Working from home can be a blessing... and a curse! You back up your data from church and restore it at home, then back it up from home and restore it at church... worrying all the while that you've overwritten someone else's hard work! Now you can access your CMS Software from any location, including your home, work, or anywhere you have an internet connection-24/7.

With CMS Remote Solutions, your CMS will operate just as if you were sitting at your desk at work. The only difference is that your CMS applications are running on our CMS secure servers instead of yours. So all you have to do is log on and go to work, leaving the hardware and software maintenance, as well as updates to us.

Worried about performance? Most users are finding a higher performance with CMS Remote Solutions via the Internet than they do using their software locally.

With CMS Remote Solutions you can:

• Work Away From Your Desk — Staff can be more productive with the flexibility that remote access brings. Allowing staff to work from home, a remote office, or anywhere else means that your vital records are available whether on vacation, in a commission meeting, or in active service in the community.
• Increase Collaboration in Your Church — Anyone, from anywhere, with appropriate security controls, can access and update information in the database. For example, religious education staff can remotely manage student records without investing in cabling and networks.
• Simplify Need for Computer Support — Stop relying on well meaning "techy" church members to come and fix your network! Eliminate the time and trouble of installing, updating and configuring software on each of your computers. If your computer fails, just log in from another computer to be back online in minutes. Dedicate more time and effort to your Church by reducing your technical and administrative workload.
• Work from a PC or a MAC Computer — With CMS Remote Solutions, you can access your data from any computer with internet access... PC or MAC!
• Reduce Investment in Church Computer Infrastructure — All of your major software programs-CMS People Products, CMS Fund Accounting, Microsoft Office -will be hosted through us. Also, since the calculations and data are running at the server, you can avoid having to purchase new, more powerful computers every other year.
• Ensure Data Continuity, Security and Safety — Your database is protected by encryptions, firewalls, and multi-layer access controls. Nightly backups are taken securely off-site. Your database is safe from unexpected hardships such as fire, theft, or natural disaster when stored on our powerful remote servers. CMS offers a full suite of church management software in the Remote Solutions environment.

Admit it... you've seen the buttons for CMS Attendance and CMS Outreach on your People Product's Main Menu for years, but you've never really known what they can do for your church!

Using CMS Attendance and CMS Outreach can help you keep in touch with church members and visitors.

CMS Attendance

With CMS Attendance, you can quickly and easily keep track of who is, and sometimes more importantly, who is not coming to service each week!

• Keep in touch with those who have missed services — With CMS Attendance, you can produce meaningful reports that help you find those members who have not attended the last few weeks of service. You decide on the number of absences.
• Target Visitors — Track visitor attendance in CMS Attendance to target those who are just beginning to attend your church and may be interested in new member classes.
• Track the attendance of each service on Sunday — This can help determine whether service times or theme changes are needed, and whether you need to schedule more ushers, Eucharistic ministers, or day care providers.
• Provide reports for Elder Groups - Print Attendance Pattern and Consecutive Absence reports for Elders Groups, to help them keep in touch with all their members.
• Track Multiple Groups — Track attendance for Sunday School, Religious Education programs, even Council Meetings!
• Consolidate Membership/Contribution reports - The numbers and date of last attendance information is available in both CMS Membership and CMS Contribution. so you can include contribution, membership and attendance information all in one report.

CMS Outreach

CMS Outreach can be used as both an "inreach" and an "outreach" system. In coordination with CMS Attendance, you can track new visitors, schedule welcome letters, send invitations to New Member Classes, and more.

CMS Outreach helps arrange visits to people who are homebound or in nursing homes, set up meetings for unemployed and chemically dependent people, monitor support group needs and results, and coordinate evangelization efforts. Assign staff and volunteers to activities to make sure no one "falls through the cracks." CMS Outreach integrates with CMS Membership so addresses, membership status and other data are always up to date. Reports provide notes from prior visits and communication history.

• Arrange visits — Schedule visits to the homebound, people in nursing homes, hospitals
• Record Contacts — Record each visit or contact, track notes per person per contact, and analyze numbers and activities with reports and graphs
• Monitor new members and visitors
• Use Reporting Tools — Print reports of upcoming or prior visits per staff person
• Use Communication Tools — Prepare letters, mailers and labels for each person or group visited

With the release of the IRS Notice 1036, a change in the Federal Tax Tables from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 is now available for clients using CMS Payroll.

From one source, "For the last half of 2009, workers can expect to see perhaps $13 a week less withheld from their paychecks starting around June. That reduction goes down to about $9 per week next year."

This update notice was emailed to CMS Payroll Clients on February 24, 2009 and is available for download using the Online Update option when clicking File | Update. Clients using CMS Remote Solutions and ConnectNow, the change will occur automatically, so you won't have to do anything.

You can feel free to install the update when it becomes available. The IRS asks everyone to use the new tax tables as soon as possible, but no later than April 1, 2009.

If you have not received your email notification on this update, please complete the CMS Email Sign Up Form to confirm your email address. If you do not have an internet connection on the computer where Payroll is performed, you can request a 5.220 Update CD.