Black Mountain School Accounting Software

Black Mountain Software has a complete line of accounting software specifically built to meet the requirements of Montana and Alaska schools.

The school accounting products include Accounting, Payroll, Budget Preparation and Fixed Assets. They also offer you the opportunity to select modules to add to the BMS Accounting software to integrate and automate more functions like purchase orders, requisitions and credit card management. Even time cards can become an easy paperless process.

Clerks–not to mention Superintendents and School Boards–love the Student Accounts module for managing all aspects of activity funds, from purchase orders and printing checks to account transfers and bank reconciliation.

Products include:

• Accounting
• Budget preparation
• Student accounts
• Accounts receivable
• Human resources
• Asset manager
• Payroll

Video Overview

Accounting

The Accounting system is central to Black Mountain’s School Software suite. It is chock full of essential functions and features: general ledger, accounts payable, journal entries, cash reconciliation, project tracking, and hundreds of reports. It integrates with Payroll, Fixed Assets, Budget Preparation, and at some level nearly every other Black Mountain application.

Add on modules including Purchase Orders, Remote Requisitions, and the Credit Card Manager will enhance the Accounting functionality to maximize efficiency across many of your daily responsibilities.

With Accounting and Fixed Assets Montana Schools can produce all reports needed to complete the Annual Trustees’ Financial Summary. Alaska Schools are provided with the Alaska Annual Audit Expenditure and Revenue reports as specified by the Alaska Uniform Chart of Accounts for Public School Districts.

Features

• Accounts Payable: This versatile feature puts you in control of the payables process. It’s built into the Accounting system and its power can be extended by adding the optional Purchase Order, Credit card, and ACH Bill Pay modules. It gives you complete control of vendor records including all the information you need for 1099’s. Additionally it makes handling credit invoices a snap.
• General Ledger: The flexible Ledger system allows set up of an accepted governmental account structure that complies with generally accepted governmental accounting practices. If your Chart needs some work, the software can assist you in a revamp. The cost is small compared to the long term benefit.
• Track your ledger balances, use queries to drill to original transactions including scanned images of supporting documents. Keeping track of expenditures and revenues compared to budgets is simple and supported with a complete set of budget related reports and should you need to create a budget revision the system makes it easy leaving a precise trail of the revision transactions.
• Cash to Bank Reconciliation: Whether you use one or multiple bank accounts, you’ll find reconciling system cash to bank statements couldn’t be more accurate or detailed. You’ll have all the tools needed to balance with your bank statement(s). You will confidently present financial reports to your elected officials and others, knowing cash balances are right on.
• Full Fund Accounting: with a double-entry system based on your personalized Chart of Accounts.
• Multiple Accounting Periods: Allows multiple periods to be open at one time (including at fiscal year end) to facilitate balancing and closing while still getting your current transactions completed. A 13th month is available for year end adjustments.
• Ledgers updated immediately: Documents are posted when created providing accurate reports for any time period.
• Balanced Accounting Entries: One-sided entries cannot be posted. The system requires that there is an appropriate offset to each accounting entry. Except for Journal Vouchers all transactions will supply correct offset accounting.
• Full Integration: All other modules that generate accounting entries are integrated with Accounting. There are never manual Journal entries needed for transactions created in one of the applications.
• Document Editing and Cancellation: A one-step process. No manual journal vouchers required. The accounting entries are automatically reversed. Editing and reposting is simple.
• Vendor and Other On Line Queries: Quick look-ups for vendor claim history, revenue and expenditure budgets through query screens.
• Purchase Orders: Full encumbrance accounting, E-mail or directly fax PO to vendor. Automatically generates appropriate accounting if PO crosses fiscal year.
• Recurring Documents: Any transaction can be set as recurring on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis.
• Interest Allocation: Distribution can be preset. All you have to do is enter the total interest amount and post. The system will allocate the interest to the appropriate line items.
• Project Accounting: Manage expenditures, revenues, and balance sheets (across funds if necessary) by using a project account code. Manage a grant across fiscal years by setting begin and end date and grant amount.
• Direct Document Scanning: For Example: selecting the scan button on the claim entry form automatically scans and attaches invoice images to the claim record for instant viewing. Scanning is available for many kinds of system records–Journal Vouchers, Cash receipts, Claims, Vendor, etc.
• Budget Revisions: During the fiscal year increase or decrease budget amounts with full tracking.
• Security: Each application provides multiple levels of security to control access to the software functions. Allow access to all functions or limit to specific menus, fields and commands.
• Fiscal Year Beginning: Create Expenditure, Revenue and balance sheet line items in minutes.
• Change Codes: A mass code change function used to correct line items where a fund (or other account) code is used inappropriately. Eliminates creating new line items with the new account and then having to JV all accounting entries.
• Merge Vendor Records: If a duplicate vendor record is set up and used it can be merged with the original vendor record.

Accounts Receivable

When you need to bill for services and track a customer’s payment history, Black Mountain’s Accounts Receivable program does the job. AR is great for handling non-utility types of billing where balances must be tracked and late fees or interest applied.

It provides you with an on-going history of transactions to keep a customer’s accounts up to date and in order. And, when you are ready, after transactions are processed, appropriate accounting entries created by AR are posted to the accounting program general ledger.

Features

• Invoice Preparation: Create different types of Invoices such as Internal and External Billing types. Also has a feature to set up Recurring Invoices.
• Statement Preparation: A monthly statement can be generated which includes all invoices prepared for the month.
• Project Accounting: manage expenditures, revenues, and balance sheets (across funds if necessary) by using a project account code.
• Maintain Customer Information: Detailed information can be maintained on customers. Customers can be grouped for reporting purposes and invoice preparation.
• Receipt Against Invoices: Receipting is quick. A list of available invoices pops up and the user simply chooses the correct invoice. Receipting can be integrated with the Cash Receipting Module.
• Recurring Invoices: Any invoice can be set to recur monthly.
• Full Integration: Billing and Receipt entries create journal vouchers that can automatically be sent to Accounting 2.0 to update receivables, revenues, expenditure reimbursements and cash.
• Document Editing and Cancellation: A one-step process. No manual journal vouchers required. The accounting entries are automatically reversed. Editing and reposting is simple.
• Create Product or Service Templates: To speed up invoice entry you can select templates that have per unit calculations built in.
• Ambulance Billing: Set up information related to Ambulance services such as referring Physician ID numbers, etc. to quickly generate these specialized bills.
• Insurance Invoices: Access Insurance Form screen directly from the main invoice screen. The Insurance information can print directly to the HCFA 1500 form.
• Security: Each application provides multiple levels of security to control access to the software functions. Allow access to all functions or limit to specific menus, fields and commands.
• Credit Invoicing: Credit invoicing is accomplished by creating a credit document for a customer. When the customer is invoiced, an option appears to apply the credit automatically until the entire credit amount is applied.

Budget Preparation

Get your department heads together. Build a collaborative expenditure and revenue budget without spreadsheets. Because Budget Preparation is integrated with the general ledger, data is never exported to or imported from external data sources. Each budget record displays the previous 4 years actual and budgeted amounts for reference in setting the new fiscal year budgets. And the integrated graphing will help you communicate your new budgets faster.

The system also provides a complete payroll budget process so you can create an accurate payroll budget forecast. Utilizing your built in salary schedules, payroll benefits and accounting information, it automatically calculates the payroll line item budgets. You will save hours compared to manual budget entry or spreadsheet import and export.

Features

• Multiple Levels Of Security: Allows you to customize access to the system and its functions.
• Loads Revenue And Expenditure Line Items: From Accounting for preparation of the fiscal year budget. This can take only seconds depending on number of lines.
• Import Of Specific File Format: Accommodates getting started first year if Budget already partially complete.
• Real Time Current Year Actual For Line Item: And total preliminary budget for a fund are displayed on each budget line record.
• New Line Items: Can be added directly in Budget Prep. Non-Current line items that are no longer used can be maintained in the system for comparison or historical purposes.
• Provides For Fund Reserves: And Adjustment of Cash available for budget purposes.
• Multiple Budget Scenarios: can be saved and/or restored.
• Transfer Budget Lines To Accounting When Desired: Transferring may be done as many times as necessary during the budget process to facilitate on going general ledger accounting transactions.
• Charts and Graphs: To create instant graphs of the information based on certain system reports–like Expenditure/Revenue Budget Comparison, Expenditure/Revenue Budget Comparison by Year or Payroll Budget Comparison.
• Instant Access: To Ledger’s month to date totals. Provides total year view.
• Preliminary Budget Figures: and line items may be added by using one or a combination of the following methods:

These features can be handled:

• Manually in each ledger account.
• Remotely by department heads using secure access where changes are restricted to their budgets only.
• Automatically by using the previous year’s budget or actual figures–or–a percentage of either. This can be applied to all budgets or selected budgets by account code range.

Create Accurate Payroll Budgets:

• Create annual payroll using anticipated rates. The result is anticipated costs summarized by budget line item.
• Build Salary schedules that allow you to quickly do “what if” cost analysis for budgeting or for salary negotiations. Know quickly how a 3 % salary increase would affect wages, employer costs and employer paid benefits.
• Salary Schedules created for calculating and assigning wages to each employee or “position” can also be integrated with the payroll system to automatically adjust an employee’s salary for longevity pay and other corresponding changes during the payroll year based on the approved payroll budget.
• The Payroll Employee spreadsheet allows you to make detailed changes and refine rates for each employee at the pay period level. This allows changes to be applied to select pay periods.
• Expenditure account changes can also be applied in any month and to different pay types resulting in the most accurate kind of payroll budgeting.
• System calculates account totals supplying line item budget amounts.

Fixed Assets

Don’t let the product name fool you. Black Mountain’s Fixed Asset system helps you manage ALL of your assets; capitalized or otherwise. It is an essential component for complying with GASB34 reporting and a powerful tool you can utilize to manage, track, and dispose of non-capitalized but, never-the-less, valuable assets.

Tight integration with the Accounting AP system eases identification of purchases that qualify for entry into the Fixed Asset system, making data entry and asset definition a straightforward process. When you’re ready, a click of a button, posts system generated accounting entries to the Accounting system GL.

Features

• Manage all physical assets: System provides for managing capitalized as well as non-capitalized assets.
• Descriptive Asset Information: Set up a location hierarchy that includes: Location, Building, Room and Person Responsible.
• Identify and classify your assets through the use of Tag, Item Class, Type Class, Organization, Description, Remarks, and Asset Status.
• Record: Quantity, Unit Cost, Total Cost, Date Acquired, Replacement Value, Salvage Value, Useful Life, Depreciation Method, and Disposal Date.
• System Calculates adjusted 1st year depreciation, Annual Depreciation and Total Depreciation.
• Critical Accounting Information: Set up all associated accounting entries over the life of the asset: Acquisition Accounting, Depreciation, Transfers, and Disposal.
• Accounting System supplies acquisition accounting from the claim invoice upon entry of Vendor Code.
• Set up Depreciation accounting one time to automatically generate each year of depreciation entries and history.
• Record Transfer Accounting to move the asset to a new fixed asset account.
• Enter Disposal account line to complete the assets useful life.
• Automatically Generates Accounting Entries
• All accounting entries are journalized by the fixed asset system. The Journal Voucher is sent to the accounting system and posted to the ledgers at your convenience.
• Automatically update replacement values once a year for insurance purposes. System uses the most current years CPI index. CPI index is updated in the Asset system once a year as soon as it is available.
• Work directly from each record to easily import digital photographs of your assets and inventory items. The photograph is available for instant viewing each time the asset record is accessed.
• Asset System looks at Accounting System claims to find assets or inventory. Any items in a claim marked as inventory or are coded with a “capitalized” expenditure object are included. This simplifies entry and paperwork for the fixed asset clerk. Once these items are added as a fixed asset record and acquisition accounting is recorded they will no longer appear in the list

Human Resources

The Human Resource (HR) application is a totally integrated add-on application to Black Mountain’s Payroll system. You will leverage Payroll’s built-in HR features to get a complete picture of your employees benefits, skills and education.

Features

• Dependent Information: Available fields: Relationship, Dependent first and last name, birth date, Social Security #, and gender.
• Emergency Contact Information: Provides set up for two contacts. Available fields: Contact name, relationship to employee, contact address, phone #, and Notes field.
• Education History: Degrees, School, Major, graduation year, Credits, and Notes field.
• Skills: Skill (CPR certified, Tutor, etc.), Rating, Date and notes fields.
• Events: Event (Physicals, TB Tests, etc.), Due Date, Start Date, Event Complete indicator and date, and Notes field.
• Evaluations: Separate evaluation information per job/position, Evaluation date, Evaluator, Extensive notes fields, Start date, Termination date, Termination Code, Next Evaluation Date, Benefits Eligibility date, and Probation End Date.
• COBRA Information: Qualifying event pick list, qualifying date, Acceptance date, Deadline date, Start Date, Expiration Date, Unlimited Election Period Events/Notes field and Unlimited COBRA Participants Events Notes field.
• Insurance Benefit Amounts: automatically provided by payroll system in concise display.
• Total Payroll System Interface: The Human Resource Application is directly interfaced with your Black Mountain Software payroll system data. There is never double data entry required. If you modify a shared item in Human Resources, the Payroll files are updated instantly, and vice versa!
• Pick-List Driven Data Fields: Key data fields allow only predefined values for consistent data entry and reporting.

Payroll

Using Black Mountain’s payroll system is the straight forward way to satisfy your employee’s basic expectation to be paid correctly and on time; no matter how complicated or involved the rules for accomplishing this might be. You will enjoy the flexibility and ease with which it handles varied pay periods, leave, benefits and accounting.

Manage Employee Information: You’ll have all the information right at your finger tips. The employee maintenance form delivers immediate access to all employee records essential to performing payroll tasks such as answering questions and updating records. Scan supporting documentation and photos for fast access later.

Benefits and Deductions: Setting an employee’s employer paid benefits and personal deductions is performed simply by selecting from lists of predefined deduction and benefits. Each has a set of underlying rules, set previously, including a rule for situations where control of rates or amounts is needed at the employee level.

Leave Benefits: Multiple leave buckets allow you to automatically accrue or manually assign leave amounts. Balances are controlled automatically through the time card pay cycle. Need an annual accrued benefits liability report? It’s included. And it is just one of many leave reports that will help you get and keep your employee leave balances right.

Time Entry: You will perform the biggest task each payroll period with speed and accuracy. At the start, automatic time entry can be used for certain employees. This speeds the process so you can get right to individual employee time entry where quick addition of pay types and accounting distribution will move you quickly to the next employee. And when the time card is complete a single click displays the pay results for your review.

Predefined Accounting Rules: The payroll system utilizes a combination of expenditure accounting rules that together insure your payroll expenditures, including employer paid benefits are distributed to the correct accounts. The expenditures and liabilities are journalized, summarized and made ready for you to post to the accounting system general ledger.

Features

• Local Deductions/Employer Contributions: Manage deferred compensation, Section 125’s, Annuities, garnishments, 457’s, etc.
• Leave Buckets/Leave Accruals: 3 standard buckets; Sick, Vacation, and Personal time. Complete management of Comp time. Add up to 9 more buckets. Set either for automatic or manual accruals.
• Salary Schedules: Employee records can be tied to the Budget Preparation Salary Schedules. Provides for quick automatic salary updates.
• ACH Electronic Direct Deposit: Employee net wages can be deposited electronically to as many different banks and accounts as needed.
• Full Integration with Accounting: Journal entries are automatically created whenever a payment or adjustment transaction is created and are sent to the Accounting system, which updates the payroll ledgers.
• Paycheck Correction/Cancellation: Cancellation completely reverses all system entries associated with paying the employee including Year To Date, accounting entries, deduction/ contribution records etc.–No manual journal or W2 adjustments needed.
• Deduction Adjustments: Over withholding errors can be quickly refunded to the employee. Employee Deduction history is automatically adjusted and accounting entries automatically created.
• Employer Contribution Accounting: Use global settings, individual employee settings or combinations to achieve complete correct expenditure accounting.
• Third Party Disability Payments: simple process to update employee YTD figures and pay the employer portion of social security and Medicare.
• Paycheck Advances: Provides quick way to produce an advance check, balance is automatically deducted from the employ net pay next regular payroll.
• Electronic Paychecks and Stubs: order by check number or by employee name.
• Reissue Checks: for checks that have been lost or destroyed–allows for quick reassignment of new check numbers and direct printing.
• Expenditure Accounting Distribution: Payroll expenditures can be automatically distributed between as many line items as needed on a percentage basis. Timecard entry allows hourly distribution of expenditures as well as exception entries.
• Time Card Entry: provides for validations of accounting and distribution percentages. Allows unlimited splits by hours or percents and unlimited pay types.

Student Accounts

Manage the details of your student activity funds. Accepting and making payments is easy and produce receipts and purchase orders to support the transactions. The system distributes income or charges to each activity fund proportionally.

Features

• Multiple levels of security control access to the system
• Multiple investment accounts can be established allowing for investment management (certificates of deposits, savings)
• Issue receipts for payments received to any account. Receipt income can be automatically added to a deposit. Display outstanding receipt income not yet deposited
• Establish receipt codes to avoid repetitive multiple line entries
• Purchase Orders track ordered items prior to payment, show encumbered purchases in account balances
• Issue checks individually or in batch groups. Warning appears before posting an insufficient-funds check
• Proportionally distribute miscellaneous charges or income to selected accounts based on account balances as of posting date
• Select accounts to include or exclude proportional distribution of miscellaneous expenses or income
• Establish account groups for optional data sorting by more than one account. Reports enable grouping of specific activities; for example, an “athletics group” instead of individual accounts