It was January 5th 1978 when ACS Technologies was incorporated.  A lot has happened to ACS and the church software market in the last 31 years.  Kudos to Harris Rogers (company founder) and the other investors to having the foresight to put together a company devoted to providing software for churches. 

An example of how different things were in the early days of church software, the company had to sell customized furniture designed to hold the "mini-computer" needed to run ACS.  In my first months of work with ACS I accompanied a sales person on a demo where we had to carry in the customer desk (broken apart) and the computer components to show the software.  It was definitely a two man set-up job.  Even our first portable computer, a 30 lb Kaypro machine, was a challenge to carry through airports.  Fast forward to current times when demos can be done via the web with no travel or lugging of equipment required.  It makes you appreciate the work done in the early years.

Any thoughts of what it will be like in another 31 years?  I hope to be around to see it.

This is advice for Year-End that was in a blog last year.  It all still applies.  (Please note that the Support Department is no longer open on Saturdays in January due to very few clients calling in during Saturday hours.)

Don’t wait until the last minute.  Federal law allows until the end of January for the distribution of W2’s, 1099’s, and charitable tax statements, but it is not wise to wait until January 30th to start those tasks. Give yourself some extra time in case system or printer issues occur.

Make a trial run before the final printing. While you are waiting to get the data finalized before printing the actual tax forms to distribute, print a trial run on plain paper. This allows you to see if the process will run successfully and you can spot-check the data.

Call Support during non-peak hours. The support department is the busiest around mid-morning and mid-afternoon Eastern Standard Time. During January, on weekdays, the support department opens an hour earlier at 8:00 AM and remains open until 8:00 PM. If possible, call earlier in the day or in the late afternoon or evening.

Install the new update in February. If you have not yet installed ACS 10.0, we suggest that you wait until you complete year-end tasks. The upgrade is designed to be installed any time.

Do not forget the tax update. If you use the Payroll module, download the 2009 tax update and install it after your last 2008 payroll and prior to your first 2009 payroll. Employees may be sensitive to having incorrect tax amounts deducted from their paychecks.

Backups, Backups, Backups. Before you close the year, make sure you have a successful data backup of the data in the financial modules. Always make a backup through the ACS Backup Utility before closing. To be extra safe, make multiple sets of backups on different types media (tape, CD, ZIP drive, or hard disk). If you are not currently using Livestor, the ACS backup service, it would be a good time to give it a try.

Good luck with your year-end system work and have a safe and happy holiday.

...this was a quote from a programmer that worked for us a while back.  What he was referring to was that the programming work at ACS was done with the intent of customer using the software for a long period of time.  Well, of course that is what we intend to do because that is what our clients want.  Purchase a software product that meets the needs of the church and then have the software maintained to keep meeting their needs as the church grows and technology changes. 

This particular programmer was relocated from California where he would develop a system, then move on to another new project and leave the ongoing maintenance programming to someone else. We could never really convert this particular programmer to the "ACS" way of thinking, so he left us.  The lesson we learned from this experience was to look for developers who are willing to stick with their assigned areas.  Our two lead developers, Steve Cumbia (ACS) and Joe Gordon (PDS), have been with their assigned task for 26 and 30 years respectively.  Now that's a lifetime commitment. 

And it's not just Steve and Joe that have long term tenure.  ACS has 24 people in our R&D group that have been with the company for more than 10 years.  Now that's a group of programmers and testers that are in it for the long haul.

....at least that's our recommendation.  What I am referring to is the timing of loading the ACS 10.0 Update.  When we look at past trends each year we see a spike in the number of updates downloaded during the month of January.  I guess there is some logical reasoning to loading an update at the beginning of the year.  You finish out this year's work and then load the new update before starting work in the new year.  But there are two important reasons to avoid January when loading an update:

  1. Updates are designed to be loaded anytime during the year.  They do not have to be scheduled based on any cycle related to use of the software.  The Payroll Tax update is an exception to this rule, but the tax update it is designed to work with all recent version of ACS.

  2. The second and most important reason is that January is by far the busiest month for the Support Department.  We have twice as many phone calls and emails during January than we do during other months (due to the year-end activities in the financial software).  We bring in extra help from other departments but you can expect extra longer wait times.  So if a problem with loading the update occurs or you have a question about a new enhancement, it is much harder to receive help.

So either get busy and load the 10.0 update prior to Christmas or wait until after the year-end rush. 

At ACS we have several employees that are related to one another.  Two set of mother/daughters in the support department, a father and two sons, and several married couples are among the many employee family combinations.  However, we owe a special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Griggs for their three children; Daphne, Pam, and William.  All three of the Griggs siblings are in key leadership positions at ACS. 

Daphne is manager of the quality assurance group.  This group is responsbile for testing all the many company products.  She also orchestrates the ACS product releases which is one of the most complicated things we do.  Sister Pam manages the website integration team for our Extend Content Management system.  Any church that implements their website using Extend has Pam's group to thank for getting them up and running.  And finally there is brother William.  William is the Development Coordinator for Access ACS, our web software for performing ACS related task.  William is the one that directs the work of the programmers to continously deliver enhancements. You can see that the Griggs family has a big impact at ACS. 

Another interesting fact about the Griggs family is that they are from the small town Patrick South Carolina, population 354.  Patrick is also the hometown of another key ACS employee, Dean Lisenby, Director of IT.  I guess we also need to send a big thanks to the town of Patrick for providing excellent employees. 

On November 23, 2008, the United States Postal Service's new Move Update Standard goes into effect.  This is a change by the USPS to reduce undeliverable mail by requiring mailers to update their data when someone moves to a new address. Under the new rules, anyone using Standard Mail or First Class Mail (automation and presort rates) must demonstrate that they have updated their mailing list within 95 days (formerly 185 days) based on a National Change of Address (NCOA) database. 

So what does this mean for ACS users?  We have updated the Cass-It! software to have the ability to certify your address records to meet the Move Update Standard.  This is done by updating your data against the National Change of Address data.  So if Joe Smith moves to 1313 Mockingbird Lane, tells the post office he has moved but does not let you know, then using the Cass-It! software will update his record to the new address for you.  The Post Office has less undeliverable mail, you get the best available postal rates, and Joe Smith still gets his bulletin.  Everyone is happy. 

For more information on the new requirement, see the latest ACS E-News which is dedicated to this topic.

Like most of you my church had its All Saints service last Sunday in remembrance of the church members that have left us in the past year.  It made me reflect on the people who have worked for ACS that also are no longer among us.  I would like to take a minute to remember these good people who contributed to the work being done at ACS.

 - Brooks and Jonceel Kennedy – Sales and Training back in the ACS for DOS days

 - Charles Gwaltney – Sales in Louisiana and the surrounding area

 - Sandi Bass - ACS Central Services

 - Karen Collins – Financial Customer Support and Training

 - Lori Yarborough – ACS Central Services

 - Lorraine Rigdon – Certified ACS Trainer in Augusta Georgia that passed away this year

The ACS programming team has delivered another great update.  More than a thousand churches have downloaded ACS 10.0 and positive results are being reported.  To see what is included in the 10.0 update, check out the release notes.  The ACS Knowledge Base also has many articles available to answer common question on the update.  And finally, here is the link to access the 10.0 update.

Many thanks to Steve Cumbia (director of programming) and his dedicated groups of programmers, testers, and technical writers for their hard work on ACS 10.0. 

Yesterday, ACS published a press release notifying our ACS clients that Hal Campbell is no longer president of ACS Technologies.  Hal is succeeded by Tom Rogers, who is an original stockholder and longtime member of the Board of Directors.

I would like to take a moment to thank Hal for the leadership he has provided ACS during the last 30 years.  I also want to thank Hal for many other things.  First, Hal hired me back in 1983. I thank him for that. Next, I thank Hal for his easy going people skills which fostered a culture of close camaraderie among the staff.  This camaraderie kept us going during the tough, early years, and it still exists today.  I also want to thank Hal for being the original champion for the customer.  He taught us all that ACS was first and foremost a service company. “Taking care of the customer” was always the main event.   Finally, I want to thank Hal for being a friend.

ACS has released our first application published in the iTunes App Store!  Open iTunes and search for “Church” and ACS Church Life is the only church software application at this time for the iPhone and iPod Touch.  It allows you to look up names in your ACS database and provides directions.  Now your ministerial staff will no longer need to call the church office when they get lost.

If you are an iPhone user, check it out.