Welcome to the first edition of the AccountEdge Tips and Tricks Newsletter. This newsletter is designed to help you use AccountEdge more effectively, and learn some tricks along the way. It will never be used as a selling tool.

To produce it, we've assembled a team of people from across the world of AccountEdge including members from marketing, product management, customer service, technical support and even some managers (someone has to keep the boat rowing straight). We locked ourselves in a room and posed one simple question: could we produce a compelling, even irreverent, monthly newsletter, sharing what we know with our customers in a fun, focused, educational way? This newsletter is the result. Each month we'll focus on topics we think you want to know, while being diverse enough to provide something for everyone. And we're all ears if there's something specific you want to learn. Just send us your thoughts.

In this first issue we'll demystify Bank Reconciliation and File Security, and review the latest payroll tax changes for Canada and the USA. Speaking of these countries, our goal is to present content that helps folks on both sides of the border. We will let you know when the content is unique to either country.

The Canadian and US AccountEdge updates for July contain payroll tax table updates that may affect you.

In Canada, there is a provincial payroll tax update for New Brunswick.

The US payroll tax table update includes changes for several states, including: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Minnesota, North Dakota, and Ohio. The Latest Payroll Tax Updates FAQ has more details.

Not sure you are up to date? You can easily find out. In AccountEdge for Windows, you can click on 'Help' at the top and then 'About AccountEdge'. In AccountEdge for Mac, you can click on AccountEdge on the top left of the screen, and then go to 'About AccountEdge'. In the Canadian version, the Tax Table revision date is July 1, 2013, and the Build number is 16.3.7A for Windows, and Build number 16.3.6 for Mac. In the US version, the Tax Table revision date is July 2, 2013, and the Build number is 17.0.8A.

Even if this payroll tax table update does not affect you, you want to make sure your AccountEdge is up to date by installing the latest update. Along with payroll tax tables, these updates include other minor fixes that are made to the AccountEdge software.

Have you ever had the experience of having something happen in AccountEdge, such as a transaction being deleted, without knowing who did it or why? Now you're probably thinking this problem occurs in companies having multiple users working in a file. That's not always true.

The Audit Trail functionality allows you to track and report edits to previously recorded transactions, changes to accounts, information being deleted, and more. This Audit Trail FAQ has more details about the Audit Trail feature, and how to enable it.

You can also set a Security preference to restrict the changing and deletion of transactions. Details about this feature are available on the Transactions FAQ.

Setting passwords for company file access is important, too. When you start using AccountEdge, even in the trial version, it comes set up with a default Admin password. This password gives full access to the entire program. Once you start using AccountEdge it makes sense to set an Admin password. If your file falls into "enemy" hands - you don't want them to be able to get to your data simply by clicking "OK". The best practice would be to create a user account for yourself and set a password for it and the Administrator accounts.

The Administrator and User FAQ explains how to create a new user accounts, as well as setting a passwords for all accounts.

Many of the payments made today are done either online or with debit cards. In older versions of AccountEdge, you had to manually record these transactions. The new Bank Reconciliation feature, which was released in AccountEdge Pro 2013, allows you to record these transactions almost as fast as the money escapes from your bank account.

In the Reconcile Accounts window (Command Centers > Banking > Reconcile Accounts), you would choose the account you wish to reconcile, and the statement date, as you did in previous versions. What's new is the Get Statement window, which is displayed when you click the Get Statement button. The bottom-half of this window will display transactions listed in the statement file that match transactions already entered in the AccountEdge Bank Register.

The top-half of the window displays unmatched statement transactions for which AccountEdge could not find a corresponding entry in its Bank Register. The reason could be an incorrect transaction date, incorrect (check) ID, or incorrect transaction amount. You'll have to resolve these by carefully inspecting the transactions. If, on the other hand, the inability to match transactions is caused by an electronic or debit card transaction, and no corresponding transaction exists in the AccountEdge Bank Register, you can add the transaction, which will cause AccountEdge to make the necessary corresponding entry in its Bank Register, and match the statement transaction to it. More important, you can create rules so subsequent statement transactions will be recognized and matched to dynamically-created AccountEdge Bank Register transactions, automatically. Read the Bank Reconciliation Process FAQ for more information on this new Bank Reconciliation feature.

Hopefully the information we provide in our AccountEdge Tips and Tricks Newsletter is helpful and useful to you. Each month we present articles that are timely, interesting and informative, to help you use AccountEdge more effectively. Be sure to check the FAQ links included in the newsletter to view more in-depth information about the topics covered. This newsletter will not be used as a sales tool. We invite you to send us your thoughts.

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