Month End Process

Month End is comprised of a few fast, easy steps. Once you have posted all transactions; including client payments, debtor fees, debtor payments and adjustments you are ready to begin. From the Main Menu choose Month End.

The Month End menu is made up of six aspects.

Generate Statements

Select Generate Statements. You will see a default date range, typically the first day of the month to the last day of the month. If you need a different date span you may select it at this time by picking dates from the calendar. Note of caution: If you alter the default dates one month you need to be very careful that you select the correct dates in each successive month. See Troubleshooting Month End for more information.

When generating statements, Collect! looks at last month's statements and adds in any balances which were due from your client, then calculates any debtor payments and fees which you have posted. Collect! notes if the payments were received by you or by your client. The commissions have already been calculated when you posted the transaction and at this stage, the generating process will separate accordingly to benefit you or your client. Of the fees you have collected the ones which have been marked for you will be added to your benefit. Conversely the fees you have collected for your client will be slated for your client's benefit. Lastly, the payments you have received from your clients will be deducted and Collect! will give you a current amount owing, indicating whether you owe funds to your client or your client owes you.

Browse Statements

From the Month End menu, select Browse Statements. This is an opportunity to have a look at the bottom line on each statement you have just generated and look for any glaring errors or omissions.

Open a statement and you can see the basic process of calculations on the left. On the right is a box displaying each transaction posted for the period for that client.

Each line item (transaction) can be viewed in detail by clicking on the line and opening the transaction. These details are a very useful way to confirm that you are getting the results you expect when generating your statements.

If you find a posting error, you must go to the actual transaction listed in the Invoice Line, make your correction and re-generate the statement. See Troubleshooting Month End for more in-depth information.

Print Statements

From the Month End menu, select Print Statements. You have already indicated in the Client Settings if each Client's Statement is net or gross remittance. When you browsed the invoices, you saw the actual amounts calculated in a generic format. When you print statements in a batch, Collect! looks at the statement type you have chosen and prints accordingly. Statements will always be stored dated one day after your selected date of generation. (i.e. If you generate statements for the period from the first to the last day of June, the date on the actual statement will be the first of July.)

If you print one statement at a time from within the Statement form, you have a choice of which template type to use. Caution is advised. If your statements look very strange and you have printed one at a time, it is likely that you have simply selected the wrong template. See Troubleshooting Month End for more information.

Print Checks

From the Month End menu, select Print Checks. Collect! will print the checks for your clients automatically. The information to be printed is taken directly from the Statement totals and applies only to the clients which you owe, ignoring those that have a balance owing to the agency. Collect! uses the Form #1000 form as a template to produce very professional-looking checks. There is a bit of information that needs to be setup before you begin to print checks. Please refer to How To Setup Check and GCheck for details.

The Form #1000 forms are available at any office supplier or online.

Even if you write your checks manually, you do not need to post any entries to tell Collect! that you have made the payment to your client. Because of legislation and laws in all areas, we have designed Collect! to assume that you have made payment to your client and no balances in which you owe your client will be pulled forward into the next month's statements.

Receivables Report

From the Month End menu, select Receivables Report. You have the opportunity to select a Date Range, a Client Range and a Billing Period type. The report is printed by gathering information from your statement balances. Only the statements in which your client owes you are reported at this time.

Payables Report

From the Month End menu, select Payables Report. You have the opportunity to select a Date Range, a Client Range and a Billing Period type. The report is printed by gathering information from your statement balances. Only the statements in which you owe your client reported at this time. Typically you will enter only the information which pertains to the Date Range you are working on. Ideally, you would have generated statements using the default dates and will not need to change the date on this form at all.

Analysis Reports

Typically, accounting departments want a variety of analysis reports to make a comparative analysis. There are a variety of report templates available in Collect! any of which may easily be modified.

If you are not happy with the results of your Month End please see Troubleshooting Month End for information on common misconceptions and errors.

See Also

- Accounting Topics
- Daily Administration
- Introduction To Printing Checks
- Financial Reports Basics - Introduction/Accessing