The News
| Year End 2011 |
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Kesho wish all our customers a good new financial year in 2012.
You should all have received the Year End update notes already, but if not please download them from our website.
We will also be available for a time on Saturday 1st October should you require any assistance. |
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| Short Code SMS - 21st September 2011 |
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| Weve launched a new short code in bound SMS service for balance enquiries for Curtains Too the SQL. Let your members text BALANCE to 99999 for example and be automatically sent their balance. Contact the office for details of our application or Esendex.co.uk for details of the text service. |
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| Removal of PPI - September 2011 |
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| As of 1st October, Credit Unions will no longer offer PPI in its existing format. Please contact the office to discuss how those changes will impact on your documentation, if computer generated. |
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| ABCUL Autumn Conference - Nov 2011 |
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We have confirmed our attendance, once again, at the ABCUL autumn conference on 4th and 5th of November 2011.
Come along to our stand, to see first hand, the market leader in Credit Union Accounting software. If you have already been wise enough to have Curtains - we look forward to catching up with you over the weekend. |
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| Year end notes - September 2011 |
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| Updated guides for the year end for Curtains for Windows and Curtains Too the SQL are now available for download. |
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| 24th June 2011 - Group Training in Wales |
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| Thanks to TSIB for organising another Curtains Too the SQL training event in South Wales. The event was well attended and a very meaningful day was had by all. |
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| Coop banking software (FD Online) |
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Coop Bank have moved many users to their new on line platform namely; FD Online.
This has major consequences for automatic direct posting. This is due to the nature of the CSV file that can be extracted. Rather than a comprehensive list of credits, the file generated is actually a report, output in CSV format, with page headings and more annoyingly, inconsistency columnar data.
Coop have said they will look into this, but cannot give any guarantee when they might alter the format of the extract.
Some of you make use of a macro to rearrange your download, but with the layout offered by FD Online, a macro is not feasible because of these inconsistencies.
Your two options at present, until the Coop are able to produce a consistent file are (a) manually tweak the file, removing all the page headings and cutting and pasting the data into 5 columns where the layout would be:-
(A) Date in dd/mm/yy format
(B) Description
(C) Customer reference
(D) Bank reference
(E) Value
or (b) post the credits via manual direct credit posting.
We will keep you notified of any progress in respect of this and we would suggest that your credit union apply some pressure to Coop to offer some solution as a matter of urgency. |
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| 22nd June 2011 - Meeting with DWP |
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| A fruitful meeting was had with DWP regarding the new reporting requirements for the Growth Fund extension, in London. It has been agreed that Curtains will produce the Excel returns without the need for template documents to reside, which should make the whole process simpler. We hope to have the amendments completed in time for completing your June returns. Youll be alerted to the availability of this update via email. |
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| 10th June 2011 - Meeting with Coop Bank |
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| We met with the Coop bank in Glasgow to see first hand the features and limitations of FD online. Our main concern was with the download pertaining to credits. The file available is more of a report file than a download of data. The bank feel they will not be able to address this until 2012. However, they are attempting to produce a Macro that will convert this file into a format akin to that produced from FD. There is option to access this data via reconciliation download, but this comes at a cost; £4 per download. You will have had an email from us, suggesting you contact Coop and request this download be made available at no cost. In terms of uploading Coop to Coop payments there is a limit of 50 payments. The bank is looking to remove this restriction at present and hope for an imminent resolution. Well keep you posted when this has been resolved. |
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| DWP Questionnaire - February 2011 |
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If you receive benefit payments on behalf of members directly into your bank account, you may have received a small questionnaire from DWP. We have responded to them on behalf of our customers in the following way:-
QUESTIONNAIRE:
1. Does your organisation currently undertake any validation using the Payment Reference (NINO) provided in BACS Field 9? - yes/no YES
2 - is your validation automated to read the beginning of the field? - yes/no YES
3. Would changing the position of the NINO cause a problem for your organisation?- ie if the NINO started from character 4 (with a 3 digit ref in characters 1-3 that wouldn be meaningful to yourselves). NOT INSURMOUNTABLE
4. If changing the position would cause a problem, could you advise of approximate timescales involved to change? - up to 2 months / up to 3 months / 4 to 6 months / 6 months +?
UP TO 2 MONTHS
5. Not all payment files issued from DWP would be changing. If you can amend your processing to look for the NINO in a different position of the field, would it cause problems that not all systems would change, therefore effectively requiring you to run a dual validation process? - yes/no NO |
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