Those located in Asia-Pacific will use the term Trust Account, where customers located in Europe will use the term Client Account. For the purpose of this article, we will refer to it as a Trust Account. For more information on regional terminology, refer to this article or contact support.
Whenever funds are to be paid out of a trust account a disbursement needs to be processed. The best practice is to process the disbursement in Re-Leased and then complete the payment of funds from your trust account.
Running the disbursement produces a file that can be uploaded to your bank to process the transactions.
Preparation for a Disbursement
- Enter expense invoices for anything you want to pay out or hold funds for.
- Ensure any new owners or creditors have payment details and contact details loaded.
- Run the Disbursement Preview Report.
- If this is your first disbursement, check that you have set up Owner Statement and Remittance Advice email templates.
- Reconcile your account (recommended but not compulsory).
To commence the disbursement, select Trust Accounts (1) on the green bar & then Disburse Funds (2).
1. Select the relevant disbursement Profile from the dropdown.
2. Choose to include all expenses due (even those forwarded dated to another month) or Select a date range to capture.
3. Select the date for the statement period.
4. Select Save & Continue.
Select Owners to disburse
- The disbursement profile name is shown above the progress tracker.
- Checking the option to exclude owners with no activity will deselect owners on the list who have had no activity since their last statement **see note below
- Checking the Waive Owner Statement Fees for this disbursement will prevent any fees normally based on statements being produced from being raised
- Owners who have this disbursement profile selected on their contact will be listed automatically.
- Remove any owner from the disbursement by removing the tick beside their name, this can also be done using the search owner area on the right.
- Add any owner who is not normally part of this disbursement type by searching for them.
- There is an option to go Back or Cancel this disbursement up until a payment file has been downloaded, select Save and Continue to proceed with the disbursement at each step.
Here are all the scenarios in which an owner would receive a statement if the option to Exclude owners with no activity is selected:
- if any creditor is paid (even if paid by the tenant if it was paid via the owner's ledger)
- if any fee is paid
- if any money is received from a tenant or other - even if not paid to the owner
- If any money has been applied to an invoice from tenancy funds
- if any money is disbursed to the owner
- if any transaction from a prior statement is reversed
- if any money is transferred from the owner's other ledger
- if there has been a change of ownership in the system
Disburse Creditors
- Invoices for all included owners and the date selected at the start of the disbursement will be shown.
- When there are insufficient funds to pay an invoice, it will not have a tick beside it, or an amount to pay or the payment method.
- Due date link opens the invoice.
- Click on the Withhold amount to add, edit or remove a withhold from an owners ledger.
- Remove the tick to exclude an invoice from this disbursement, depending on your Client or Trust Account Settings this may alter the amount available to pay the owner.
- The Edit button on each line allows the payment method and amount to pay to be edited. Changing the amount to pay creates a part payment against the invoice, the balance will be available to pay at another time.
- Depending on the disbursement profile selected at the start, this step could be excluded.
Disburse Fees
- All fees raised for the included owners are listed.
- When there are insufficient funds to pay fees, the entry will not have a tick beside it, or an amount to pay or the payment method.
- Remove the tick beside any owner to skip the fee for this disbursement. The fee remains payable and will be available on future disbursements. Depending on your Trust Account settings, this could affect the amount available to pay the owner.
- Clicking the small arrow on the far right of the owner line expands their section to show a breakdown of the fees, grouped by owner ledger. Fees can be excluded as above by removing the tick against individual fees.
- As many fee's as possible will be ticked by default, based on the funds available in the owner ledger. Any fees that can't be paid due to insufficient funds will be un-ticked by default.
- Clicking the Reset Fee Selection button will revert the selection of fees back to what it was originally based on the funds available.
- Clicking the red icon removes the fee permanently, it will not be available in future disbursements.
- The Add Fee button allows any 'manual' type fees to be raised at this stage.
- Depending on the disbursement profile selected at the start, this step could be excluded.
Disburse Owners
- All included owners will be listed.
- If an owner has no funds available the amount to pay will show as 0.
- Click the withhold amount link to add, edit or remove any withheld amounts. This is the last opportunity to withhold funds from an owners ledger.
Summary
Preview the summary of payments that are to be paid to owners, fees, creditors & bonds. This is the final opportunity to cancel the disbursement & return to the main screen. Once passed this screen you can not reverse the disbursement.
Download Bank File
- The file format is set against the Trust Account preferences in the settings menu, this should not be changed.
- Edit buttons allow the referencing to be adjusted. It is important for any missing references you enter a reference here
- Click the Download Bank File to reveal the continue option.
- Once the file is downloaded the disbursement cannot be cancelled and must be completed.
- Magnifying glasses on each payment expands to show the details of the amounts included.
Report Generator including statements & expense invoice attachments
- Selecting YES will take you to send the statements & any attachments
- Selecting NO, thanks I'd like to preview them first will allow you to preview all statements before sending
- Only reports selected in the disbursement profile settings are generated.
- Audit reports are produced when a Close of Period is performed, they may not need to be included in disbursement reports. If unsure ask your accountant or auditor for advice.
- Option to preview or download individual reports.
- Option to download all reports, the reports are also available to download later in the Disbursement History area.
If you choose to preview statements first, then you will receive an email once the reports are completed- you can then select the link within the email to the email generator