February 2026

630.850.9039 Continued pg.2 What’s New February is all about Valentine’s Day. The stores are filled with things to buy and the restaurants are gearing up! For us, there’s even more ‘love’ in the air as we celebrate a wedding! With W-2’s, 1099’s, and the OT reporting in the rearview mirror, we’re turning our attention to continuing our maintenance automation, streamlining our ticket management, and connecting with you, our clients. Our hearts go out to Matt and his family at the loss of his father. We celebrate with Jacob at the arrival of his first child. We celebrate with Chris and Nina as they tie the knot. And we count each of you as a blessing to us! - Catherine Wendt I don’t know if it’s part of the New Year’s resolutions, but we have a LOT of clients asking about software changes. Some of them are customizations to our FIT System; new or updated Power BI reports; Power App projects; some are adding a new module to their existing software, like Inventory; others are looking at replacing their ERP, a big project with many things to consider. We welcome these discussions and enjoy digging into the goals, where you are now, and making a roadmap to get where you want to be! In some cases, the decision might be to move forward with a change. In others, it might be changes to current workflows and additional training to stay with what you have, but use it better than ever. Any change, even the best ones, can be stressful for your team members. There are a whole flood of emotions when people are presented with changes. Anyone providing leadership in a project, whether it’s adding a new module or making a complete software change, needs to be aware of how people MAY feel and get in front of it. During the project, it’s important to stay connected with how people ARE feeling and stay in front of that! It’s great to have a clear plan with all steps outlined to get the tasks done, but those tasks are done by your people and their reactions and speed of acceptance will impact the success of your project. We’ve reviewed several books on change management and there are many resources available to learn more about the ‘people’ side of In this Issue Software and Changes...…........1 Book Review.….……….……….2 Spoofed Emails.……….…….....3 Shiny New Gadget ……...….....3 S100C tax updates......................4 Microsoft 365 Focus...………….5 How Did They Do It?………….6 Events Calendar ………...……..6 Syscon U February 2026 Software and Change Management -- 1 of 6 - Syscon U 630.850.9039 Book Nook It’s been literally decades since I had read this book. It came up as I was considering what I might share at the wedding, so I took it out again and re-read it. We actually have a framed page from the book on the topic of marriage, given to us by Larry’s mom. There’s a bigger story there, but let’s move on! The main character has been on an island, not his original homeland, for many years. He has been waiting for his country’s ship to arrive and take him home. When he sees the ship, his heart is filled with joy, then upon reflection, knows that there will be loss as well, as he leaves the many people he’s come to know and love. As he heads to the ship, he is asked for his thoughts, his words, on various subjects such as Marriage, Religion, Children, Love, Giving, Work, Joy and Sorrow, and more. For each topic, he shares his thoughts. Interspersed throughout the book (at least the edition I have) are some drawings by the author. This is considered to be one of Mr. Gibran’s masterpieces. Everything is written in a poetic prose, adding to the feeling that the Prophet is imparting wisdom. He started the book in 1912, and it was published in 1923. Although best known for The Prophet, he was a prolific author. The Prophet’s answers on the various topics are thought-provoking. You probably won’t agree with all of them, and you’ll probably find some you may want front-and-center. Definitely recommend this book- CMW The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran (continued from page 1) these changes; definitely worth your time. It’s important to have the support of senior leadership, a champion who can lead the project and has the authority to keep it on track, as well as a detailed plan (which probably will be more like a guideline by the time you get to the end). I think it was Churchill who said, “Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.” The value of planning lies in the strategic thinking and preparation. Then the plan is like a blueprint to guide you through the inevitable changes ahead. Other things to consider, I’m sorry to say, is the incentive the person selling to you may have coming based on your decision. Any software choices you make, any modules you add, any add-on products you choose, should meet a business need and have a positive impact on your people and the bottom line. At Syscon, none of our team members are incentivized to sell any particular product or service. We are all encouraged to share and be educated on our offerings, but there is no incentive tied with any advice or recommendations a Syscon team member might share. When rolling out new modules, we recommend a kick off meeting to clarify what is needed, order of events, timing, and when it will be ‘live’ for everyone. For Power BI reports and Power Apps, in addition to the content and presentation, consider security and access. Last thought on this: If you’re exploring a solution and you find one, but this is not the right time, don’t be discouraged! Keep your notes, contact info, anything you’ve gathered during the process. Then put a ‘tickler’ on your calendar for three months from now, or six months, pull everything back out and reconsider if the circumstances have changed and you might be ready! This is a process, so ‘No’ for now may not mean ‘No’ forever.—CMW “Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential.” — Winston Churchill February 2026 Cathy & Larry Sightings Catherine attended the annual Acumatica conference in Seattle, the weekend of the playoff game! Great conference. Larry spent time in CA with Aunt Toni, age 99, meeting some caregivers. Then had a guys’ night with some great friends. -- 2 of 6 - 630.850.9039 Syscon U A couple of weeks ago, my wallet fell out of the pants I was wearing as I changed clothes. Not having a clue where it could be, I searched the house, the car, everywhere! Very frustrating. I finally found it completely by accident in the strangest of places—under the bed. This prompted me to purchase some locator tiles, but they went back to Amazon because they simply did not fit in my wallet. The Tile Slim is different. It’s the size and thickness of a credit card and slips right into a wallet or passport holder without adding bulk. Using the Tile app on your phone, you can make it ring when you can’t find your wallet. If your phone is missing, you can press the Tile and make the phone ring. It has a long battery life, is waterresistant, and works anywhere your phone has a signal. The price is $30-$35 and multipacks provide some discounts. Shiny New Gadget Of The Month: Spoofed Emails—Quarantine Did Its Job! As most of you know, we made the spam filter more sensitive several weeks ago. This has greatly reduced the amount of spam that makes it to your InBox. It’s also caught legitimate email messages and put them in quarantine for you to review. As you tell us which are actually ‘good’ the spam filter gets smarter and will let these through. However, even when you ask us to release and whitelist, we’re taking a second look before making the change, which worked out pretty darn well for one of our clients! We were asked to release what looked like an employee’s email and a consultant’s email. Turns out the employee-looking email was NOT from his employee. The ‘Send’ was coming from France and had a few other oddities. All the real employee email was already whitelisted, which is another reason our tech took a deeper look and found the phishing attempt. The one from the consultant was also suspicious because we could see that the From and To addresses were the same and it was signed by a generic tenant domain instead of showing as having come from the consultant’s domain. We certainly don’t expect you or your team members to notice these nuances, and we appreciate the opportunity to check them out for you. We really have your back here and are taking precautions to keep you and your team safe. The bad actors are getting better and better, and AI is helping them just as much as it’s helping you, so please stay on guard! CMW Yelp and Search Engines Larry doesn’t recall making any changes, but noticed that Chrome started routing every address-bar search through Yahoo. Nothing seemed wrong at first—Google was still set as the default search engine, there weren’t any pop-ups, and he didn’t see any browser warnings. The only thing new was that Yelp had appeared as a search provider in Chrome’s list. After digging in, it turned out to be a search-redirect hijack. An extension had registered itself as a custom search provider and was silently intercepting address-bar searches, forwarding them through Yahoo’s partner search network. So why would this be valuable to anyone? Every search Larry performed generated advertising revenue for them! The redirect allowed them to see search terms, browsing intent, and traffic patterns, too. It wasn’t just annoying, it was a quiet monetization and data collection mechanism that could have operated unnoticed for months! Once the rogue search provider and extension were removed and Chrome’s settings confirmed, the problem was completely gone. So if your searches go somewhere unexpected but your default browser is what you intend, you may be dealing with a search-redirect extension, a security and privacy concern. -CMW Office.com—New Name Office.com is an easy way to get to your Power BI reports, SharePoint data, and OneDrive data from a browser. This is super handy when traveling and you’re not on your own computer. Now you’ll be redirected to m365.cloud.microsoft. You’re in the right place, though. - CMW Tech Talk February 2026 Tile Slim -- 3 of 6 - Syscon U 630.850.9039 PDF’s, Email, and Power BI; A Very Cool Option! A few months ago, we had a client make a special request. They wanted to take their Production Report that was shared in Power BI, but also provide a printable version that could be emailed to team members. Megyn created a new report in Power BI and used a tool called Power BI Report Builder which allowed her to convert or build a report in a printable format which is known as a ‘Paginated Report.’ She then published the report to the Power BI service, an online service which is used to view reports. She then used the ‘Subscribe’ feature which allows a user to setup recurring customized emails with the attached printable report! There are a couple of requirements for all of this to work, in addition to the tools mentioned above. The recipients of the email need to have a Power BI Pro License assigned to their M365 account. Some pretty cool options here! - CMW S100C, State (and Fed) Tax Updates A short reminder: the Federal and State tax tables (the old Circular E we used to use!) are hardcoded in Sage 100 Contractor. You can’t edit them or update them yourself. As states (or the Fed) report in, Sage creates a new release and includes a list of states and any other changes in the release notes. In the 5-3-1 Payroll Calculations screen, the Federal Withholding calc and any State Withholding calcs show the Calculation Method as ‘Tables’ which are not accessible to you or me. No need to panic—there has always been a ’reasonableness’ guideline about when these updated tables need to be installed. These institutions need time to create the new tables, the software companies need time to make them available, and the employers need time to get the changes installed. As long as you have the updates in place within a reasonable time of having them available to you, all is well. The other question we received this year is asking if it looks back at previous records in the new year—No, those are final, the state wages ’subject to’ are correct and if the person wants to add a few dollars each pay period, you can make that happen for them. In the 5-2-1 screen, on the Calculations tab, find the column that says ’Add W/H’ (be sure you have the right one) and enter the additional amount they would like withheld with each pay check; that’s it! -CMW Sage Support—Silver, Gold, Changes For many years, our clients usually renewed their annual support for Sage 100 Contractor perpetual (means you own it, you bought the software) licenses with the Silver level to save a few dollars. The main difference in support is that you call us for S100Cspecific questions instead of Sage. We have the background and knowledge, know what works and what doesn’t, and we have sound knowledge of dual entry accounting and how this flows through the software; a win all the way around! Recently, a client was working with Sage to resolve a chronic problem with the credit card bank feed, a known issue. When the connection fails, you have to call Sage for specific assistance to reconnect the feed. Again, a known issue. This time, they were told they had exceeded the number of ticket requests under the Silver support level—what? One, it’s a known issue that Sage needs to fix; two, what ticket max were they talking about? We have the answer now which is new to us. Silver level of support now allows five (5) support tickets for the year. Gold and Gold Plus (new level I’ve never heard of) have unlimited tickets. In general, we recommend sending your support requests to us for the best results, answers, and correct steps. Sounds like we should reserve the five support tickets for the things Sage actually needs to fix with future releases. Not sure? Give us a call to start and we can advise from there! CMW ‘The Federal and State tax tables are hard-coded. You can’t edit them or update them yourself.’ Construction Corner February 2026 -- 4 of 6 - Syscon U 630.850.9039 Page 5 February 2026 Partner M365 Education Station Remote Desktop moves to Windows App Remote Desktop for Azure, the one that’s the little red circle, will be end of support March 27, 2026. Many of our clients use this to connect to their Azure hosting environment to access their Sage Desktop, Sage Server, and other resources. The replacement is called Windows App. When you search for it, you’ll see it’s a blue icon in the shape of the windows logo (blue background, four white squares). Quite a few of our clients already have this since it’s been out for a while. If you’re using the red Remote Desktop icon now, you’ll need to subscribe to your Azure hosting environment through the blue Windows App sometime this month or next, ahead of the Microsoft March 27th deadline, to avoid any service interruptions. We’re here to help if you need it! According to Microsoft, facilitator is an AI assistant built into Microsoft Teams that helps capture key points, decisions, and action items during your meetings—whether virtual, hybrid, or in-person. It eliminates the need for manual note-taking and ensures everyone stays aligned. We tasked Megyn to play with this new technology and set it up for our recurring stand up meetings. Teams Facilitator—What is it? Support Ends March 27, 2026 New-ish! Available right now! Key Benefits for Your Organization • Start Meetings Seamlessly: Enable Facilitator when scheduling a meeting or turn it on during the meeting, just a click. • Smart, Collaborative Notes: Facilitator creates structured notes—AI generated summaries, decisions, tasks stored securely in a Loop component in One Drive, available to all and editable. • Actionable Follow-up: Automatically convert action items into tasks integrated with Microsoft Planner! • Speaker Attribution: When paired with Microsoft Intelligence Speaker hardware, Facilitator can identify speakers for accurate transcriptions and context. • In-Person Meetings: For physical meeting spaces equipped with Teams Rooms, Facilitator can be activated via a QR code which means participants can join collaborative notes from mobile devices. Common Client Questions (per Microsoft!) • Does it require recording? No, it works with or without recording, but transcription is enabled. • Is data secure? Yes! Notes and transcripts are stored in OneDrive /SharePoint under Microsoft’s enterprise-grade compliance framework. • Can it draft documents? Absolutely! Facilitator can generate Word or Loop documents from meeting content for easy sharing. Getting Started • Check Licensing: Check that you have Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses and enable Facilitator in the Teams Admin Center. • Enable Facilitator When Scheduling; Go to Teams>Calendar>New Meeting, then click Meeting Options and toggle Facilitator ON. • Turn On During a Meeting: Select More Options (…)>Turn on Facilitator! -- 5 of 6 - Syscon U 630.850.9039 We love this stuff! We are committed to helping businesses use technology to run their organization successfully and profitably. This monthly publication provided courtesy of Catherine Wendt, President of Syscon Proud Members How Did They Do It? American Constructors Founded in 1979, the company was formed by a group of businessmen in Nashville. Founder Joe M Rogers cut his teeth in construction building hospitals all over the world, sold his firm, and after his non-compete, started the company. He was a well-rounded man, involved in Republican National politics, Finance Chairman for Ronald Reagan’s re-election campaign in 1984, then appointed Ambassador to France! Another board member, Jack Massy, took several companies public and was heavily involved with the healthcare industry. From the beginning, this was an employee -owned company so all senior people had stock. Their focus was Nashville and middle-Tennessee. Higher profile projects include the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Symphony Hall which was built in 2006. Commercial projects include a lot of schools, universities, public/private buildings, and more. There was a significant flood event in May of 2010. Even the football stadium had several feet of water. Most of the downtown buildings near the river flooded. They had just finished the Symphony Center in 2006 and now it was flooded, damaging a lot of highend equipment and some of the beautiful finishes. The Symphony called on a Saturday and the company mobilized. It took several months to restore everything, lots of night crews, very challenging. Matt said that probably every contractor in Nashville has a similar story. Matt’s favorite Syscon report is what they call the Profit Projection report built just for them. As CFO, this is a very important report for Matt. In the company’s model, the PM’s have to manage their jobs, but also have strong estimating skills while acting as the lead person dealing with the client which means cost to complete and budget reporting is critical. S100C has some limitations so special billing reports were also created. Matt’s favorite part of his job is the people he gets to work with; really good people. He is proud of their focus on serving the client and supporting each other - CMW Read more at www.syscon-inc.com/how-did-they-do-it Matt McCall, CFO Proud Partners Fast Facts Location: Nashville, TN Specialty: General Contractor Founded: 1979 Upcoming Events Are you interested in having your story featured? Let’s talk! Event: Stop Fighting Your Software: Custom Solutions Built for the way you Build Date: Wednesday, March 25 Time: 1:00 p.m. CST Register: www.syscon-inc.com/events February 2026 Coming Soon—Podcasts! We’re recording some podcasts and plan to request feedback from a beta group of clients. Do you have PM’s, Owners, Office staff that just love podcasts and might be interested in checking these out? Please share their names and contact info and we’ll be sure to get them on the list!! -- 6 of 6 -