New Addition to Our St. Louis Team

Our St. Louis Team is Getting Bigger!

Richard Pryzma, CPA, has joined  JMT Consulting Group as a project consultant based out of St. Louis.

Richard is a certified consultant in Sage Fund Accounting and helps clients integrate Sage Fund Accounting with other 3^rd party software such as Microix Workflow Modules.

We are so very happy to have him as part of the team and we’re excited about our growing team in St. Louis.

Richard has been implementing accounting software solutions since 1998 when he began his career with Government E-Management Solutions, specializing in city and county government financial applications.  Richard gained much experience with nonprofit organizations as the Project Direct for NFP Consultants beginning in 2007 and Senior Project Manager for Nonprofit Technologies before coming to JMT in April 2011.

Richard has a B.A. in Finance from Memphis State University and resides in St. Louis with his wife Carol and sons Eric who is 8 and Daniel who is 6.  Welcome Richard!

JMT Regional Training for Sage MIP Fund Accounting Coming to San Diego!

We’re holding a three day Sage MIP Fund Accounting in beautiful San Diego August 2 – 4 at the San Diego Training and Conference Center.  (Register here)

If you’d like to increase your proficiency on Sage MIP Fund Accounting or have a new member of the team who never received training and is struggling or you’d just like a refresher course – join us in San Diego!

Day 1 Sage MIP Fund Accounting:  August 2 (9am-5pm)

Data Entry/Accounts Payable/Accounts Receivable/ Corrections/General Ledger Reports

This course covers the basic transaction entry process using the General Ledger, Accounts Payable and Accounts receivable modules.  Participant will learn the best method for entering data, discover how to use recurring entries, memorized transactions, reversing entries, and lastly learn how to make corrections using the original entry method.  Additionally, we will cover the setup and use of transaction and General Ledger Reports to verify data and analyze monthly details.

Day 2 Sage MIP Fund Accounting:  August 3 (9am-5pm)

Budgets/MIP Administration & Code Maintenance/Payroll

Join us as we discuss accounting maintenance, administrative checks and security review.  Let us show you how to do budget entry and budget worksheets in the Sage MIP Fund Accounting system.  Also, we will have a dedicated session on payroll processing for MIP Payroll users and issuing payroll reports.

Day 3 Sage MIP Fund Accounting:  August 4 (9am-4pm)

Advanced Reporting

This is a must attend session for those currently producing reports in Sage MIP Fund Accounting and those looking to take their report knowledge to the next level.  Advanced reporting will guide you through the entire process of designing various financial statements, creating custom financial statement formats, using custom columns and also applying report groups to make reporting simpler.

Register here.

Location:  San Diego Training and Conference Center – 350 10^th Avenue, Suite 950, San Diego, CA 92101.

Cost:  $450/day for individual days or $1,200 for all 3 days (includes a training computer during class, handouts, light breakfast, lunch, along with coffee, tea and soda available throughout the day).

Are you on the Extended Value Plan (EVP)?  You are eligible for a 5% discount.

Register 2 attendees for 3 days, get the third attendee at half price (a $600 savings!).

We’d love to see you – register here.  Or contact Lyndsey Murphy 888-368-2463  at JMT Consulting Group info@jmtconsulting.com

Who’s Your Wingman?

By Jacqueline M. Tiso, Founder and CEO of JMT Consulting Group

I had the privilege of attending the ITA Spring Meeting and hearing a wonderful keynote speaker, Lt. Col. Rob “Waldo” Waldman.  His topic was based on his business leadership book, Never Fly Solo, and was around the idea of leading with courage while understanding that we all have and need wingmen.

Now this is not the slang definition of “wingman” that guys may use when going out, but rather the definition used by pilots, which most of us have probably heard because of movies such as Top Gun.  And I suspect most of us have never really thought about with it truly means.  I especially didn’t put it in the context of business, but it is certainly true.

Whether we think of business or our personal lives, we all have people we depend on; those who support us and look our for us, our trusted and reliable partners…our wingman.  Of course, my first thought around this, was on a personal level – my husband, Gary, is my wingman.

I then thought of JMT and our entire team.  On a team level, the characteristics of a wingman include disciplined training, dedicated teamwork, courageous leadership, and unwavering trust – and that is certainly the JMT team.  Our mission is to support our clients, who are exclusively not-for-profits, and these very characteristics are the core values of JMT. Our mission is to help nonprofits achieve their mission and we work hard every day to be their trusted and reliable partner: to be their wingman.

The nonprofits we serve are certainly wingman to the people they help and serve.  It’s a great thing to be a wingman, so think about who you are a wingman for and who’s your wingman.  Then go out and “Kick It Up!” as Waldo would say.

Wednesday Welcome – Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago

We are thrilled to welcome Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago to the JMT family of clients.

With over 70 programs that serve individuals, families, seniors, and children, The Jewish United Fund/Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago (JUF) provides critical resources that bring food, refuge, health care, education and emergency assistance to 300,000 Chicagoans of all faiths and two million Jews around the world.

“We first met the folks JUF at a Chicago Lunch and Learn that we hosted,” says Director of Sales Andrew Harleman, “They also attended the Chicago INNOVATE and following that chance to interact with other JMT clients and meeting with the JMT team, became a client.”

JUF is now putting Sage MIP Fund Accounting to work for their organization and is Gold Level EVP subscriber.

Welcome!

Why I Moved Our Business to Cloud Computing and Why It Might Be the Right Move for your Nonprofit

By Jacqueline M. Tiso, Founder and CEO of JMT Consulting Group

As does every leader in a firm, I have to keep watch on how the numbers are doing.  Specifically – how is the money coming in and what is it going out for.  Probably the strongest message any business leader has heard over the past few years is that cash is king.  This is true for every firm, whether for-profit or non-profit.

Given this fact, you can imagine having to spend approximately $20,000 a year on technology – upgrades and maintenance to our servers – is NOT my most happy moment.

The good news?  The last time I had to spend this kind of money was in late 2009.

At that time, I realized that I really didn’t like to spend $20,000 a year on hardware and software upgrades – and that money could be much better spent elsewhere.

Think about it:  What could you do for your organization with $20,000 of “found” money?

JMT’s mission is to support non-profits in their use of technology, so they can achieve their mission.  I realized that I should be applying this philosophy to my own business.  And this forced me to ask the question how was spending this money every year on upgrades and maintenance furthering our mission?

I easily realized that spending a significant portion of our operating budget each year on IT infrastructure didn’t support JMT’s mission.  And that was the moment our move to the cloud was born.  This decision was arrived at after thorough reviews of our entire technology foot print, including not only direct costs such as the annual $20,000 equipment spend, but also electrical, maintenance, security, and of course, the human resources costs.

Our move to the cloud is not 100% complete, but it’s almost done and it has had an amazing impact on our organization in terms of not only dollars, but in the ability to streamline our processes, accessibility, team collaboration, and increased efficiency.

Every non-profit can benefit just as JMT has.  If you need help in understanding this changing paradigm and how you organization might benefit, please do call us and I will be happy to share what we’ve done.

Celebrating 20 Years at INNOVATE 2011!

We just finished lunch at the final day of INNOVATE and had a special anniversary/birthday cake for the occasion – it’s Jacki’s birthday tomorrow.  It was fun having a ballroom full of awesome nonprofit professionals sing Happy Birthday to Jacki.

Special thanks to Andy Harleman for taking the photo!

Technology Working in Favor of Nonprofits

Have you ever postponed investing in a new accounting system for your nonprofit because of the cost to buy or add new servers?

Or maybe your organization doesn’t have a large (any) IT department to support replacing or upgrading to a better accounting solution and so you’ve made due with the system that you have (inadequate as it may be).

You’re not alone.  But here’s some good news:  new options are available to nonprofits that take advantage of hosting and Cloud Computing and Software as a Service (SaaS).

In addition to traditional, powerful, on-premise fund accounting like Sage MIP Fund Accounting, JMT Consulting Group has added two more options for nonprofits.

Hosted Solutions – Sage MIP Fund Accounting is housed on servers on your behalf.  You access the applications via your desktop but there is no “backroom” in your office housing a stack of servers that would need to be purchased, maintained, upgraded, etc.  Because your solution is hosted, it’s pretty much ready to go – deployment is far less complication.  Likewise, you do not have to worry about the manpower and associated costs and hassles of upgrading the software each time there is patch, fix, of new version released.

Cloud Computing/SaaS – JMT Consulting Group added Intacct to our portfolio of solutions because we know just how beneficial and economical Cloud Computing would be for nonprofits.  Cloud computing offers all the same benefits of a hosted solution – rapid deployment, eliminating the need for IT with regards to upgrading and managing the solution, diminished costs associated with servers and new hardware, and accessible anywhere you have access to the internet.

The best part is that you don’t sacrifice any features or functionality with these solutions.

We like it when technological advances help nonprofits worry less about infrastructure, hardware and software and allow you to achieve your mission.

For more information, Tech Soup has a great article: Why Should Nonprofits Care About Cloud Computing?

Or give us a call at 888- 368-2463 or click here for more information.

New York Nonprofits: Are You In Compliance?

In September, the New York Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (NYPMIFA) went into effect for New York nonprofits.  Since then, the Office of the Attorney General has published information and guidelines in a booklet available for free titled “A Practical Guide to the New York Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act.”

As a professional knowledge firm that serves over 2,000 nonprofit organizations, we understand that compliance is a critical area of concern for nonprofits.   If you need help with compliance, JMT Consulting Group can help.  We are an email info@jmtconsulting.com or phone call 888-368-2463 away.

Professional Knowledge Firm or Software Vendor

JMT Consulting Group is a professional knowledge firm dedicated to improving the impact and effectiveness of our nonprofit clients.

There’s a significant difference between a nonprofit software solution provider and a professional knowledge firm.  Most nonprofit software solution providers only offer one solution.  As a result, regardless of your nonprofits particular operations, requirements and mission, it is in the best interest of the software solution provider to recommend the nonprofit software they represent.  That may not be the best solution for your organization.

Would your nonprofit be best served by an on-premise solution, Software as a Service (Saas), Cloud-based or hosted?

At JMT Consulting Group we review your needs and make our recommendation based on the best product fit for your nonprofit organization.

We take a look at different facets of the organizations and make recommendations on business process analysis and improvement; technology planning and consulting; and business process outsourcing. Based on our findings, we then refer to our portfolio of solutions including such brands as Sage, Intacct, Google, Microsoft, Salesforce, Convio, etc., to make our product recommendation based on the best product fit.

Our commitment:

• Recommend on the right solution for your organization.
• On-time project delivery as scoped.
• On-budget price is guaranteed.
• Always operate with the highest ethical standards.
• Whether you future technology direction is in the cloud or on-premise, JMT works with you to design solutions for the long-term success of your organization.

For more information on how JMT Consulting Group can help your organization, contact us at info@jmtconsulting.com or call us at 888-368-2463.

Intacct Participating in “Joining Forces” – a program for military veterans

Yesterday was a proud moment and an exciting day for us as an Intacct solution provider.

Intacct is part of an exciting new program “Joining Forces,” championed by First Lady Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden, which seeks to improve the economic opportunity for military veterans and their families.  Cloud computing and SaaS will serve as a cornerstone of the program.

Other key partners in the program include SCORE, the AICPA, and Salesforce.com.  The idea is to provide military veterans and their families with a bundle of complimentary training, services and technology.

Please read more about the program at the Intacct blog, the White House website or by watching this video.