Association Settings

The Association > Settings page contains most of the options for Association-Specific configurations in Vantaca. Making a change to this page will have far-reaching effects on the way your Association Operates. This article explains the various Settings, and what they do.

Note: Making changes to your Model Association will update the default option for Associations following that Model, and will update any unchanged options on those Associations. Options that have already been changed will not be affected.

Settings Groups

A/P Payments
A/R
Accounting
Accounting (Auto-Waive Fees)
ACH
Block Ledger Message
CCR
Collections
Communication
Coupons
Current Period
Financial Overview Report
Financial Overview Report Variances
Fund Accounting
Interfaces
Master/Sub
Portal
Statements

A/P Payments

Electronic Signature (strictly checks - ACH will stop regardless)

- All Checks - All checks will be printed with an electronic signature.

- Checks Under Signature Threshold Only - Checks under the signature threshold will print an electronic signature, other checks will not print a signature and have to be manually signed. This is essentially skipping the Signature Approval Step.

Signature Threshold

The amount over which checks will look for the Signature Approval Step.

- No Threshold - No checks will stop in the signature approval step

- All Checks - All checks will stop at the Signature Approval step.

Note: If Electronic Signature is set to "All Checks" & Signature Threshold is set to "No Threshold", then checks will not stop but will not print a signature. See Invoice Processing: Signature Approval and Electronic Signatures for more info on Check Signatures.

Require Board Approval

- Dictates whether to route invoices to designated Board Members after the invoice is approved by the management company.

Board Approval Threshold

- Require Board Approval has to be set to "Yes" in order for this threshold to be active.

- If Board Approval is set to "Yes," anything above the threshold will require board approval.

- Anything below the threshold will skip the board approval step(s).

Number of Board Approvals

- Dictates whether to route invoices to multiple designated Board Members after the invoice is approved by the management company.

Duplicate Check Duration

- The number of days the Duplication Check step looks for similar invoice details.

- For more information about the Duplicate Check Duration process, visit the Invoice Processing: Possible Duplicates article.

Future Pay Duration

- Dictates for far in advance an Invoice remains on the Future Tab of Accounting > Pay Invoices.

- If the Due Date is further out than X days in the future, the invoice presents in the Future tab.

- If the Due Date is less than X days in the future, the invoice presents in the Pay Now tab

A/R

Payment Distribution

- Pay Assessments First - Any payment will first be applied to the outstanding Assessment balance until that is satisfied before applying amounts to Fees/other charges.

- Pay Fees First - Any payment will first be applied to the outstanding Fee balance until that is satisfied before applying amounts to Assessments/other charges.

- Custom Order - will follow the order set up in Association > Assessments and allocate to the lowest number first. Value "-1" is used for manual allocation, and payments will never be automatically allocated to those.

Generate Fees

- Yes - any fees on the Assessment screen will generate based on those rules.

- No (On Hold) - No fees will generate.

- Use Model Settings - The Association will follow the settings on the Model setup.

- Yes and Catch Up Fees - Used when turning fees back on for an association after they have been on hold.

New Owner Action Type on Resale

- The action item that will be created on the new owner account when processing a resale or ownership transfer. This is generally used to create the Welcome Packet, etc.

Coupons - Include Blocked Owners

- If this is set to "Yes," coupons will generate for any owners with a Blocked Payment Status.

Coupons - Include Owners in Collections

- If this is set to "Yes," coupons will generate for any owners with an open Collections action item, regardless of step.

More details on A/R Settings

Accounting

Starting Month of Fiscal Year- A company's fiscal year is its financial year; it is any 12-month period that the company uses for accounting purposes. The fiscal year is expressed by stating the year-end date.

GL for Homeowner Credits (Liability) – This account must match your prepaid homeowner subledger.

GL for A/R (Asset) – GL Account the association will use for their accounts receivable. AR is a list of owners who have not paid assessments and other fees in full at the end of the accounting period. AR will show who owes the association money, how much is owed, how long the debt has been outstanding, and the total balance the association is owed.

GL for A/P (Liability) – When a company pays a vendor, it will reduce Accounts Payable with a debit amount. As a result, the normal credit balance in Accounts Payable is the amount of vendor invoices that have been recorded but have not yet been paid.

GL for Write-Offs (Expense) – The write-off of a bad account usually refers to eliminating an account receivable due to the customer's inability to pay the amount owed. Bad Debts Expense is usually the account used for this setting.

GL for Credit Memo (Asset) – GL Account used to record the issued credit memo on an invoice.

GL for Retained Earnings (Equity) – Retained earnings is the amount of net income left over for the business after it has paid out dividends to its shareholders. In Vantaca users are unable to block entries from posting to the Retained Earnings GL.

GL for Net Income (Equity) – Net Income (or Loss) tells you whether you are ahead of the game or behind. Net Income occurs when Total Income is greater than Total Expenses plus Allocations made to Reserve Accounts. A Net Loss occurs when this situation is reversed. Net Income is better.

GL for Due To (Liability)– A due to account is a liability account typically found inside the general ledger that indicates the amount of funds payable to another party.

GL for Due From (Asset) – Due from account is an asset account in the general ledger used to track money owed to a company that is currently being held in another account. It is typically used in conjunction with a due to account and is sometimes referred to as intercompany receivables.

GL for Reserve Interest (Income) – GL Account used to record interest on your reserve fund accounts.

GL for Owner Refunds (Liability) – This is a payment adjustment (refund) to an individual homeowner on the ledger. It creates an invoice to be approved by the manager and processed through the normal invoice process starting with manager approval. (Liability)

Advanced Billing – *Future Feature* The number of days in advance that your billing will display on your association calendar.

Variance for AR Aging – *Future Feature*

Variance for GL Income/Expense – *Future Feature*

GL for Bank Fees (Expense) – Bank fees are nominal fees for a variety of account set-up and maintenance, and minor transactional services for retail and business customers. Fees can be one-time, ongoing or related to penalties. There should be an expense account set up for this.

GL for Operating Interest (Income) – GL Account used to record interest on your operating fund accounts.

Retained Earnings Start – *DO NOT POPULATE* This will be populated on a background global setting when your database is created.

Accounting (Auto-Waive Late Fees)

# of Days After Fee to Auto-Waive

- The number of days after a fee posts, where the system will check for a payment and auto-waive the fee if the remaining balance is equal to the late fee. If you want the Auto Waiver Process turned off, choose the Auto - Waive(Off) setting. For details on Fee Auto Waivers, visit Auto Fee Waivers in Vantaca.

Limits - # of Times per Period

- How many times a fee will be auto-waived on an owners account per period.

Limits - Period

- Sets your time period parameters for the limit settings.

Courtesy Fee Waiver - Auto Waiver Language

- Ability to set custom verbiage for the auto-waiver adjustment description. This provides the ability to customize the language of the auto-waiver adjustments which can help with reducing owner confusion and allow for greater transparency when the homeowner views their ledger activity.

ACH

ACH Auto Draft Day

- Day to run ACH draft.

ACH Generate in Advance

- Number of days prior to draft to post the auto-draft preview.

ACH Draft Amount

- Charge Amount - This will draft the charge amount of any draftable charges regardless of the balance. Ie, if the draftable assessment charge is $100 each month the owner will be drafted $100 even if the owner also sends in a check payment that month.

- Charge Balance - This will draft the full balance of charges marked to be included in ACH regardless of the choosing charges since last draft day or current month charges.

- Charge Balance not exceeding charge amount (Ie if the owner pays by check and has a $0 balance one month, they will not be drafted. Or if the owner pays half of their assessment by check then the other half would be drafted.).

ACH Include Charges

- whether to include all charges since the last draft day or just the current month's charges. *Please note: choosing 'Charge Balance' in the setting above effectively ignores this timeframe.

ARC

ARC Model

- Assigns a preferred ARC Action Item category type for the association.

Block Ledger Message

Credit Card Screen

- This will be the message a homeowner will see when they try to navigate to the credit card screen if their ledger is blocked.

Auto Draft Screen

- This will be the message a homeowner will see when they try to navigate to the auto-draft screen if their ledger is blocked.

My Account Screen

- This will be the message a homeowner will see when they try to navigate to the My Account screen on their Homeowner's Portal if their ledger is blocked.

CCR

The system allows for multiple types of violation and inspection action items. Within the inspection report an image can be included of the violation. This section allows you to set the type of action item that will be created by the inspection app.

- Include an image of a violation in the inspection reports. This streamlines the review process for you and your board members by consolidating all violations into a single location. Meaning no need to click into each violation to view an associated image.

**Note only the Primary Image of each violation will be included in the Inspection Report. The primary image is the last image uploaded on a violation.

- Preferred Action Types allows for added CCR Models. Gives the ability to filter and limit action types available for users to navigate through association's relevant and preferred action types but can also reduce the chances of typing incorrect action items being made. Preferred Action Types

**Note Field supports multiple entries

Collections

Active

- On or Off.

Collections Model

- The Action item that will be created when an account meets the criteria for going into collections. You can use different collections models for different associations.

Processing Days

- Weekday or Everyday Processing.

Minimum Balance

- The balance upon which a new Collections action item is created. The Collections action item will be created overnight for the accounts that meet these criteria and the other collections criteria in this section.

Age of Balance

- Number of days after the charge was posted before the balance is eligible to initiate the collections process

**Note if you use the Auto-waive fee feature, you will need to add the number of days to your age of balance to prevent a collection letter due to a late fee.

Balance Threshold

- This threshold can be used through the Collections Action Item process to define a threshold used to advance an account in the Collections process. Can be set to a fixed amount or a number of charges.

Lien Threshold

New Association Grace Period

- the number of days a new association is in the system before collections will start running.

New Owner Grace Period

- the number of days after a new account is created before Collections will begin.

Board Approval Required

- To configure board approval setting established on your collections action item.

- This is driven by the “Decision Required” field, when the Board Approval option is selected.

Communication

eStatement Only

- When set to yes, this will override the owner's billing communication preferences and only send statements via email.

*If eStatements Only is changed to yes, statements will not send to the print queue for that association even if you try to send them by paper mail.

Note: Because this overrides the billing communication preferences, this means that collection letters will also be sent by email and will NOT send letters to the print queue.

Coupons

Include Blocked Owners

- When this is set to Yes, the coupon file will include owners that are blocked from making payments.

Include Owners In Collection

- When this is set to Yes, the coupon file will include owners in the collection process.

Include Owners on ACH

- When this is set to Yes, it will include owners on ACH draft.

Include Electronic Billing Preference

- When this is set to Yes, it will ignore the electronic billing preference for the owners.

*If you want to generate a coupon file for all owners, ALL options should be set to Yes*

Current Period

Last Fiscal Period

- Indicates the last closed fiscal period for which financials have been delivered.

Financial Overview Report

Operating Cash

- Changing this field will change the Header of this section of the Financial Overview Report.
Erasing the information in this field will erase this section and its content from the Financial Overview Report.

Operating Cash - Rolling 13 Months

Operating Expenses

Accounts Receivable Trends

Accounts Receivable - Rolling 13 Months

Accounts Payable Trends

Accounts Payable - Rolling 13 Months

Reserve Accounts Trends

Reserve Cash - Rolling 13 Months

Investments

Reserve Projects

Reserve - Roll Forward

Accounting Notes

Manager Notes

Financial Overview Report Variances

Variance for GL Income/Expense MTD (Amount)

- This sets a threshold for which GL accounts populate the Variance Items section of the Financial Overview Report. The report will use the lower threshold of Amount or Percentage.

Variance for GL Income/Expense MTD (Percentage)

- This sets a threshold for which GL accounts populate the Variance Items section of the Financial Overview Report. The report will use the lower threshold of Amount or Percentage.

Variance for GL Income/Expense YTD (Amount)

- This sets a threshold for which GL accounts populate the Variance Items section of the Financial Overview Report. The report will use the lower threshold of Amount or Percentage.

Variance for GL Income/Expense YTD (Percentage)

- This sets a threshold for which GL accounts populate the Variance Items section of the Financial Overview Report. The report will use the lower threshold of Amount or Percentage.

Fund Accounting

Operating Fund Description

- This is used to edit the name of their Operating fund. This will only change the name of the Operating fund on reports, and not on the name of the fund in Vantaca when coding transactions or putting in journal entries.

Interfaces

Sperlonga

- Enable or Disable the Sperlonga interface for this association.

Coupon Format

- South Data, Optimal Outsource, BB&T, or In-house. The first 3 will generate an excel file for the 3rd party service to process while the In-house option will generate a .pdf file report for the coupons.

Statement Format

- Same options and generation file types as the coupons.

Spectrum Accounting GL

- The GL to be used for Spectrum paid invoices (only applicable if utilizing Spectrum for AP services)

Statement Product Code - SD Only

- When using SouthData and producing Statements, the Action Item Parameters will default to this value if nothing is entered.

Master / Sub

This section establishes the relationship between a master association and any sub-associations. Currently, the relationship between Master & Sub association will only be used in one area - the Owner Portal. When an owner logs into their portal and navigates to the “Submit A Request” or "ARC Request" page, they will be able to select whether the request is for the master or sub-association.

Portal

Payment Label

- This will be the display name of the button on the portal for third-party payments.

Statements

Association Address

- Use this option if you have multiple offices that will receive return mail. Selecting 'Default' will use the main Company Correspondence Address (found under Settings - Company Info), while choosing 'Company' will change it based on the Association's Address (chosen when creating the Association).

Statement Format

- Choose between the 2 column or 3 column format. 3 column is more commonly used because it includes formatting updates, as well as late fee information to make clearer to the homeowner what is going on with their account balance.

Remittance Coupon Message

- Only shows on 3 column format. This is the message that will display at the bottom of the statement in the coupon remittance section.

Include block ledger Accounts

- Select 'Yes' if you want statements to generate for blocked ledger accounts.

Include ACH Default (Calendar Only)

- If you set up statements to generate from the calendar, click 'Yes' if you want to include owners on ACH.

Include All Properties Default (Calendar Only)

- If you want to include all properties when generating statements from a calendar event, select 'Yes'.

Include Credit Balances Default (Calendar Only)

- If you want statements to generate for accounts that have credit balances, select 'Yes'.

* Notes on (Calendar Only)

- These settings are only relevant to those associations that plan to schedule statements to automatically send from the calendar. See article linked below for more detail on how to set up eStatements on the calendar...

Generating eStatements from a Calendar Event

If an association chooses to manually generate statements from an action item, these settings will not automatically be selected - they will have to set those preferred settings in the Parameter section of the Action Item.

Articles in this section

Settings Groups

A/P Payments

A/R

Accounting

Accounting (Auto-Waive Late Fees)

ACH

ARC

Block Ledger Message

CCR

Collections

Communication

Coupons

Current Period

Financial Overview Report

Financial Overview Report Variances

Fund Accounting

Interfaces

Master / Sub

Portal

Statements

Comments

Articles in this section

Settings Groups

A/P Payments

A/R

Accounting

Accounting (Auto-Waive Late Fees)

ACH

ARC

Block Ledger Message

CCR

Collections

Communication

Coupons

Current Period

Financial Overview Report

Financial Overview Report Variances

Fund Accounting

Interfaces

Master / Sub

Portal

Statements

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