Emergency Meals

Many families across the country depend on school meals to help keep their children fed and nourished each day. While a large number of schools remain closed due to the COVID-19 Outbreak, many of our District customers need to find ways to serve emergency meals to students in their communities. This guide will go over how MCS Newton can help your District track those meals.

Miscellaneous School Counts
The Miscellaneous (Misc) School Counts feature will allow Districts to track the number of meals they are serving. The screenshots provided within this supplement reflect the new Newton Color Scheme in Newton Version 10.5. Stay tuned for additional documentation for the 10.5 Release.

Setup Misc School Counts

To get started, you will need to set up the Price Categories for the meals you will be serving. By default, we've added four new counts to handle free students and adults at breakfast and lunch. You can change those or add more if necessary.
Perform the following steps to set up Misc School Counts.

In order for meals entered as Misc School Counts to be counted in your claim, you must:

Assign a Meal Type
Assign a Price Category or mark it as Area Eligible.

From the Admin & Maintenance ribbon, select Miscellaneous Setup, then select Misc School Counts.
Enter your Misc School Count Price Categories.
Note: You may change the Adult Price Category as needed in accordance with District policy.
When finished, Select Save & Close.

Enable Misc School Counts

The next step in configuring Misc School Counts is to Enable the Misc School Count Price Categories you created.

You may either perform this task by enabling Misc School Counts within a specific cafeteria or in a template. The cafeteria or template you choose should be based on from which school(s) you plan on serving Emergency Meals.

From the Admin & Maintenance ribbon, select Cafeteria Setup, then select either Cafeterias or Cafeteria Templates.
Perform the following instructions per Cafeteria or Cafeteria Templates.

Setup Type	Instructions
Cafeteria	Select the Cafeteria for which you would like to enable the Misc School Counts you created. Select the Misc School Counts tab from the options on the left. Double-click to select the checkboxes for each Misc School Count you would like to enable. Select Save & Close when finished.
Cafeteria Templates	Select the Cafeteria Template for which you would like to enable the Misc School Counts you created. Select the Misc School Counts tab from the options on the left. Double-click to select the checkboxes for each Misc School Count you would like to enable. Select Save & Close when finished.

Track Served Meals

Perform the following steps to track the number of meals you served.

Select the Cafeteria which served as your Emergency Site from the Newton Menu.
Select the Start New Operating Day checkbox from the options on the left, then select an Operating Day from the calendar tool.
Select the Post Operating Day checkbox from the options on the left. From the Bank Deposits tab within the Post Operating Day Window, select the checkbox labeled No cash was collected today.
Select the Misc Counts tab within the Post Operating Day Window, then enter the meal counts for each Misc School Count Price Category.
Select the Daily Figures tab and select the checkbox labeled Reviewed. Select Ok when finished.

You may also select the School drop-down menu if you have participating feeder schools.
Labor Hours can be entered in the Labor Hours tab.

Reporting

You are able to view your Misc School Counts in the Daily Recap and Federal Edit Check reports. Perform the following instructions to view your counts.

Report

Instructions

Daily Recap

The Daily Recap report breaks down meal totals by status to include paid, charged, prepaid, meals earned and state reimbursed totals to include the typed of meals, cash collected, total meals served, miscellaneous sales, and sales of the day. Additionally, food cash and other cash incomes, deposits posted, deposits entered, variance amounts, net charges, deposits affecting receipts (if applicable), customers on file, miscellaneous figures (if applicable) and labor hours (if applicable) are included.

From the Reports and Letters tab, select After Posting, then select Daily Recap from the drop-down menu.
Choose the Cafeteria and Operating Date, then click Ok.
The Daily Recap Report will show Free Student Meals and Adult Meals for each Serving Period.

Federal Edit Check

The Federal Edit Check report displays daily counts from the beginning of the current month to the current date and includes meals served, enrollment, and attendance numbers. The Federal Edit Check numbers honor a cafeteria's "claim at" configuration.

From the Reports and Letters tab, select Sales & Revenue, then select Federal Edit Check from the drop-down menu.
Choose the date range and cafeteria filter, then click Ok.
The Federal Edit Check Report displays meal counts for the date range and cafeteria filter you have selected.

A message from your MCS Team
We are keeping all of our Districts in our minds and our hearts. Please stay safe and know that we are here to help in any way we can. Thank you for everything you are doing to support our communities, and thank you for choosing Heartland!