IvyTek News
IvyTek, Inc. Volume No. 6, Issue No. 1 Winter 2003

What's Your Exposure

With the activation of 155,000 plus Reservists and National Guard members thus far the provisions of the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Civil Relief Act (SSCRA) could effect your bottom line. This act pertains to our IvyTek Finance customers who do installment contracts. 

One of the most significant provisions under the act limits the amount of interest that may be collected to 6 percent per year during the period of service. The act applies to installment contracts for purchase of real or personal property, mortgages and delay of civil court actions such as bankruptcy and foreclosure. The provision applies to pre-service debts only.

With the use of special codes it is easy to track your SSCRA exposure. To determine your loans outstanding to Reservists simply tag these loans with the special code you establish and then run any number of reports using that code. Special codes can be used to track any type of exposure. For example, maybe you would like to track loans outstanding to K-mart employees or manufacturing plants in your area that may be in danger of going out of business. Call us for more information on special codes at 800-596-9792. Back

IvyTek at Work

In Sioux Falls, SD a customer suggested we time stamp their payment receipt so they could more easily match their video security tapes to particular payment transactions. We thought this was such a good idea we wanted to pass it on.

We also visited many of our Missouri customers. If we missed your location we will catch you next time.

Mississippi Law Change
Meanwhile, Michael and Sandy were hard at work revising and installing a special update for IvyTekPDQ in Mississippi. We are happy to say we delivered our free upgrades prior to the Mississippi Check Cashers Act February 20, 2003 deadline. A key new requirement was the printing of sequential numbers on each contract to aid in record keeping. (See News Bytes Links)

Data Conversion
In Louisiana, Mr. Fred was busy writing several data conversion routines. In a matter of minutes, we can now import data from other vendor databases into our IvyTek Finance software thus eliminating the need for time consuming manual entry of existing accounts when converting to our products.

What’s on-line for the future?
We are currently in the final stages of constructing TitleTek, a title loan software package for use in Mississippi and Tennessee.

IvyTek Management Information System for Window’s, an internet-based auditing tool for multi-store users is getting its final touches for it’s debut later in the month. More next time. Back

System Balancing

We all know and understand the importance of balancing a checkbook. It is equally important to balance your computer system. No matter which IvyTek product you use, running your outstanding batch balance report should be a part of your daily close.

The Batch Balance process compares your computer system’s total balances due on all open accounts, listed outstanding, to what your outstanding balance should be, given all the transactions that were posted on your system over a given period, calculated outstanding.

IvyTek Finance customers can determine the listed outstanding by running Reports, Outstanding, List, Current. Your current outstanding is saved. It can be recalled later under the Prior option should you need to know in detail what your daily outstanding listing was on a particular day.

Next run Batch-Balance. This report display’s all activity that changes your outstanding balance and compares the resulting calculated outstanding number to your listed outstanding. These numbers should match. An examination of the detailed transaction list on the report will help you pinpoint any differences. Select Adjust to balance your report.

Then go to Summarize and select today’s date/batch number for the beginning and ending batch to create a summary report of today’s activities. The summary report gives management a complete picture of your location’s activities for the day in a single report that can be printed or saved to file for transfer via the Internet.

Please note the summary report can be run for any day or period. For example, run this same report using the first batch for the month and last batch for the month for a concise report of monthly activities. For more on running these valuable reports call 800-596-9792. Back

Fred's Corner

Humor from Mr. Fred:
A small boy was lost, so he went up to a policeman and said, "I've lost my dad!
The cop asked, "What's he like?"
The little boy replied, "Beer and women!" Back

News Bytes

New Fax/Phone Numbers IvyTek’s Lafayette, LA office phone and fax numbers: Michael’s Cell: 337-212-0994 Sandy’s Cell: 337-212-0992  Fax: 337-984-9632

Web Site We will be improving our web site by adding important links and a new "Working for IvyTek" page, since we will be expanding our staff to better serve the needs of our customers.

LFA Convention The Louisiana Finance Association (LFA) Convention usually held in August will be held July 7-9 this year due to conflicts with school openings. For more information call the LFA at 225-295-1300. We hope to see you there.

Important Links 
For "SSCRA" information:
www.defenselink.mil/specials/Relief_Act_Revision/  or
www.bankersonline.com/lending/sscrapage.html

For the "Ms Check Cashers Act":
www.dbcf.state.ms.us/check_casher.htm 
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