How to Set Up a New Charge or Assessment

Objective: To create a new charge for the application to homeowner accounts, with that charge being mapped to the correct GL account that the charges and payments are to be applied against.

To add a new charge for an association, go to the Association -> Assessments screen.

From the Association Assessments screen, press the New Assessment button. In the pop-up box that appears, you will enter the information for the charge you want to set up.

• The Description is the name of the charge as it will appear on the owners ledgers (i.e. assessment, special assessment, late fee, interest). 
• The Type of Charge is defined by how the charge is to be applied.
  • Action Item would be the type you would select for charges that you would want to be automatically applied during the stepping of an action item process. This means that you can configure the Violations action item to apply a Violation Fine to a Homeowner Account upon the stepping of the Violations action item to the Daily Fine step, for instance.
  • Assessment is charged on a specific time interval such as monthly and quarterly (i.e. assessments, special assessments).
  • Deposit allows funds to be added to the Refundable deposits through the Homeowners > Ledger > Deposits screen.
  • Fee is charged based on parameters set for a certain day and based on certain charge balances (i.e late fees, interest).
  • Manual Charge is just a charge with no rule set, which will just be charged manually to a Homeowner account or by an import when needed (i.e pool fobs, misc. charge).
  • Owner Transfer Charge is a charge applied as a result of an ownership transfer or property conveyance (i.e. working capital).
  • Rent allows rent charges to be collected.
• The GL Account field indicates which GL account charges and payments in this charge grouping will be applied.
  • This is the income account for this charge type. While there may be instances where this GL could be something other than income, please note this should never be the Accounts Receiveable GL.
• The Fund is the fund which the money will deposit into. (i.e. Reserves)
• The Billing Format is where you define how Assessments will be billed.
  • Selecting Statement will allow this charge to be included in Statements but will not be included on Coupons.
  • Selecting Coupon will allow this charge to be on either Coupons or Statements.
  • (None) Does not show on statements or coupons.
  •  Coupons (Breakout)/(Combined) allow third-party coupons to add multiple charges to the same coupon. (Ex: regular monthly assessments and a monthly special assessment.) 
• The Subledger dropdown allows you to select which subledger will be used for charges and payments to this charge. For more information on Subledgers, visit Creating a Subledger
• The Coupon Code field is only needed if the charge is set to the Billing Format of Coupons and should be 100 for the first charge with coupons, 200 for the second, and so on. The Coupon Product Code is the product code used in SouthData to reference.
• The Include in ACH check box will include that charge in the owners ACH draft if they are enrolled in ACH. *This setting is applicable for Vantaca ACH, Zego ACH if the owner chooses 'Variable Auto Pay', and in ClickPay ACH if the owner drafts the 'Balance Due'.
• The Keep Credit Balance field will hold a credit balance designated for that charge and not allow that money to be reallocated to any other charge groupings if there is a credit balance in that category. This setting overrides the system's nightly credit reallocation process.
• The Primary Charge field should be checked if you are setting up the primary assessment or late fee for an association. Those are the only 2 charges that should have that box checked.
• The Exclude from Collections field should be checked if you would like to exclude an assessment or charge from the collections process of your association.
• The Exclude from Collections Balance Threshold box should be checked if you do not want a charge to go toward the threshold an association has, before it advances an account through the collections process
• The Exclude from Lien Threshold should be selected if you do not want an assessment or charge to count towards the threshold that an association has set up, which when reached, an account is sent through the process of having a lien applied.
• The Payment Order becomes active if the Association Setting for Payment Distribution is set to "Custom Order". (Go to Association -> Settings -> AR -> Payment Distribution). When in Custom Order mode you can enter a number when editing an a charge which will determine how payments will be allocated. It will start distributing payments at the lowest number (zero or higher) and move up accordingly. Charges that should be only manual can be marked so by entering value “-1”, which will ignore the payment distribution type completely. Payments will never be automatically allocated to those charges. When numbers are the same, the allocation defaults to “Oldest First”.

If you set up an assessment, fee, or action item type charge, you will need to click the drop down next to the charge after setup and then click "New Rule" to set up the specific rules for that charge. For more information on the set up of the rules for these charge types, please visit the following articles.

How to Set Up Assessment Rules

How to Set Up Late Fee and Interest Rules

How to Set Up Action Item Charge Type Rules

Note: All Assessment & Fee type charges will auto-populate on the association calendar.