September 2021 Release Webinar!

 

Vantaca Features

Copy Previous Fiscal Year

Description:

A Copy [Previous Fiscal Year] Notes button has been added to the Accounting > Budget screen.

• The button will only be available under the following circumstances:
  • Budget Status is Proposed.
  • Prior Budget contains saved notes.
  • Budget has been Approved.
• Attempting to copy will prompt the user with the following message:
  • "Some items for this associations [fund name] fund have existing notes. Do you wish to overwrite these items with the previous year's notes?"
• The button will need to be enabled in Settings > Roles > Association > Budget > Edit > Add/Update.
  • Note: The button will not be displayed if the user does not have the security enabled.
    
    

Impact:

This button was added to allow you to bulk add notes from the previous year without having to spend more time doing individual adjustments.

 

Budget Percentages

Description:

A % Change Inc/Dec (Increase/Decrease) editable column has been added to the Accounting > Budget screen.

• Note: The percent changes do not impact assessments, only budgets.
• The column will default to a blank column when starting a new fiscal year.
• The column will allow users to enter a percentage value, allowing them to increase or decrease the Annual Budget Amount.
  • Changes can also be made by using the up and down arrows.
  • Note: This value will not save until the Save Changes button has been selected.
    
    

Impact:

The ability to make budget increases without having to re-import or export out of Vantaca will save you time when performing these calculations.

 

Budget With Per Unit Cost Reports

Description:

The Budget w/ Per Unit Cost report has been added.

• The report will provide a per-property cost breakout including the monthly property figure.
  • The report will default with the previous month’s last day as the End Date.
    • The default Fiscal Year will automatically be the Current Fiscal Year.
      • Note: This will not default to the current fiscal year if the data parameter has been adjusted to the previous or next fiscal year.
    • The date and time the report was generated will appear at the bottom of the report.
    • A Per Unit calculation will be included in the footer for each report.
  • The report is available in four range types:
    • Monthly
    • Quarterly
    • Semi-Annual
    • Annual
  • Each report has its own security option in Settings > Roles > Reports > Financial that will need to be enabled to use.

Impact:

The first of some new reports, the Budget w/ Per Unit Cost report will provide clear and focused information regarding estimated monthly income and expenses as well as a cost breakout for each selected property.

 

Homeowner Invoices

Description:

The following changes have been made to the format of the Three Column Homeowner Invoice to remain consistent with the Two Column Homeowner Invoice:

• Homeowner Invoice header will now display as Invoice instead of Account Statement.
  • The As of XX/XX/XXXX statement language will no longer be displayed next to the header.
• Column header will no longer be displayed.
• Only the Charges and Total columns will be displayed.
• The Homeowner Invoice will only display information that is directly related to the homeowner's assessments or assessments the homeowner invoice was generated for.
• The Due Date value will be tied to the Assessment Charge.
• Any Late Fee language at the bottom will not be displayed if a Fee Type Charge is set up as a Primary Charge.

Impact:

This formatting change may seem cosmetic at first glance but consistency across reports is essential in making sure the reports you and your homeowners rely on are as clear and unambiguous as possible.

 

Generating Homeowner Invoices

Description:

A CSV file will now be able to be generated when a Generate Homeowner Invoice action item is processed:

• AccountNo
• LastName
• FirstName
• MailAddress
• MailAddress2
• MailAddress3
• PropAddress
• PropAddress2
• Included
  • Yes or No
• Exclude Reasons
• Users will be notified of a failed generation and the Reason the generation failed.

Impact:

This new feature will allow you to identify the number of accounts that were included in the homeowner invoice generation all while saving you the trouble of having to count the total generated invoices.

 

Generating Homeowner Statements

Description:

Generating Statements will now only generate data that was active during the inputted parameters and will now ignore charges that are set up for the future.

Impact:

Before this release, the generated statement would display a previously generated assessment that is before the assessment start date.

 

Hold Permanently Action Item

Description:

The Hold Permanently additional action item will no longer prevent accounts from a system-generated fee type charge.

• Accounts being held in this step will require a user action item to step from the Hold Step.

Impact:

This change enables the Hold Permanently additional action to allow owners to be included in system applied late fees.

 

Coupons

Description:

Coupons will now be able to have Combined and Breakout features.

• Note: Associations will need to be setup for In-House Coupons via Association > Settings.
• Breakout Coupons
  • Breakout Coupons will only be generated if the association is configured for Breakout Coupons with an active assessment rule
    • Breakout Coupons will allow a max of 4 breakout lines on the coupon.
      • Each line will have 25-character limit.
      • The coupon Total Due will be equal to the sum of all breakout amounts.
    • Combined Coupons
      • Combined Coupons will generate with the Total Due that equals the combined total of the assessment charges if the association is set up for In-House Coupons and has the Billing Format set to Coupons (Combined).
        • Combined Coupons will follow the same coupon format as the standard coupon but will combine assessment charges in the Total Due field.
      • A separate coupon file will be generated based on the billing format of each assessment:
        • Coupon
        • Breakout
        • Combined

Impact:

These new Coupon types will provide your homeowners with an easier payment solution by allowing them to use a single coupon to address all charges on their account.

 

Coupon Generation CSV

Description:

A CSV file will now be generated when a Generate Homeowner Invoice action item is processed.

• The following reports will now display indications of Void and Reclass entries:
  • AccountNo
  • LastName
  • FirstName
  • MailAddress
  • MailAddress2
  • MailAddress3
  • PropAddress
  • PropAddress2
  • Included
    • Yes or No
  • Exclude Reasons
• Users will be notified of a failed generation and the Reason the generation failed

Impact:

This automatically generating log will allow you to identify the number of accounts that were included in your homeowner invoice generation.

 

Budget Comparison Reports

Description:

GL Account Codes will now be included on the Annual Budget Comparison report and the Annual Budget Comparison with Percent report.

Impact:

This seemingly small inclusion will have big repercussions by providing your internal staff a report with more information without making it cumbersome to review.

 

Budget Report Export

Description:

The Budget Report export will now include budget calculations.

• The Unapproved and Approved Budget export will contain columns with the following values:
  • GL Account
  • Year
  • "Prior Fiscal Year" Budget
  • "Prior Fiscal Year" YTD Actual (Month)
  • "Current Fiscal Year' YTD Actual
  • Annual
  • Net Change
  • Notes
  • All Months (Jan-Dec)
• The export will no longer include the following:
  • Sum Totals
  • GL Grouping
  • Gray formatting

Impact:

Including budget calculations in the Budget Export gives you the ability to make changes to the budget outside of Vantaca and it saves you from having to manually enter your own formulas in the export.

 

Operating Cash Flow Report

Description:

The Operating Cash Flow report has been added.

• The report will display the following information:
  • Operating Income
    • Total Operating Income
  • Operating Expenses
    • Total Operating Expenses
  • Non-Operating Activity
    • Total Non-Operating Activity
  • Net Income
  • Net Cash Increase for Period
  • Cash at Beginning of Period
  • Cash at End of Period
  • % Income
• The report will need to be enabled in Settings > Roles > Reports > Financial in order to use.
• The report will be able to be downloaded via PDF and/or CSV from the Reports page.

Impact:

This streamlined report will allow you to review cash flow quickly and accurately for a given period.

 

Non-Budget Actual Information

Description:

Non-Budget Actual information now be included in the following areas:

• Budget Report
  • The information will be pulled from the Income Statement (2Col)
  • Non-Budgeted GLs with Activity for Prior Year will populate information in the following scenarios:
    • An association has an expense GL Account that was not included in the Current Fiscal Years Approved Budget.
    • An association records income to a non-budgeted GL account that was not included in the Current Fiscal Years Approved Budget.
    • If the Income GL Account has a debit or credit balance as of the report run date.
  • The Non-Budgeted section will not populate information in the following scenarios:
    • The Non-Budgeted GL Account has a Net Zero balance between debit and credit.
    • The Non-Budgeted GLs are deleted or removed through the approving of the Budget via the Accounting > Budget

Impact:

Including the Non-Budget Actuals on the Budget Report and the Budget screen will enable you to appropriately address and review the actuals in the new year budget.

 

Proposed Annual Budget Report

Description:

A Variance Column has been added to the Proposed Annual Budget report.

• The percentage variance will calculate the percent in change Budgeted Amounts for each GL Account.

Impact:

Including the Variance column will provide a reporting metric that outlines the increase or decrease of the proposed budget.

 

Budget Status by Year Report

Description:

The Budget Status by Year report has been added.

• The report will contain Budget Status data for all Live Associations.
• The report export will contain the following columns:
  • Association Code
  • Association
  • Current Fiscal Year
  • Fund
  • “Year” Budget Approved
    • Provides approval status for a total of three years
  • The report will need to be enabled in Settings > Roles > Reports > Financial in order to use.

Impact:

This new report will empower you to audit all of your association’s budget statuses without having to review them individually.

 

Budgets

Description:

The following changes have been made to reports to the Accounting > Budget screen:

• Added Sum Total Amounts to the following Budget Columns:
  • Prior Budget ("Year" Budget)
  • Prior YTD Actual ("Year' YTD Actual)
  • YTD Actual
  • Net Change
• The following descriptions have been added to the budget line:
  • Total Income: calculates the total income for all income type GL Accounts.
  • Total Expense: calculates the total expense for all expense type GL Accounts.
  • Total Liability: calculates the total for all budgeted liability type GL Accounts.
  • Total Asset: calculates the total for all budgeted Asset type GL Accounts.
  • Total Equity: calculates the total for all budgeted equity type GL Accounts.
• A Net Total column has been added to the bottom of the Budget screen.
  
  
  • Calculates a Net of the Total Income and Total Expense.
    • Net Total = Total Income - Total Expense
  • Net Total will calculate for the following:
    • "Year" Budget (Prior Budget)
    • "Year" YTD Actual (Prior YTD Actual)
    • "Year" YTD Actual (YTD Actual)
    • Annual
    • Net Change
  • Non-Budget Actual information will now be included on the Accounting > Budget screen.
    • The following groups have been added and will be displayed if the previous fiscal year had Non-Budgeted GL Accounts with a prior year ending balance or YTD actual balance in an Income or Expense type account:
      • Non-Budgeted Income
        • Will display all Income type GL Accounts that were unbudgeted and tied to the selected Budget Fund that had a debit or Credit ending or YTD actual balance from the Previous Fiscal Year.
        • Income is a Credit Account
          • Debit Balance = Negative "Prior Fiscal Year" YTD Actual
          • Credit Balance = Positive "Prior Fiscal Year" YTD Actual
        • Non-Budget Expense
          • Will display all Expense type GL Accounts that were unbudgeted and tied to the selected Budget Fund that had a debit or Credit ending or YTD actual balance from the Previous Fiscal Year.
          • Expense is a Debit Account
            • Debit Balance = Positive "Prior Fiscal Year" YTD Actual
            • Credit Balance = Negative "Prior Fiscal Year" YTD Actual
          • Non-Budgeted items will be able to be deleted if the users has the Settings > Roles > Association > Budget > Delete
            • Note: Users will need to save changes upon deletion.
          • The following changes have been made to Column Names on the Accounting > Budget screen:
            • The Prior Budget column will now display the prior Fiscal Year and Budget.
            • The Prior YTD Actual will now display the Prior Fiscal Year and YTD Actual.
            • The YTD Actual will now display the Current Fiscal Year and YTD Actual.
              
          • Users will now be able to Save Grid Settings on the Accounting > Budget
            • A Cog Option button has been added to the Budget grid with the following options:
              • Save Grid Settings
              • Reset Grid To User Default
              • Reset Grid To System Default
                
                

Impact:

We made huge strides to have as much information and data as you can get from the Accounting > Budget screen so that you can continue working in Vantaca without having to export to Excel to calculate for the information. The ability to save exactly the fields you need to with the new Save Grid Settings function will help you customize your Budget screen with only the information you need.

 

Activity Notes

Description:

Budget Activity will now be included on the Association > Activity Notes page.

• Data will pull from the Accounting > Budget
• A note will automatically be added for Approved/Unapproved Budget's containing the User ID and Time of the status change.

Impact:

Tracking budget approvals has never been easier now that you won’t have to consult and investigate the audit logs to figure who approved a budget and when.

Vantaca Corrections

Coupons

• Corrected the error causing SouthData coupons to generate an incorrect amount when the association generating the coupons has an odd starting fiscal month.
• The error Generated Coupons to produce blank data when the Coupon start date is before the Charge start date has been resolved.
  • Entering a coupon start date that is before the charge start date will now cause the coupon file to generate a valid coupon date that is tied to the most recent charge start date.
• Removed the Coupon Book from the report section when stepping to prevent an error that was causing the coupon book from being generated correctly.
  • The Coupon Book will no longer be available when performing the following actions:
    • Stepping
    • Approving
    • Declining
    • Adding New Message

Generating Homeowner Statements

• Generating Homeowner Statements will now only generate data that was active during the inputted parameters and will now ignore charges that are set up for the future.
  • Before this release, the generated statement would display a previously generated assessment that is before the assessment start date.

GL Trial Balance

• Corrected the issue causing all entry types to display as Owner Payment.

Action Item Fees

• Stepping an action item to a fee step in the Portal will now apply the fee to the ledger of the account the action item is tied to.
  • The Charge Fee column will now be hidden when a Board, ARC Committee or ARC Chair is stepping an action item to a charge or fee setup.

Service Provider Import

• Corrected the issue causing the Service Provider Import to only import the first five service providers.

Previewing Letters

• Corrected the error causing the Mailing Address and Name fields to combine onto one line and the Fee Amount to not display a dollar sign as expected.

Budget Report

• The error causing the Month Headers on the Budget report to not display accurately for association names exceeding 41 characters has been resolved.

Modern Portal

• Corrected the error causing the Upcoming Assessments page to not display the correct verbiage for homeowners who don't have upcoming assessments.

 

Vantaca Integration Features

Paylease

Description:

ACH Charges have been added to the validation file to allow homeowners the ability to add recurring payments.

Impact:

Enabling your homeowners with the ability to opt in for recurring payments means less effort for your homeowners with month-to-month payments.

 

CIT

Description:

Updated the Daily Bank Account Balances call to prevent pending charges from being included.

Impact:

Before this solution was implemented, balances with pending charges were being included which resulted in erroneous looking errors in the system that was confusing to users.

 

Vantaca Integration Corrections

Service Provider

• Corrected the error causing a check to be sent to the Service Provider Contact Address instead of the intended address configured on the Provider Payment Method.

 

 

Vantaca Mobile Corrections

Inspections

• Corrected the error causing users to be unable to review attachments on their previous and active Inspections.
• Removed the swipe to delete function from Inspections and Violations.

Android App Pictures

• The error causing Pictures taken with the Android App camera to have a greatly reduced resolution has been resolved.

Unit Number Search

• Corrected the issue causing users to be unable to search by Unit Number on the Inspection

New Message

• Attempting to send a New Message via the intended blue check mark will no longer cause the app to crash.

New Action Item

• Switching between the Homeowner and Association tabs will no longer result in an error.

Association Filter

• Corrected the error causing the Association Filter to not return any results.