Overpayments Enhancement

In the MissionConnect: Benefits Enter Transactions function if a billing entity overpaid the balance on their invoice it can be over-applied, therefore leaving a credit balance held for future use.  However, if all of the invoices for that billing entity had previously been paid in full and an additional payment was received there was no way to apply it to that billing entity without creating a separate payment adjustment since zero balance invoices do not load in the payments grid.

We have now made an enhancement in the way that the payments grid loads invoices.  If a billing entity has paid in full, the payments grid will now automatically load all invoices for that billing entity from the prior 31 days.  This will allow an overpayment to be applied without creating a payment adjustment and it will work in the same way that it has for other overpayments and hold the credit balance for future use.  In the following screen shot the Burkesville church has paid all of their invoices in full, so when the account is selected in payments it now shows the most recent invoice, notice the 0.00 amount remaining.  If the Burkesville church sent in an extra payment it could then be applied against invoice 2797 and  held as a credit balance for future use.

Help Desk Enhancement

We have enhanced the help desk form that is built into all MissionConnect applications.  You may now attach one or two image files, such as screen captures, to help explain the problem that you are having.  Attaching images is an optional part of the help desk form.  The more detail that you can provide about your issue, either through a detailed description or by using images, allows us to respond more quickly with a solution.

The red outlined area in the image below shows the new image attachment fields on the help desk form.

Benefits Overpayments

After a discussion with many of our MissionConnect: Benefits users, we have implemented a solution to handle overpayments very similar to how they previously functioned in MissionBase.  This restored feature is now available in MC: Benefits Version 0.734.  Next time you open the application you will automatically be updated to the latest version.

Here is a brief example to demonstrate how this functionality works; Jim sent in a check for $182.82 to pay for three months of his dental and vision insurance, resulting in an overpayment.

The following image shows his payment being over applied to each benefit type to cover the three months of premiums.

His next statement will show he has a credit balance and does not need to send a payment.

The credit balance on his account can then be applied against the new invoices as shown here.

 

Two Resolutions and a Soup Pot

I’ve never been one to make New Year’s resolutions. But this year I need to make a couple.

2011 brought about major change for Great Spirit Systems as we launched our long announced MissionConnect software with 13 of our customers. This brought major change to these customers as well.

We still have six more customers to convert over to MissionConnect. We also have some MissionBase modules yet to convert with the accompanying customer conversions, and many loose ends to tie up related to MissionConnect. Beyond that, we have accumulated many new ideas and projects that were held off these past three years, while we waited on getting our software into a current development platform from which we can develop “anywhere access” to the data that you, our customers, need in order to enhance your ministries.

We know that in some cases we have left you with inconvenient work arounds and less than optimal solutions. Quite frankly, I had not fully realized how refined a product MissionBase had become until we began hearing from those of you on MissionConnect about little but important things like data entry “flow”, report options, multiple access points to some parts of the data, and other refinements that had been added to MissionBase over the years and then forgotten about by us, because stuff that works doesn’t get much attention. You have let us know clearly about many of these items that are missing in MissionConnect, and we are now working to add them into our new software.

So my first resolution for 2012 is to focus our efforts hard during the first half of the year on completing these software conversions, completing the incomplete modules, and adding all of those “missing pieces” that we’ve heard about from our MissionConnect customers.

We’re anxious to get on to the exciting, new, ministry enhancing applications that have been asked for and dreamed about. However, we must first get the foundational parts of MissionConnect complete, lest we build a “house upon the sand.”

My second resolution is to communicate better as we move forward. I want to keep you better informed of our progress, and we at GSS need to create a better mechanism for two-way communication with you, our customers. The only way we can develop our software in the direction our customers need, especially in those new, ministry enhancing applications for better access to data and information, is to become better at gathering your ideas and allowing you to help develop us the raw ideas and dreams into solid specifications for new software applications. Some people would call this process the “incubation of ideas.” I prefer to think of it as gathering the fresh ingredients into a large soup pot where they can simmer, exchange flavors, and cook up into some truly great software to nourish your ministries in ways not previously possible.

Let us know what you think.

Al

 

Introduction

This blog page is to encourage discussion about all things MissionConnect.