Helpful Hints for MemInfo
Users
Here are some ideas that you
might find useful .
If you have others to share,
please email them to us.
Bulk Entry of Pledges
It is easier to enter pledges or payments when
the list of families presented is shortened. To show just the pledgers,
at the bottom choose the Select button. Click the Financial tab. Find
families who have made a Pledge for the Operating Fund (or
whatever you call it) for the current fiscal year.
Those Not Receiving
the Newsletter
A user asked how to find the members and friends
who do not receive the newsletter.
Here are the detailed steps to do this:
* Select Membership/Reports and Labels
* Check Include Option 6
* Click the button Select Data Fields
* Select fields Family Name, Newsletter
* From the Sort On pull down, choose Newsletter
* Select People/Families button and on
the People screen Type, double click on Members, Friends. Then click Search
* Now you can Preview or Output, and the
report will show the families that you want. Of course it will be followed
by the families receiving the newsletter, but you can just ignore them.
* If you want to be fancy, you can output
the report to a file, load it into a word processor, and delete all of
the ones with Newsletter marked.
Special Purpose Lists
To set up a list for a special
purpose:
(1) Go to Tables/Custom Fields
(2) In the top part of the screen, under Yes/No fields, put in
SpecialList (or any other name) and then click Done.
(3) Go to Membership/Families and People (4) Find
the families that should be on the mailing list, and click SpecialList
on the right-hand side.
To print a set of labels for the list:
(a) Go to Membership/Reports and Labels
(b) For Layout, choose Mailing Labels
(c) Bottom left, click Select People/Families
(d) Go to the blue Family window
(e) Click SpecialList and click Search
(f) It will tell you how many families it found; click Ok.
(g) Click Produce
Restoring Backups
It is sometimes useful to have MemInfo on
another computer, such as in someone's home. It is easy to transfer the
entire file system use Backup and Restore. One caution,
however. You cannot restore to a version of MemInfo which is earlier
than the one from which you backed up.
Also, be careful that you don't make changes on
your main system after making the backup, and then restoring from the
other machine and wiping out the changes.
Receipts by Date
It is frequently useful to have the Receipts report
sorted by date so that it can be compared with deposits. Although MemInfo
sorts by name, it is easy to get a sorted report by using a spread sheet
program, such as Excel or QuatroPro. Just send the report
to a temporary disk file (select Delimited). Then import it into your
spread sheet program and sort it.
The details depends upon the program you use. In
Excel, just File, Open, select the type as Text file, select the
temporary file, and Open. You will then get a Text Import Wizard. Select
Delimited. The delimiter is , , and the Text Qualifier is ". In the
next screen, set the Date column to Date format and then Finish.
To sort, go to Data, Sort, and select column B
to sort by date. You might want to change column widths and put on a heading
before printing.
In QuatroPro, the procedure is somewhat different.
Open the file with Type ASCII. This will bring it in as a single column.
Then select Column A by clicking on the heading. Choose Data, Quick Columns.
Select Options, data type Delimited, delimited by Comma, Text Qualifier
". Then Parse. Add headings and Print.
Recording Collections
Record the full Sunday collection and
report all the input.
To easily keep track of receipts like the Sunday
collection, create a ficticious family, named "Misc Collections",
and create an account (on the right-hand side of the account definition
screen) named "Sunday Collection". Enter the receipts as donations
from "Misc Collections" with the account "Sunday Collection".
To see your year-to-date collections, print a statement for that "family."
Selecting
You can now select people for multiple
interests or activities.
With version 1.83k, you can find people who belong
to any of several committees. For example, if you have entered "Chair"
as the value assigned to the chair of each committee, you can get a list
of all the committee chairs. On the Select window, click Activities, and
then double click on each committee that you wish. For each one, assign
the value "Chair". You can use this to get a report, labels,
or just to view people.
Mail Merge
It is easy to do a mail merge using your
word processor and MemInfo.
You can create letters or special purpose labels using MemInfo's capabilities
for selection and file generation. For MS Word and WordPerfect, and probably
others, use a comma delimited file. This is a file with commas separating
each field, and is recognized directly by the word processor.
For example, you might want a set of labels with names and phone numbers
only. You might want to send a welcome letter to all visitors during the
last two weeks. These are easy and quick to create with mail merge.
Saving Files
When you create a special file, like a merge data file, don't save it
in the MemInfo directory. It is difficult, and even dangerous, to remove
unneeded old files when they are mixed with program files. Instead, save
them in a directory like c:\temp. That way you can just
empty the directory periodically without any danger of losing important
files.
Capital or Building Funds
Fund raising for a new building or extensive remodelling is often a mult-year
process. MemInfo is designed to help you keep track of pledges and payments.
You can choose to carry forward under or overpaid balances year to year.
On the statements you send to contributors you can either show the details
or just the totals for prior years.
Area Code Changes
Many areas have recently been subjected to telephone area codes being
split. MemInfo makes it easy to change, without editing each family and
individual. Just go to the menu Membership and select Misc.
You can change the area code selectively for each exchange (first three
digits of the phone number). Easy!
Statement Pledges Payable
Dates
Here is a quote from the Statements Help that you get when you ask for
Help when preparing to print a statement:
"Print the amount CURRENTLY DUE as of:" An important decision!
Keep in mind that monthly pledges are assumed to be due at the beginning
of the month, quarterly pledges at the beginning of the quarter, etc.
.................................
Thus, if the statement shows "Pledges Payable as of 11/30/97"
and the fiscal year is 06/30/98, it includes two quarters for quarterly
pledgers, and five months for monthly pledgers.
Definitions of summary lines in the statement:
Here are some definitions, assuming that there are both Annual and Capital
Fund pledges and the fiscal year is 06/30/98.
Prior Year Pledges Payable
Since only Capital Fund pledges are carried forward, no Annual Pledges
are included. This is the total of pledges minus receipts for the prior
fiscal years.
97/98 Pledges and Pledges Paid
This is the total from above of the Annual and Capital pledges and receipts
for FY 1997/98.
Current Pledges Unpaid
This should be the total of the previous two lines. Add the Prior Year
Pledges Payable and the 97/98 Pledges and subtract the 98/98 Pledges Paid.
Pledges Payable as of 11/31/97
For monthly pledges, this would include 5 months of pledges. Thus you
have to take the annual pledge divide by 12 times 5 to get the pledged
amount. Then subtract the payments made in FY 97/98 and add the Prior
Year Pledges Payable from the first line of the summary.
For quarterly pledges, this would include two quarters, or half of the
year. Thus you have to take the annual pledge divide by 2. Then subtract
the payments made in FY 97/98 and add the Prior Year Pledges Payable from
the first line of the summary.
