TOPS Home E-Zine; Issue #40 - September 2005

Welcome to TOPS Home, the web site e-mail magazine (e-zine) for the TOPS Community Web Site Service.

In this issue:

ANNOUNCEMENTS: One Chapter closes and A New One Begins
SALES DEPARTMENT: Who's Gonna Pay For It?
NEWS & NOTES: Important Update for Online Payments
WHAT'S NEW: New Updates to TOPS Web Sites.
UPCOMING EVENTS: Live Chat
JUST FOR FUN: Willkommen; Recepción; Bienvenue; Welcome
SUPPORT TIPS: Using Embedded Variables
CONTACT: Contact Information for TOPS Software

TOPS Web Sales: (800) 556-7852 WebSales@topssoft.com
TOPS Web Support (800) 899-5689 WebSupport@topssoft.com

SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

One Chapter closes and A New One Begins

Friends, you are reading the last issue of the TOPS Home Ezine. We have now published 40 issues of the TOPS Home Ezine - almost 4 years of news and information about the TOPS Interactive Web Site Service. And it's been great fun! But now it is time to move on to something bigger...

Beginning in October, the onTOPS and TOPS Home e-zines will be combined and published in a new format. You'll still find many of your favorite TOPS Home features, but now they will be combined with the latest updates and information about the entire TOPS Software suite of products. Your subscription to the TOPS Home Ezine will be transferred to onTOPS, so you won't miss out on a thing.

You also will continue to have access to our TOPS Administrator Forum, an online community that allows you to communicate with TOPS personnel and other web site administrators through live chat or message board, in addition to the numerous other resources also available on this site. If you are not already a member of the forum, I highly encourage you to sign up and take advantage of this terrific resource. You can sign up to request a login at www.topshome.com/admin.

So once again, thank you for reading the TOPS Home Ezine through the years, Goodbye and God Bless. We'll see you next month in our new format!

SALES DEPARTMENT

Who's Gonna Pay for It?

So you took the customized information packet you received from TOPS Web Sales and showed it to the board, and they liked what they saw. But now that it's budget time, the only thing on everyone's mind is money. So while they like the idea of a community web site, all they want to know is "Who's Gonna Pay For It?

With a little planning and help from the TOPS web sales staff, your Community Web Site can easily be turned into a money maker. Here are a few suggestions that will help you get the buy-in you need:

By using the classifieds feature in your TOPS community web site, you are able to charge local businesses and your existing vendors for targeted advertising to your community residents. We even help you out with contact info for companies who are interested in advertising to communities like yours. (See our TOPS Administrator Forum for this information.)
How many reams of paper, and how much ink do you use in a year? Not to mention the money spent on postage. With built in features such as Documents, residents can easily access, review and print community documents and reports via the Internet. The eForms feature allows for the creation of online e-mailable forms for anything from reservations for the club house to requests for maintenance. Many communities even convert their costly monthly newsletter to an inexpensive online format.
TOPS Software has partnered with several outstanding companies to provide interfaces to popular industry programs. ReadyResale from AssociationReady is one example of a program that can generate income for you. Use it to create and sell resale packages accessed via a secured online interface through your web site. Another moneymaker also from AssociationReady is ReadyDocs, which allows you to create custom document packages and securely sell them from your web site.
Another service that your web site can provide is the Online Payments feature. This feature costs nothing to your company or community, but provides a valuable service that community members will certainly want to take advantage of.

Using the suggestions above you can easily offset a huge portion if not the entire cost of having a TOPS community web site.

To learn more about TOPS Interactive Web Sites and how they benefit you, the HOA Officers, and residents
go to www.topshome.com or Contact TOPS Web Sales at (800) 556-7852 or websales@topssoft.com.

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Use www.ReadyDOCS.com to sell documents online and turn Process into Profit. We will integrate seamlessly with your existing web site. Contact us at (888) 497-8832
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NEWS & NOTES

Important Update for Online Payments

If you are a Management Company that currently offers online payments to your clients, please contact TOPS Web Sales at (800) 556-7852 or websales@topssoft.com to request a new application.

We have renegotiated the Online Payment agreement with DuesPayment.com; formerly eRent Payer. In September, resident fees were updated to a flat $9.95 per transaction for credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, and Discover) but the dollar limit for each transaction has now been increased from $750 to $3000! This is very advantageous for the residents! Under the new structure, the checking debit fee is also $9.95 per transaction, or the resident can elect to make a recurring payment for just $2 per transaction.

If you are a management company offering Online Payments to your clients, you will need to sign a new agreement as soon as possible to access the improved fee structure. It is NOT necessary to fill out a new application for each community, just one application to cover all your associations. Any new clients you wish to add for Online Payments can simply be listed on the DuesPayment spreadsheet attached to your new agreement so individual contracts for each association will no longer be required. Please contact TOPS Web Sales at (800) 556-7852 or websales@topssoft.com for the new application!

WHAT'S NEW

new Updates to your TOPS web site(s):

This time of year, everybody is busy announcing upcoming community Halloween parties, your annual meeting, fall yard sales, and other fun fall social events! Check out a new twist on the Events Calendar that helps you easily organize events in chronological order. Read on for this and other cool feature enhancements we’ve
added this month!

In the Events Calendar feature, we have added required "start time" and "end time" fields so that events can be easily sorted in chronological order within days. This will gradually replace the current free-form "event time" field.
In the Reviews feature, we now allow administrators to control what security level has the ability to post new reviews.
Added new variables that can be embedded in Feature Descriptions dynamically. Please see Support Tips for more detailed information.

PLEASE NOTE: The following feature will NOT be automatically added to your web site(s). Please send an email to websupport@topssoft.com to request the "Page Properties" button be added to your web site(s) in order to take advantage of this great new feature.

Added a button "Page Properties" to the Rich Text Editor for e-mail bulletins only that allows you to customize the look and feel of your email such as custom background colors, default link colors, etc.

If you have any questions about how these enhancements work please contact TOPS Web Support at WebSupport@topssoft.com or (800) 899-5689.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Live Chat - Interactive Web Site

Our next live chat will be on October 13, at 2:00pm est. We will be discussing the new features on the web site, particularly the new USER VARIABLES and how you can implement them onto your site.

September's Live Chat was a lively one. Lots a good questions regarding the recent changes to Online Payments and the renegotiated agreement with DuesPayments.com. Remember you now only need to complete one agreement and list all your communities on the spreadsheet provided. To download a copy of your contract today go to Downloads on the TOPS Home web site.

Transcripts of live chats is available on our Administrator Forum web site under Documents.

Please let us know that you will be attending so we know how many people to expect. You can email your RSVP to websupport@topssoft.com, or submit it on the site at www.topshome.com/admin. You must have a login name and password to access the site and attend the chat, so be sure to visit the web site and request your login info today.

JUST FOR FUN

Willkommen; Recepción; Bienvenue; Welcome

Invite your web site visitors to translate your web site homepage to another language!

What a great option to add to your community web site. With just the click of the mouse you can welcome visitors to view your web site in a number of languages. We've found an easy to use, free feature that will translate your web page to various languages available through Google. Go to http://www.google.com and click on the Language Tool link located to the right of the search field.

On the Google Language Tools page find the "Translate a web page" section and in the URL (website address) field type the full address of your web site homepage, then select the translation language (e.g. English to Spanish.) In just a few seconds your web site will open in a new window translated in to the chosen language. Copy the URL of this new page and create a hyperlink to it with text such as "En Espanol" or "Willkommen" to guide your visitors to the translated page.

Keep in mind this tool will only change text and not graphics that have text embedded with them, AND if you are using this fro a community web site with a resident-login to a private area, the translation will only work on the public pages.

Auf Wiedersehen, Adiós, Au revoir, Good Bye

SUPPORT TIPS

Using Embedded Variables

You will now see a new icon in the Rich Text Editor tool bar called "Insert Custom HTML". This icon will display new variables that can be inserted into any Feature Description page.

The variables are:

USER NAME = embeds first and last name of current user
USER PROFILE LINK = embeds a hyperlink directly to the user's profile
DATE as Monday, January 1, 2005 = embeds the current date formatted as shown
DATE as 10/19/2005 = embeds the current date formatted as shown
TIME as 3:47:57 PM = embeds the current time formatted as shown
TIME as 15:47 = embeds the current time formatted as shown
DATE/TIME as 1/1/2005 12:00:00 PM = embeds the current date/time formatted as shown

To embed simply login and click the Feature Descriptions option on your desired feature page. Put your cursor in the text box of where you would like the variable inserted. Now click the new "Insert Custom HTML" icon in the text area where you would like it to appear.

*Note: The USER PROFILE LINK variable will embed a link back to the user's profile with default link text of USER PROFILE. Here's an example of some sample text you might create on the Resident Home Page, to encourage users to update their profile:

Greetings USER NAME!
Welcome to the private area of your web site. Please be sure that you update your USER PROFILE with your email address so that you can receive eMail Bulletins about the latest news of your community!

Thank you.
Web Site Team

CONTACTS

Here is a list of some of the most common contact data for TOPS Software:

Department	Contact	Email	Phone
Software Sales	Nicole Sezov	sales@topssoft.com	800-760-9966
Web Site Sales	Susan Sanders	websales@topshome.com	800-556-7852
Technical Support	Jeanne Plennert	support@topssoft.com	800-899-5689
Web Site Support	Brandon Kelley	websupport@topssoft.com	800-899-5689
Accounting	Cande Estrella	billing@topssoft.com	301-869-8144

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TOPS Home E-Zine; Issue #40 - September 2005

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