Intro to Auditor - Leave a Trail!!!
Hey there, new Jewel auditors, Welcome to our Jewel Auditor Wiki. Whether you are just learning Jewel Auditor or whether you have been using it for years, you'll find this Wiki full of tips and helpful information.
Topics like:
- Basic Jewel Auditor principles
- Step by step “How to” pages for fixing common treasurer errors
- Adventist Giving mapping and importing issues
- Bank Rec solutions for when it is harder than it should be
- Stump the auditor – becoming a database detective in unusual situations
- Error Messages – what do they all mean?
- Training your treasurers to need you less
And we want to hear from you - what have you done that has worked, not only in editing databases and searching out errors, but in training your treasurers. And questions. How do I fix…?
Our Jewel tech support team provides direct assistance to over 40% of the Adventist churches in the US, and to over 70% of the conference offices in the US. So we're very experienced, and are here to help you and your treasurers (either through you, or directly if your conference has a Tech Support Contract).
For those who are fairly new to Jewel, by now you have figured out that Jewel doesn’t allow the treasurers to go back and change an entry in a closed month. Jewel Auditor, the program that you should have and should be using on your computer (contact Myla via the info at the bottom of the main Jewel Auditor page if you should have but don’t have a working copy of Jewel Auditor) allows you to go in and change anything. And we mean anything. Which is handy, but also a bit scary.
So for those just starting, let's lay out a few non-negotiables that we have found to be helpful.
- Always leave some “footprints. When you come back in a few months and try to figure out what happened here, will you be able to do it? I promise you, you won’t remember all of what you went through to fix the database you are working so hard on right now. But you can leave some footprints by doing the following.
- Sign your creations. Be an artist and leave your initials on everything that you edit. Linda's initials are LLM, so she leaves [LLM] at the end of every memo for things she adds or fixes in Jewel. Example on reconciliation adjustment: “Adj to ck #321 per statement [LLM].” This tells any other auditor who to ask if they have questions. It also reminds her of what she has done. If you see auditor initials, you won’t spend so much time trying to figure out what happened, trusting that you (or the auditor who owns those initials) had a reason for whatever has been done and you can move on without scrutinizing it. Myla uses [mrm] for her initials. Kristi uses -KR. Whatever works for you. Side note: We sometimes mention to the treasurers why those initials show up on their reports. Otherwise the new ones may think that they are supposed to initial their work too!
- Never delete an entry in an already closed month. Once a journal entry or check or deposit has shown up on the monthly reports and been voted on by the board, it should not just vanish in future reports. Void the check. Reverse the duplicate deposit or unnecessary journal entry. The articles in this Wiki will make all this as easy as possible.
- Don’t delete or edit an already cleared item without replacing it with another cleared item of the same amount. This can be tricky, but again, there are ways to ensure success.
Keep reading the Wiki articles for both Jewel and Auditor, use the search at the top right of the page, and you'll soon be an Auditor expert!
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Created by Linda McCabe, adapted for Jewel Wiki by Myla Matus