By Stephanie Elsen

Thousands of companies nationwide are using CenterPoint Payroll Software, and there are also many companies that administer 401K/Roth investments dollars. Employers need to report employee 401K/Roth deductions and the employer matching benefits to these plan administrators. The plan administrator normally prefers to get the employee and employer matching dollars reported on a pay period or monthly basis in a unique CSV or Excel file format. The required file formats can vary among different 401K management companies. If you need to pull out a unique set of data, how will you handle it?

Red Wing Software has a tool available for use with CenterPoint Payroll that allows the Red Wing Software staff to create a file export to match your 401K/Roth administrator’s unique format. If you need a custom export for your 401K, give us a call to discuss whether the tool would work for you. Our standard tool can handle 90%+ of custom 401K exports. However if the file format required by your 401K administrator is more complex than normal, we still may be able to help. Contact Red Wing Software to learn more! Call 800-732-9464 or e-mail info@redwingsoftware.com.

By Larry Warrington

I don’t have much direct contact with our customers at Red Wing Software, but I like to think that what I do has a big impact on your experience with us. My official title is Manager of Information Systems. That’s a fancy way of saying it’s my job to make sure everyone here has the hardware, software and information resources to do their job as effectively and efficiently as possible. I try to ensure your experience with Red Wing Software feels personable, like you are working with a small company, but also give the impression we are also efficient and professional like a big company.

When I am not at work, I like to spend time outside, preferably on a bike. My son and I ride and race bikes as often as we can and I am involved in hosting several bike races every year here in town. We travel around the state in the summer to ride in as many bike races as possible. For me, biking is not only a fun way to get exercise, it also a great way to unwind after a day at work. It’s also a good excuse to get out into the woods or find some winding country road. The city of Red Wing has some of the best biking available in the upper Midwest and I try to take full advantage of it.

I have been directly or indirectly part of Red Wing Software since I was 10. My father, Lyle, was one of the original founders of Red Wing Business Systems, which is one of several companies that have joined forces over the years to become Red Wing Software. Being involved in the early years at a small company can be much more than a full time job, it’s a part of your entire life. I remember once, on a family trip to my grandma’s house, stopping off at a customer’s house so my dad could help with a problem that couldn’t be solved over the phone. While the support department doesn’t offer house calls anymore, I like to think we still go above and beyond to help our customers, when needed. I spent some of my youth after school putting product manuals together or duplicating diskettes or any other odd job that needed to be done.

When I left home for college, I never thought of coming back and making a career at Red Wing Software, but life takes some funny paths at times. Later, when the opportunity to come to work at Red Wing Software in the support department was presented, I took it. Red Wing Software has “grown up” since the days of the Radio Shack TRS-80 computers and hand-collated, 3-ring manuals that I remember as a kid, but it’s still a company that feels like family.

As you probably already know, January is the busiest month of the year at Red Wing Software. It is also a busy time for many of our customers with year-end reporting, installing new tax updates, and getting W-2s out to employees. It was especially challenging this year with the late decisions by Congress to change federal tax tables after the first of the year.

We try very hard to make sure we provide the best customer service we can by preparing for the season. I thought I would share a few things that happen before and during this busy time:

• It is a written company policy that no one takes extended vacations in January. We want to make sure that we are fully staffed to handle the call load.
• Each year, we hold several planning meetings to make sure everyone has a chance to provide input on how we help each other be as efficient as possible.
• Our Red Wing Software University created several videos to include in our help files, and on-line, showing some common processes that need to be accomplished at year-end.
• During the first two weeks of the year, we have a local restaurant bring lunches in for everyone in our Red Wing location. This keeps us fully staffed throughout the lunch hour. Plus, it keeps people from having to go outside to get lunch at the coldest time of year.
• Everyone in positions that don’t normally deal directly with customers, put on multiple hats, and pitch in to help in any way they can. Marketing people get up-to-speed on handling the front desk phones, developers work on problem data for customers, sales people and the design team handle professional services requests, and the list goes on.

I don’t normally like to brag about our company. Okay, that’s a lie. I love to brag about how hard our employees work to take care of our customers. Each year we look for, and find, new ways to improve our services during this busy time. In the rare event that we did not handle your request as quickly as you (or us) would have liked, we sincerely appreciate your patience and understanding.

- Ken Hilton, President

By Stephanie Elsen

Today is National Clean Out Your Computer Day! Originally sponsored by the Institute for Business Technology in 2000, this day provides you an opportunity to officially go in and clean out that stuff you’ve been meaning to do for quite some time. Cleaning out your computer can make a significant difference in your computer’s speed! Take those huge files that are taking up space and save them to a separate hard drive. Uninstall programs you no longer want or need. Got lots of emails that linger on inside your ‘deleted’ box? Get rid of them. And while you’re at it, why not dust the whole system, including the bottom side of your oft-used but never-cleaned mouse. You might just be surprised how refreshed you feel with a cleaner and faster computer!

By Stephanie Elsen

If you are a Red Wing Software customer, chances are you know the benefits of a good audit trail. That’s because this feature has always been a top priority for our payroll and accounting software over the years.

A good audit trail can help prevent and detect fraud. Being able to see every action within your system by user can help you monitor their activity. If users know their activity is monitored, they are much less likely to commit fraudulent activity.

A good audit trail enables you to provide necessary documentation for third party organizations (such as banks and investors) that require it.

A good audit trail helps reconstruct events once an issue is detected.

Having a good audit trail in your accounting software provides peace of mind, knowing that events are being recorded by user and that information can be accessed anytime to look back at the history to solve problems.