Life Hacks By Mary a la Financial Edge – Part 1 2758

Life Hacks By Mary a la Financial Edge – Part 1

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What’s a life hack? It’s a nifty technique you use to manage your time and daily activities more efficiently—a shortcut. And I love a good shortcut, don’t you? I never consider taking the long route anywhere. If I can cut a few minutes off travel time, I’m happy. I’m the same way at work. I prefer to be as efficient as possible, so I can get things done and get out the door. 

Financial Edge has some great shortcuts that can help you finish up the “sitting behind a desk” part of your day. I’ve found that a few time-savers in my day really do move me through tasks more quickly, which gives me a few extra moments to devote to my never-ending list of projects. So, I’m sharing a few of my favorite Financial Edge shortcuts. You might already know about some of them—but hopefully, at least one of my ideas will save you some precious time!

Date fields

In every date field, there’s a quick way to enter a date without having to access the calendar, or press a function button. Use the Tab key to move through fields in every data entry form. When you reach a date field, if the date of the document you’re entering is in the current month, just type the day into the field, and tab out. The remainder of the date auto-fills. For example, let’s imagine an invoice into which I want to enter the date for Sept. 19, 2016. Here are my keystrokes:
 
  1. Tab into the Invoice Date field.
  2. Enter 19.
  3. Tab out of the Invoice Date field.

The system will auto-fill September and 2016 for me. Remember, this isn’t just functionality in invoice entry, it’s functionality that’s available in every date field. The post date, the report date—every date field. Try it! I have to say, this is my #1 favorite Financial Edge life hack of all time. (So much so that I often forget and try to use it in Microsoft Excel—it doesn’t work there!)


Defaults

Data entry is not cumbersome in Financial Edge if you use defaults. I have several defaults I like a lot.
 
  1. Journal entry “D” default row (the blue row). Data entered in this row defaults into the rest of the batch as you enter data. If the default fits the entry, leave it and move on. If it doesn’t fit, change it. Defaults in journal entry rock!
  2. Default distributions on vendors and assets. Accounts added on the Distribution tab of a record, such as a vendor in Accounts Payable or an asset in Fixed Assets, default into the documents created for that vendor or asset. Why is that good? Because if you’re trying to quickly add a transaction to a vendor (or asset), you can assume the accounts have been added to the transaction during entry. If you need to change the distributed accounts, you can. If you don’t need to, you can just move on to your next transaction. 
  3. Tools > Options > Invoice Activity (in Accounts Payable) and Tools > Options > Invoice (in Accounts Receivable). Talk about genius! This default automatically fills a series of dates based on your initial entry. So, I follow the steps above to enter the 19th as my invoice date. When I tab OUT of the invoice date field, it auto-fills September and 2016. AND, it auto-assigns the Post Date and Due date based on options I set up in Tools > Options. Time—saved. Life hack—successful! 

These are just a few life hacks I like a lot. What are your favorite Financial Edge time-savers? Comment here, or start a discussion in the Blackbaud Community. Need another way to get more tips and tricks? Consider one of Blackbaud University’s instructor-led courses. Our rock-star instructors have real-life experience in the software; and through their experience, they’ve learned how to get the most out of Financial Edge. Don’t you want to do that, too? To find out where you should start, check out our Financial Edge page in Training Central

Additional Resource: Marc Seleman is a Financial Edge software consultant with Blackbaud. Be sure to look for Marc’s Minutes blog postings in the Blackbaud Community and learn more about defaults.

Life Hacks ala Financial Edge – Part 2 will be posted in a few weeks. Stay tuned! smiley
News ARCHIVED | Financial Edge® Tips and Tricks 09/28/2016 8:33am EDT

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6 Comments
Wakeela - when you're in a batch, click Tools > Options. The second-to-last option should say Enter batch defaults. I keep MINE set at "by row when placing cursor in row" but I believe the factory setting is "by field, with the F2 key". You can switch that option...it's a user option so only you are affected. Click Apply, then OK and you should be all set.
Hey Kim (and everyone)

I found a Journal Entry tips document on our website!

https://www.blackbaud.com/files/support/guides/fegl/je_shortcuts.pdf
(Sorry, can't make it a direct link but copy the link into your browser and you should get there!)

I'm still looking to see if there are more but this is a great resource for you!
This is great!

An additional date hack is if you simply type the month and day (8/31) the system will assume the current year and complete the date for you (8/31/16).
I tried entering the data on the default row (like the date, journal, journal reference) in my journal entry and it did not show up when I put in the rest of the data. Is there an option I need to enable for this to work?
Hi Kim!

I will look around - maybe Marc has a copy. I'll see what I can find!
Kim Martin Kim Martin Sep '16
I used to have a PDF file with numerous tips such as these. Any chance you can find it and post it for us?

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