledges are activated) - will do a global replace on all Pledge Periods on this form in one second. Change All Payment Types - will do a global replace on all Payment Types (such as Online, Imported, Check, Cash, Credit, etc. on this form in one second. The above features are available regardless if you are using ComsCSV, an Excel file, or Imported giving. (11) What about Giving Categories? Every row must have a valid Giving Category, and the form will not allow you to enter an invalid one. When the "Save and Close" button is selected all Categories will be either matched by the default you selected, or one you have entered in the Giving Category or Description column. (12) What About Pledges? If you have activated Pledges for the COMS program two additional Pledge Columns will appear - one for the Pledge Period and one for the Pledge Year. Any Giving/Pledge Category you select for a row MUST exist in the Pledge Form of the person you are matching, or you can not complete the "Save and Close" option. This will make sure you can not post to a non existent Pledge Form on a person. In a situation like this it would be helpful when you selected the "Preview/Print Imported Unposted Records" that you make sure you in fact do have a Pledge Form that matches the Giving/Pledge Category of the person before you Save. If you have some missing Pledge Forms for a person, you can exit the Import Online Giving Form and go to the Family & People Main Form and enter what is needed (and when finished making the corrections again select the "Import Online Giving"). (13) The Import Online Giving is very easy to use, but we are here to help if needed. Since you are a Club Plus Maintenance Plan user you can email tech@SpecialtySoftware.com (make sure you put your Serial# in the email Subject line) with your question or call 800-568-3977. If you email you should receive a replay shortly, but never more than 24 hours later. If you have not receive a reply from your email within 24 hours it means we did NOT receive it, so please call instead. Enjoy! ******************************************* 25- End of Import Giving from ComsCSV, Excel, and Online - Major+ Upgrade! - Discontinued Feature ******************************************* ******************************************* 26- Import Giving from ComsCSV, Excel, and Online Entry Code Reset - Discontinued Feature ******************************************* This feature is now a discontinued feature. We are sorry for any inconvenience. Club Plus Maintenance user's receive a new Entry Code yearly (after your yearly renewal has been processed) which allows continued use of many Online features found within the COMS desktop program. The COMS program will prompt you for the new Entry Code when needed. However, the new Entry Code can be manually entered at any time by selecting the Tools....Properties.... menu, then selecting the Tab titled Online. If you have misplaced your Club Plus Entry Code, you can email tech@SpecialtySoftware.com with your Serial# in the subject and body of the email (and requesting the Entry Code). Or you can call 800-568-6350. ******************************************* 26- End of Import Giving from ComsCSV, Excel, and Online Entry Code Reset - Discontinued Feature ******************************************* ******************************************* 27- New Canada Donar Tax Statement - Detail ******************************************* A new Donor Tax Statement for Canada was added. When you select the regular "Donar Tax Statement - Detail", when the Report Setup screen appears there is a new checkbox titled Canada. When you select this checkbox you will be able to enter your Canadian Charitable registration Number and print this new report designed for our Canadian users. ******************************************* 27- End of New Canada Tax Giving Report ******************************************* We hope you enjoy the new COMS for Windows and also the new EFA for Windows software – and we promise you it will only get better! www.SpecialtySoftware.com