Month End Wizard (without User Commission)

This is the month end steps explained. This one misses out user payments and statements.

Month End Wizard

 

Right, all the checks are done, we are ready to go! Make sure you are not interrupted

Other users can carry on using Palace however Transactions will be locked out. Every other part of Palace is still useable

• Click on Financial (Left side Menu)
• Then click on Month End
• A box will pop up asking you to enter the Month End date. Normally you would leave it as the date it says.

 

• However if you are closing off early enter in the date that you require.
• Click Begin, the system will also check itself for any problems. Then it will start Month End.

 

Note: The order below is based on a full month end setting in Palace, it may differ slightly from yours if you have removed steps or changed the order.

 

Down the side of the Month End wizard you will see each step and a green tick will appear as you successfully complete each step.

 

Review Balances

This screen shows you the owners that are overdrawn or on Hold - If you have checked the report previously, there will not be any surprises here. If you do find an Owner on Hold who should not be, then click on the drop down arrow next to Owner and select the new payment type. This will take them off hold.

 

 

There is a Generate Button at the bottom of screen, which you can use to generate a Keep back report.

 

Click Next on top right of screen.

 

Pay Bonds

• Click on Process Bond

 

• The payment bond screen will appear (If this area is empty, then you do not have any Bonds to pay, close out and go back to month end and click NEXT)
• Check the bonds that are showing, check them against the paperwork you have.

• If paying by cheque enter the Cheque number into the REF number area
• If paying direct (online) change the payment type to Direct
• If a bond is showing that you do not want to pay, simply untick the transaction
• Check the total and click Confirm
• Then click Process – Download the remittance slip as this goes with your cheque and the signed bond forms to the Bond Centre (Print 2 copies so that you have one for your records)
• Click Close and it will take you back to Month End
• Click NEXT

 

Pay Creditors

• Click on Process Supplier
• A screen will appear, if you pay any creditors by cheque, then enter the next available cheque number in here
• Check the date
• Click Process
• A screen might appear showing you a list of owners and their properties with invoices. This shows you that the Owner has more invoices than he has money, Have a look at the screen and change it if needed. Then click process

 

• You will have a screen of creditor payments showing. Click on the printer (Top right of the screen) This is the unprocessed transaction report and must be printed.
• Once printed - go back to transactions and click on Process.
• Click on yes to the printer - Your printed and emailed remittances advice's will be generated.
• You will be taken back to the Month End Wizard
• Click on ONLINE FILE - You will see a list of creditor payments and the bank accounts showing on the screen - Click on the printer (Top right of the screen) This is the Direct Credit Report - The total of this, must match the total of the Direct column on the Unprocessed Transaction Report.
• Then click Online File – name the file, Name it Creditor payments (Do not date it) with the extension your bank uses eg .CSV or .ABA on the end and click Download. You have now generated the file that you will upload to the Bank. (If you don't upload a file then you can skip this step)
• Click "Clear" to clear the online file
• Then click Close, Close and back to month end wizard
• Click NEXT

Reconciliation Report.

• Click on Generate All
• If you want to print all of the reports, then click on generate, next to the report you want to print.

 

• The generate function will turn into a Download button
• Click on download, it will show the report and you can print as normal or save to PDF
• When finished - Click on NEXT

 

Owner Statements

• Make sure you have the right Diary Group selected to attach your creditor invoices to your owner statements.
• Note: If you are using External File to link your invoices then you must select a group to link them to in the diary and that must be the same as the diary group showing on this screen.
• If you use the Payment Expense transaction and attach invoices that way, then make sure you change no to yes, so those attachments are included in the statement run
  
  
• Click on Collate: This will gather that data and sit them in the background for you to run after month end is completed.
• Once it has generated the statements, it will say completed. You can now click on Next

 

Please Note: The actual function for printing and emailing the statements is now at the end of Month End.

 

 

Ledger Statements

This will print out a transaction report on each ledger. Select the ones you want (The management fees ledger is a very long report and you may not need it, most can be reprinted later if required)

 

Click on Generate at the bottom of the screen to Print.

When Printed click on NEXT

Owner Payments

• Click on Process Owners
• A pop up screen might appear asking you to clear the online file - YOU ALWAYS SAY YES TO THIS
• A screen will appear, if you pay any Owners by Cheque, then enter the next available cheque number in here

• Check the date
• Select the frequency - if you pay all of your owners out at the month end, then you can leave it as All
• Properties to "Net Off" to pay Owner balances - This is automatically ticked on. click here or see below for more information on this
• Click Process.

 

NOTE: If you get a message "Unable to proceed", this means that Palace is unable to "net off" a negative property balance against other property balances because the property with a negative balance is linked to it's own bank account. Palace cannot take money out of a bank account - only put it in. You will need to close out of the monthend procedure, edit the property and link it to another bank account. Restart the monthend procedure, step forward into the owner payments step, then try again. After the monthend has been completed, remember to reset the property to it's original bank account.

• You will have a screen of Owners payments showing. Click on the printer (Top right of the screen) This is the unprocessed transaction report and must be printed.
  
• Once printed - go back to transactions and click on Process.
• Once completed this will take you back to the month end wizard

 

 

• Click on ONLINE - You will see a list of Owner payments and the bank accounts showing on the screen - Click on the printer (Top right of the screen) This is the Direct Credit Report - The total of this, must match the total of the Direct column on the Unprocessed Transaction Report.

 

NOTE: If there are any entries on this screen that are showing unticked, this means that there is no bank account entered (or it may be entered but not linked to the property) you can right click and modify existing bank account, but if the bank details have not been entered or it is the link to the property that is missing then you will need to close out and go and relink the property. You can then re-generate the file. See below.

• Click Generate - It will bring up a download screen – type your file name e.g. ownerpayments.csv (Do not date it and remember to put .csv at the end) click Download. You have now generated the CSV file that you will upload to the Bank. (If you don't upload a file then you can skip this step)

 

• Click "Clear" to clear the online file
• Then click Close, Close and back to month end wizard
• Click NEXT

 

Ledger Payments (Company Income)

• Click on Process Ledger
• If you pay the commissions by Cheque then enter in the cheque number here otherwise click on OK
• The list of ledger payments will appear on the screen, you can unselect any ledger payments you do not want to pay.

• Click on the printer at the top right hand side of the screen to print out the Unprocessed Transaction report
• Click on Process
• If you say yes to the print box, it will print one page showing each of the individual payments.
• Click on online file - The ledger payments will be showing there (If they don't show here, it means you have not entered your Trading Account details into the Trading Account area under Ledgers)
• Click on Generate - This will generate your file, Name with the file extension on the end eg .csv
• Click Download
• Click go to month end on top tool bar ‘
• Click Next

Final Trust Reports

Remember you should have already reconciled before starting your month end, you are only accessing this area now to print the reports

• Click on Bank Reconciliation - This will take you through to the Reconciliation Screen - You may need to enter in a closing bank account balance.

 

 

• Enter in the closing bank balance and make sure you still reconcile
• Click on Reports – Top right hand side
• Click on Trust Account Reconciliation - Print (You may need to print 2 copies)

 

Note: If you are in Australia, you can change the wording of the Trust Reconciliation report to suit your specific Tenancy Act. Click on Print. (You may need to print 2 copies). All users should keep this report with the month end reports

• Print any other report that you require
• Cancel out when ready and close out of Reconciliation

Close Month

This is the step that will actually close off the month and roll into the new one. (Double check the date of the month you are closing to make sure it is the correct one),

• Click on the reports that you want to download (these are also available from View- Historic reports or Statistics)
  
• Click on Process, it will say generating and then say completed
  Note: If you have any transactions presented in the wrong month or you have not generated owner statements you will get a message and it will not let you roll the month.
• Click NEXT

 

Audit Reports

Print the Audit Reports

Note: These are very big reports and will print each and every transaction that was made during the month. These reports are available any time so only print them if your auditor requires them. 

Final Screen

 

 

Month End is complete.

 

You will see a box with a date in it, this is preset to the next end of month. The ONLY time you would change this is if, for some reason you are going to do month end early, For example Dec you may do month end on the 22^nd. So you would receipt up to the 21^st and your month end date close off would be the 21^st Dec.

 

Time to run your owner statements: Click on Owner Statement Report and it will take you to the Owner Reports area and Owner statements – See over page for settings