Processing a Lockbox

Objective: When the bank scans in checks, there will be a Lockbox containing the payments and check images to review and commit. Learn how to review and process a lockbox for an association.

Navigate to the Settings > Import screen to find any Lockbox files that are available to be reviewed and committed. Each bank makes lockbox files available at different times. Vantaca will begin looking for your lockbox file(s) at the start time specified by the bank(s) and will check for the file every 15 minutes until the bank specified end time. This process occurs daily.

The date that you see on the settings import screen is the date Vantaca gets the file and the file will contain payments from the day prior.

Click the Review button, to go to the Lockbox file. You are only going to work out of the Review Records and Valid Records tabs. The Translation and Unmatched tabs are not used for Lockboxes.

When reviewing items in the lockbox file, you can click on the Check No and view the check image, depending on payment type and if your bank offers it.

1. Valid Records Tab-These are all the Lockbox items that have matched up to an account number and have a correct amount and check number. These items have the date, association code, account number, amount and check number. These items can be homeowner payments, or miscellaneous deposits. If you ever needed to edit a valid record click the “make editable” button and it will move the Lockbox item to the error records tab where you can edit.
2. Review Records Tab-  These are the records that need review. Some of these records will need your attention before the file can be committed. Two main types of records will appear in the Review Records tabs. 
   1. Missing Errors - These are errors where the record is missing information. In the Error Message column, filter to "Contains" and "Missing" to identify and resolve these errors. 
      
      • If the Lockbox wasn’t able to match an owner you will see the missing owner error. You will resolve this by clicking the search button and searching for the owner in the homeowner list that appears and clicking select.

• • • If there is a missing check number you will double click the check field and a popup will appear of the check image, if one is available. You’ll be able to click into the check number field and edit.
    • If there is a missing amount you will have to contact Vantaca and the bank. You cannot edit the amount.

1. 1. Than Errors - There may be some payments that don't need correction, but the system puts them in the Review Records tab for you to review. This is because the payment is more or less than the balance and the systems allows you to review where the payment is allocated prior to committing it. In the Error Message column, filter to "Contains" and "Than" to identify and resolve these errors. 
      • You can allocate the money between different charges, click the Alloc button which will bring up the pop-up window shown below. From there, you can choose how the payment is distributed. Visit this article on Payment Allocation Imports for more information.

• • • You split the amount between merged accounts. Click the Split button which will bring up the pop- up window shown below.

1. • Misc Deposits- To the right of the Misc deposit, you'll see the GL Entry button. Click on that, and you'll be able to do a journal entry for that Misc. deposit. You can toggle between Misc deposit and homeowner payment by clicking the Misc deposit and Payment buttons.

Once you've made all the changes you need to the Lockbox, be sure to click the Save Changes button at the top left of the Lockbox you're reviewing. Then click Commit at the top middle of the page.

If you go back to Settings > Import and that Lockbox is no longer on the screen, it was committed successfully! If you still see the Lockbox on that screen, you'll need to review again for any errors you may have missed. You can check the Include Committed Lockboxes (Last 90 Days) checkbox to view all your committed lockboxes from the last 90 days.

For auditing purposes, you may visit a homeowner's ledger to which one of these payments was posted and ensure that the homeowner payment was posted correctly.

New Feature: Currently the system will automatically split a lockbox payment across merged accounts if the payment is more than the balance of a single account. Vantaca now allows you to turn that off by navigating to Settings > Interfaces and disabling "Auto-Split Payments" for each bank. Disabling this will cause payments to stay with the owner assigned to them through the lockbox, and force you to split payments manually.