The night included videos made in 1954 of contra dances, also videos of local high schools kids contra dancing, and some 1970's contra. Ending with singing old time holiday songs with words and melodies that were new to me. When I left the moon was bright and the new snow had a blueish tint even though it was mid-night. Walking up the long winding drive to the road I could see a snow covered barn with ancient lines and shape not too far off to the right and highlighted by moon light.

Once again, welcome friends. Now, lets get on to Peachtree and accounting.

Important Dates
Let's start with tax filing deadlines. In the past the IRS has had a nifty calendar which they published showing small business tax deadlines. Unfortunately they are not showing the same calendar format for January 2007. In its place we have to following taken from the IRS website.

All employers. Give your employees their copies of Form W-2 for 2006 by January 31, 2007. If an employee agreed to receive Form W-2 electronically, post it on a website accessible to the employee and notify the employee of the posting by January 31.

January 1
Earned income credit. Stop advance payments of the earned income credit for any employee who did not give you a new Form W-5 for 2007.

January 16
Social security, Medicare, and withheld income tax. If the monthly deposit rule applies, deposit the tax for payments in December 2006.

Nonpayroll withholding. If the monthly deposit rule applies, deposit the tax for payments in December 2006.

January 31
All employers. Give your employees their copies of Form W-2 for 2006. If an employee agreed to receive Form W-2 electronically, have it posted on a website and notify the employee of the posting.

Payers of gambling winnings. If you either paid reportable gambling winnings or withheld income tax from gambling winnings, give the winners their copies of Form W-2G.

Nonpayroll taxes. File Form 945 to report income tax withheld for 2006 on all nonpayroll items, including backup withholding and withholding on pensions, annuities, IRAs, gambling winnings, and payments of Indian gaming profits to tribal members. Deposit any undeposited tax. (If your tax liability is less than $2,500, you can pay it in full with a timely filed return.) If you deposited the tax for the year in full and on time, you have until February 12 to file the return.

Social security, Medicare, and withheld income tax.
File Form 941 for the fourth quarter of 2006. Deposit any undeposited tax. (If your tax liability is less than $2,500, you can pay it in full with a timely filed return.) If you deposited the tax for the quarter in full and on time, you have until February 12 to file the return.

Certain small employers. File Form 944 to report social security and Medicare taxes and withheld income tax for 2006. Deposit any undeposited tax. (If your tax liability is less than $2,500, you can pay it in full with a timely filed return.) If you deposited the tax for the year in full and on time, you have until February 12 to file the return.

Farm employers. File Form 943 to report social security and Medicare taxes and withheld income tax for 2006. Deposit any undeposited tax. (If your tax liability is less than $2,500, you can pay it in full with a timely filed return.) If you deposited the tax for the year in full and on time, you have until February 12 to file the return.

Federal unemployment tax.
File Form 940 for 2006. If your undeposited tax is $500 or less, you can either pay it with your return or deposit it. If it is more than $500, you must deposit it. However, if you deposited the tax for the year in full and on time, you have until February 12 to file the return.

IRS and USA federal holidays are as follows for 2007:
January 1— New Year's Day
January 15— Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
February 19— Washington's Birthday
May 28— Memorial Day
July 4— Independence Day
September 3— Labor Day
October 8— Columbus Day
November 12— Veterans' Day
November 22— Thanksgiving Day
December 25— Christmas Day

Peachtree 2007 Upgrade
This release of Peachtree is very unusual in that creating it involved a rewrite of the Peachtree program. Sage Software needed to rewrite Peachtree so they could change the database in which it was written. The new, more modern, database is able to handle larger amounts of data and is able to store the data more reliably with less chance of data corruption. While it is a major overhaul of the program, commands and screens have not changed, it's the same program you are used to. Almost all of the changes are beneath the surface and will not be noticed by the average user.

However, there are a couple of changes that will be readily apparent to every user who upgrades. The most obvious change is the new Peachtree opening screen which includes Business Status informations and charts, navigation options, and customizable short cut commands. This screen must be displayed, but it does not need to be used. Users who are familiar with the traditional Peachtree drop down menus will probably continue to operate that way. New users will probably gravitate toward the new navigation flow chart screen.

If you have not tried the new Peachtree 2007, you can try out the program at www.Peachtree.com. On Peachtree's main website screen, look under Quick Links and choose Free Trial. Now choose Real-time Peachtree 2007 Trial. When you choose this command you are able to run an actual copy of the Peachtree 2007 on the server at Sage Software.

The other change that users of prior versions will notice right away when they upgrade to Peachtree 2007 is the fact that all windows opened in Peachtree exist in a separate screen in Windows XP. The different Peachtree screens act sort of like they are different programs, though being run at the same time. For example, if you've opened Select a Report, Maintain Chart of Accounts, Payments, and Maintain Vendors; these are all shown at the bottom of your screen in your Windows Task Bar as if they were separate programs.

From the main screen of Peachtree you can use the Peachtree Window command to access the various windows you've opened, but there is another way that you might like better. Try using the Alt-Tab key combination to move between the various Peachtree screens that have been opened. Alt-Tab is a Windows XP command that allows you to switch between the various windows programs that have been started and are running simultaneously. In addition to its function in allowing users to access various different programs, this command also works great for accessing the Peachtree 2007 screens that have been opened.

User Question
User: I have used Peachtree for 7 years (approximately)- we just realized that our CPA produced incorrect financial statements for all of these years - we wish to "reopen" every "old" period within Peachtree and work our way through them, entering correct journal entries and reclosing each period as we restate each and every month's financial statement. Is there any possible way to do this?

Answer: Peachtree does not allow old years (beyond the current two years) to be reopened. The only way to obtain financial statements for those years would be to open archived versions of your company that may exist or to locate backups made over those various seven years. Archiving is a function of Peachtree Premium that makes a duplicated and unalterable copy of your company which is stored for future reference. In Peachtree Premium, the command to make an archive of your company is File/Archive Company. If you have not made archives of your company over the years, then you'll want to focus on your backups.

Hopefully you've saved at least one backup each year. Start by making a fresh backup of your Peachtree company. Next you'll need to restore one of your old backups, run the reports you need, and then restore the next backup and print those financial reports.

Of course this is impossible if you have not saved the backups. However, one thing I've noticed is that even when people don't think they have backups, they often do exist. A common place for additional backups is on your computer's hard drive. Unnoticed backups can be left on your hard drive because the default location for Peachtree to store backups is on drive C. Even though it's best to back up onto removable media, many people either on purpose or accidentally backup onto their hard disc. If the backup you want is on your hard disc, it can be difficult to locate since it might have been carelessly dropped almost anywhere on the drive and you would very likely not have noticed it.

If you want to look for stray Peachtree backups that might exist, use the following command. Choose Start from your Windows Task Bar. Now choose Search/All Files and Folders. Next put *.ptb into the field called "All or Part of the Filename". Leave the "Look In" field as "Local Hard Drives". Now click More Advanced Options and be sure that the 1st three boxes are checked: Search System Folders, Search Hidden Files and Folders, Search Sub-folders. Finally click on Search and the computer will list all the Peachtree backups that exist on you hard drive.

Capitol Data Phone Support
- A La Carte: $49.00 for one incident of support.
- Annual Plan: $99.00 for 99 minutes over 12 months. No limit on the number of incidents.

Service Contract Specials:
- Capitol Data Phone Support: $69.00 for 3 incidents over 12 months.
- Capitol Data E-mail support: $36.00 for 3 incidents over 12 months.

Well, that's all for this time - thanks for reading and we hope you'll be with us again next month. Also, please be sure to contact us for custom Crystal reports, Crystal Reports training, or any of your other Peachtree needs.

Jim Vogt, Accountant and Consultant
Capitol Data, LLC
nhcd@metrocast.net
866-837-8867
www.JVogt.com