September 2006
- OnSpecial: Internet Backup Service v5.0
- Calendar/Scheduler Will Help You Manage Your Time
- Is the Housing Market Affecting Your Bottom Line?
- New Resident FAQs for Your Web Site
10/13/06 CAI Houston Chapter (Houston, TX)
10/21/06 CAI New England Chapter (Burlington, MA)
11/02/06 CAI PA & Delaware Valley Chapter (Valley Forge, PA)
02/1-2/2007 CACM Northern CA Law Seminar & Trade Show (Oakland, CA)
03/31/07 CAI - SE VA Chapter (Chesapeake, VA)
04/25-28/07 CAI's National Conference (Las Vegas, NV)
Best Fit Solutions, LLC provides TOPS v3.2.1™ training & accounting services. On-site or Internet-based training services available. Learn more at www.bestfitsolutions.net, or call 281-870-0404.
Use www.ReadyDOCS.com to sell documents online and turn Process into Profit. Contact us at (888) 497-8832 to find out how!
ReadyCollect integrates with TOPS Software to provide a complete collections process when accounts are turned over to your attorney. Visit www.ReadyCollect.com for more information on this money-saving program.
TOPS Corporate Trainer now provides
training on your site or via the Internet! Our corporate trainer, Dave
Black, has years of experience training in TOPS Software products. To
schedule a training session:
Toll-Free: 1-800-760-9966
Email: davidb@topssoft.com
The TOPS Internet Backup Service allows
you to automatically back up your important TOPS Community Data from right
inside TOPS v3.2.1™! For More Info, see www.topsbackup.com.
The TOPS Web Admin Forum, located at
admin.topswebsites.com provides
resources for TOPS Community Web Site Administrators, from free web site
content to direct chat with other admins. If you are not a member of this
forum, be sure to request your login today.
If you have not yet checked out TOPS'
Online Support Center, do it today! You can see your current
usage minutes, review past tickets, and see what tickets are open for
your organization. All you need to do is know your TOPS Client ID and
fill in a one-time sign-up form.
Thanks to all who attended our 2006 User Group Conferences. We are planning up to nine user groups throughout the US in 2007. The first is planned to be held in the Chicago area in February. Details will be released as they are confirmed. Contact sales@topssoft.com for more information.
The onTOPS Ezine is published by TOPS Software, LLC., 25400 US 19 N. Clearwater, FL 33763.
Copyright© 2001-2006, All rights reserved. Articles
may be reprinted with permission from the publisher.
TOPS
v3.2.1
TOPS On-Site
Internet Backup
TOPS Web Sites
TOPS Corporate
You are subscribed to the onTOPS Ezine as !*EMAIL*!.
To change your subscription, please
click here.
Welcome to onTOPS!
Welcome back to the onTOPS Ezine, a monthly email publication from TOPS Software. We hope you enjoy reading this month's issue.
Well, we've wrapped up the user group conferences for 2006! We've gotten a lot of great feedback from those that attended. Rebecca Day from Lamont Management, Inc., writes, “I enjoyed the TOPS seminar very much. It was informative and professionally done.” Thanks go to the TOPS facilitators and staff for their hard work in putting this together, to our sponsors: US Bank in Arizona and Colonial Bank in Florida, and to all of you who attended! Thank You.
All of the articles in the ezines are stored in the articles section of our web site, www.topssoft.com, which also means that ezine articles are searchable via our web site search engine. You will find the search link at the bottom of each article, along with a convenient option to send an article of interest to a friend or colleague.
Please send feedback to: insider@topssoft.com
On Special
Sign up for a new Internet Backup Service account from
now until
September 30th, and you will receive your first full month for free!
For years TOPS Software has been offering customers a safe, reliable, easy, and inexpensive option for protecting their important TOPS data from natural and man made disaster, the TOPS Internet Backup Service. If you didn't get the August 2006 ezine then you missed reading about all the new features that have been added to the latest upgrade to the Internet Backup Service, version 5.0.
Files and Folders was a major new feature added to the TOPS Internet Backup Service. As the name implies we added the ability for you to now backup files and folders from your computer to the TOPS Internet Backup servers. Thus providing the same safe environment for you personal data as your TOPS v3.2.1™ data.
[More]
To get started, go to www.topsbackup.com,
and click on Sign Up.
In Step 3, enter promotional code 096Z to take advantage
of this exciting offer.
TOPS Calendar/Scheduler Will Help You Manage Your Time
Each morning as you start your day, do you promise yourself that today will be the day you get through your to-do list before leaving at the end of the day? Let TOPS v3.2.1™ help you attain that goal. So many of the features in TOPS v3.2.1 are dedicated to helping you and your staff; manage your time, daily communications, and tasks.
Calendar/Scheduler, due to be released later this month (September 2006), provides you with a fully functioning calendar and task manager tool similar to Microsoft's Outlook, but with an added bonus: TOPS Calendar/Scheduler is fully integrated with TOPS v3.2.1™. So not only can you keep track of events and appointments such as CC&R inspections or Work Order due dates; but you can also schedule tasks such as Job Streaming jobs, running program updates, processing cash receipts or printing AP checks and the reminder will give you the option to open the function right from the calendar.
[More]
User Group Report
Eighty some people gather together in a room suffused with a barely suppressed sense of excitement. While they fill their coffee cups they begin chatting amongst themselves. Some are competitors, some friends but all are linked by a common fact – they are all users of TOPS. They have gathered together in this room to hear from us – what we have released, what we are working on; and also to learn from each other – best practices, tips and tricks, new ideas on how to better use the software.
The above scene was duplicated five times over the last few months as TOPS conducted our second year of User Group Conferences. I was privileged to be able to attend the conference in Clearwater, Florida. The atmosphere was friendly, relaxed, and invigorating. As one attendee there said it, “I have been using TOPS for 17 years, and I am still smiling!”
[More]
From the Suggestion Box: Support for 55+ Communities
Dear TOPS:
I manage a 55 plus community that must certify with HUD every 2 years, they must submit a census with the birth dates of residents as they must maintain a certain % of owners 55 or older to have “adult community status”. Is this something that could be tracked in TOPS?
Bruce
[More]
Click Here to enter your own suggestions into our suggestion box!
Is the Housing Market Affecting Your Bottom Line?
Attn Managers: Is the housing market affecting your bottom line? One way you can make it up in this depressed market is to automate resale processes to save time and making money.
A recent article said that new home sales were down 22 percent from last year. Scary words for our industry as we depend on Resale Packets for some of our company profits. With such a down turn, it only makes sense to look at what in this process can be automated and at what price this automation costs.
AssociationReady’s service should be part of your evaluation. They can be found at www.associationready.com and offer two services that many management companies are doing manually – the selling of community documents and the selling of Resale packets.
[More]
New Resident FAQs for Your Web Site(s)
What is the best way to get people to your web site and keep them coming back? This is a common argument between web site design and marketing experts, and while many of their answers may differ, there is one rule that all web experts agree upon – Content is King. After all, why else would anyone want to visit your web site if not for the information contained within it?
A TOPS Interactive web site gives you an automatic leg up in improving content by providing an interactive interface whereby residents and other community members can contribute relevant content to your association web site without the need for you to take any action at all.
[More]
TOPS crossed an important threshold in August – over 2000 installations of TOPS, with over 70,000 associations using the program in some fashion. To put this in perspective, we would like to share some amazing facts and figures about the CA industry, as published by the Community Associations Institute in August 2006:
* In 1970 there were only 10,000 community associations in the US. Presently, in 2006 there are approximately 286,000 community associations comprising of 23.1 billion homes with over 57 million residents.
* The estimated real estate value of all homes in community associations approaches $4 trillion, approximately 20% of the value of all U.S. residential real estate.
* The total annual operating revenue for all community associations in the U.S. is more than $41 billion. Most of this is spent in associations' local economies for goods and services. Community association boards also maintain investment accounts of more than $35 billion for the long-term maintenance and replacement of commonly held property.
Congratulations to the door prize winners at the Florida TOPS User Groups! Winners received an iPOD Nano:
- Ft Myers: Oscar Keuker from Keuker Tax Service
- Clearwater: Sean Foley, CMCA, AMS, PCAM, Florida Community Property Management
- Orlando: Cheryl Simmons, House of Management
- Ft Lauderdale: Sheila O'Neal, Davenport Professional Property Management
TOPS v3.2.1™>
- Added option to View By Account number and Lot/Unit Number in CC&R Batch Close.
- Added Close On Date field to CC&R Batch Close.
- Added Sort By options to CC&R Batch Close.
- Corrected issue with created notes not displaying inside the batch close window."
- Phone Messenger now displays Quick Messages when inbox is sorted by priority.
- Switching column settings to default view in Phone Messenger will no longer display duplicate columns.
- Corrected reversal of Effective Date and Delinquency As Of date in Apply Interest Job in Job Streaming.
- Added ability to disable Internet menu in Users and Passwords.
- Corrected security flaw that allowed a user with read only rights to access CC&R records via the reminders screen.
- Corrected display error in the tree view of user group rights settings.
- Customers with Yearly Accounting option activated may now apply charges from work orders and CC&R records to previous years with the correct descriptions from the selected year.
- Cost centers may now be correctly set up in the AP, Control Information without the need to define a specific account number.
- Converted all Pool Pass reports to the new reporting engine.
- Rebuild All Communities option will now work correctly without the need to enter a community in TOPS.
- Gate Security will now allow Gate House users to press escape key to back out of entry mode.
- Corrected landscape view of Income Statement report print.
TOPS MaintCo>
- Resolved "Error 3021" message that occurred in the setup wizard at user login entry.
TOPS Internet Backup Service>
- The TOPS Internet Backup Service version 5.0: Files and Folders is now available for upgrade to all current users of the TOPS Internet Backup Service. Read More
- The Internet Backup Service v5.0 User Guide is now available at www.topswebsites.com.
TOPS Interactive Web Sites>
- Changed format of the Accounting 1 year history file to allow for quicker downloads and processing.
- Homes for Sale pictures will no longer overwrite duplicate image file names.
- Added a new "MLS #" field to the Homes for Sale feature.
- Added ability to custom sort the Homes for Sale and Homes for Lease lists. Contact websupport@topssoft.com to request that your listing default to a new sort such as address/ price/ subdivision, etc. The default is by price within subdivision
- Removed the ability for Admin to export and report on resident Passwords for security reasons.
- Reformatted and reorganized the Address Book Export / Reports screen for easier use.
New Themes>
- We have three new themes for this month. By request, we have the Lighthouses and Beantown themes. Additionally, we have a monumental study in our new theme Capital City. Check them out on the TOPS Theme Manager!
Software Sales
- 800.760.9966
Web Site Sales - 800.556.7852
Tech Support - 800.899.5689
ext1
Web Support - 800.899.5689
ext2
Backup Service - 800.899.5689
ext2
Billing Questions - 301.869.8144