Midway through preparing this newsletter the New Zealand government announced that we will be going into lockdown for at least four weeks. This will have no affect on your MoneyWorks, which should just keep on working, and many of our staff have been practising on working from home for years. However as many MoneyWorks users around the world now also have to work from home, the remainder of this newsletter details how to access your MoneyWorks files from outside the office.
MoneyWorks support services over the lockdown period should remain unchanged. However there are restrictions on the number of simultaneous support calls that we will be able handle—these are on the New Zealand (0900-55-444) and Australia (1800-140-859) support lines. If you are having issues accessing these, please email support@cognito.co.nz with a detailed description of the issue, including screen shots where appropriate.
Kia kaha1
The MoneyWorks Team
1 Kia kaha is a Māori phrase meaning “be strong, keep going”. It seems apt in these difficult days.
Using MoneyWorks from your home
How to use MoneyWorks from home depends on what MoneyWorks product you have (and to some extent how your business operates). It doesn’t matter if the files are on a Windows computer at work and you have a Mac at home (or vice versa), as MoneyWorks works on both.
MoneyWorks Now
If you have an existing MoneyWorks Now account working from home is just a case of installing MoneyWorks Gold on your home computer and using your normal MoneyWorks Now log in. The first time you connect, click the Connect button, set the Connect Using popup to MoneyWorks Now, set the I have a MoneyWorks Now account check box and click Log In. Select the file that you wish to connect to, enter your user and password, and click OK.
Important: There is a strong chance that you may have forgotten your password if you have stored it in the Vault (for Windows) or keychain (for Mac) on your work computer and never accessed it again. If you are in this position, you should check your Windows Credentials or Mac keychain while you have access to your office computer. If you click the Forgot? link on the MoneyWorks Now login screen, you will be able to reset your password, but you will lose access to all existing MoneyWorks Now accounts and your administrator will need to grant you access again.
MoneyWorks Datacentre
MoneyWorks Datacentre is “internet ready”, allowing you to create your own “private cloud”. If your Datacentre is not already set up for this, you will need to get a static IP address from your internet service provider, and do some minor configuration of your router. For a more detailed explanation of this please see this article.
To access your Datacentre from a home computer, install MoneyWorks Gold onto that computer and click the Connect button. Make sure the Connect Using pop-up menu is set to “Manual Using IP Address” and key in the static IP address provided by your ISP. Check that the port is set to 6699 and click Log-in. You should see a list of files on your Datacentre, and can log into these in the normal manner.
MoneyWorks Gold/Express/Cashbook
These are single user systems, so you can transfer your MoneyWorks data file(s) from the office computer to your own and keep working. The simplest way is to copy the files onto a USB stick or similar Don’t forget that your files include your MoneyWorks Custom Plug-ins folder, which will be in the same folder as your MoneyWorks file. You will only have this folder if you have custom forms or reports. It is also important to copy the file(s) off the USB stick onto your home computer’s hard drive—USB sticks are unreliable and very slow.
A better way would be to keep them in a Dropbox (or equivalent) folder that automatically synchs back to the office computer.
You will also need to record your MoneyWorks serial number from your office computer to use to activate the MoneyWorks on your home computer—this can be found by choosing Help>Enter Serial in MoneyWorks.
You then need to download and install the appropriate version of MoneyWorks (see below). When you first start this, you will be prompted for a serial number to activate the software. You should enter your recorded MoneyWorks serial number.
Downloading MoneyWorks
To download a copy of MoneyWorks, just go to the Try MoneyWorks page, fill out the form, and set the pop-up menu to the appropriate product (Gold, Express, Cashbook), and the download link will be emailed to you. Make sure to put your current accounting software as MoneyWorks to avoid a followup email.
Having downloaded and installed MoneyWorks, unless you are a MoneyWorks Now or Datacentre user, you will need to activate it with your serial number (it will prompt you for this when you first start).
End of Financial Year
Coronavirus or not, the end of the financial year is approaching for New Zealand and UK users, so it might be timely for them to review this resource topic: What should I do at the End of Financial Year?.