The Accounting program is used to maintain an agency's accounting, Month-End, and Close-Day information. The program enables you to enter journal entries, cash receipts and disbursements, and vouchers and to perform reconciliations. The various display and update programs enable you to recheck general ledger entries for errors and correct them before posting to the general ledger. You can also use this program to generate general ledger reports (such as the Status of Accounts Report, Income Statement, and Balance Sheet) at any time to show the agency's current financial status.
To access the Accounting program, on Home Base, click the Accounting button.
Click the links for a brief summary of each Accounting function. Click the heading for each summary to view comprehensive details of the function.
The Receipts program provides options to enter, update, and track cash receipts and checkbook balances. Cash receipts typically include payments of premiums by customers or commission payments received from companies. Any revenue that represents a deposit into or an adjustment to a bank account is entered as a cash receipt.
The options available can be used to enter, update, view, and void cash receipts. A special option is provided to transfer funds between cash accounts. Also, an option is provided to record an Activity File entry and print a receipt when a client brings in a cash payment.
The Disbursements program provides options to enter, update, and track cash disbursements and checkbook balances. Any item that represents a decrease in a cash journal account balance is a cash disbursement. Cash disbursements may be made in the form of checks to agency clients or withdrawals for such items as bank service charges or overdraft charges.
Use the options to enter, update, view, and void cash disbursements. A special option is also provided for transferring funds between cash accounts. In addition, options are provided to print checks that you have recorded to agency clients.
The Vouchers program provides options for entering, updating, and tracking vouchers paid or due to be paid by the agency. Vouchers represent any invoice or bill the agency must pay in the future and may be due to any client, for anything from office supplies to return premiums.
This program enables the agency to accrue expenses when they are received and process them when they become due. Accruing such expenses provides a more accurate analysis of the agency's expense and liability status.
Use the options on the Accounts Payable menu to enter, update, view, and void vouchers. They may be processed on an individual or batch basis.
This program provides a menu of suboptions that will help you manage your general ledger accounts. The options available allow you to enter, update, view, and void journal entries in the general ledger. If necessary, you can use one of the options to backpost journal entries to previous accounting months and enter adjusting journal entries to correct errors in accounting records.
All transactions entered throughout the month affect the general ledger. The Month-End program provides options to review the production for the month before you close and post it, summarize the activity for the current accounting month in journal entry form, and post the month. The options provided on the Month-End menu are designed to make the review and posting process as simple and straightforward as possible.
The following options are available through Month-End.
This option provides access to the various reconciliation programs provided by TAM. With the options provided, you can reconcile your agency billed business, your direct-billed business, and your checkbooks.
The Reconcile Company Payables screen provides several suboptions with which you can reconcile the account current to the company statement or to the agency's Account Current report. You can also run the Company Payables and Account Current reports within this program. The Premium Trust Report program enables you to calculate the minimum that should be maintained in the Premium Trust Account. The Statement Closing Utility enables you to flag all transactions associated with a given company statement as paid. Another option is used to display all open— or unfinished— statements, all reconciled statements that have not been paid, or all reconciled statements paid to the company.
The Company Statement Reconciliation is integrally linked with the general ledger Cash Disbursements program. When you reconcile a company statement, you write checks to that particular company for the appropriate net premium total. An option is also provided that allows you to save a statement reconciliation, so you can return to complete it as desired.
The Direct Bill Menu provides options used to reconcile direct bill transacted items to company direct bill commission statements. The options provided enable you to reconcile direct bill transactions to company direct bill commission statements, run the Direct Bill Report, remove direct bill balances from customer accounts without reconciling, and list the statements that you have begun reconciling but have not finished.
The Check Book option is used to reconcile the cash account entries in TAM to the cash account entries on your bank statements. This option enables you to flag withdrawals and deposits as having cleared the bank. The program provides a reconciliation worksheet that displays all outstanding checks, miscellaneous withdrawals, and deposits, and then reconciles the total of these items with the current cash account balance to calculate the bank statement balance.
Close-Day is designed to close out an agency's daily client activity. The options available enable you to process activity file entries, change requests, and pending installments, and to print the invoices, memos, letters, and forms for the day. You can also print the following day's follow-ups, the follow-up exceptions for the day, a Transaction Report, an Activity File Report, and any queued dunning letters. Options are also provided through which to print selected invoices and dequeue (process and print) reports and searches that were saved during the day.
Close-Day also provides a Close-Day Setup option through which to define default parameters for the options to run during Close-Day. This helps to ensure that you run the procedure properly and consistently every day. You can also define multiple setups so you can run the procedure in more than one way. For example, if your firm is composed of more than one agency, you can define a different setup for each agency.