Introduction

The Bank Account System is designed to automate and streamline transaction entries relating to bank accounts and to hold account information printed on all checks issued. This system is automated, which means transactions affecting any bank account will be posted to the appropriate account without any other administration.

Accounting transactions are posted to the banking module if the transaction updates any G/L account# associated with a bank account. In addition, bank reconciliation is automated, greatly reducing the processing time required for this important function.

Another key feature of this Bank Account module is when users work in other modules they will not need to stop processing transactions affecting the bank accounts during financial period mismatches. They are able to direct transactions to current month or next month's bank account records, which greatly improves productivity over month-end.

Each bank account can be printed or viewed. This enterprise application retains a configured amount of historical data on-line at any time. Current month data will reflect transactions posted to accounts up to the minute. This is helpful for users to verify module entries have been correctly posted in any bank account and to make corrections as needed. You may also review bank accounts from any menu by pressing the [F2] key on your terminal.

Bank account transactions created by the Advantos Enterprise application are kept in numerical key order. Therefore checks, deposits, and adjustments are numerically ordered according to when the transaction was created. These ordered sequence numbers are printed on the checks and deposit tickets and are reproduced on most bank statements. Reconciling becomes much easier since Advantos Enterprise generated transaction numbers are printed on the bank statements prepared by each bank.

An additional feature of the Banking module is the ability to configure signatures on checks. Any check issued can also print a signature. This configuration is set within the Bank Account maintenance process. A signature configuration can be further adjusted within the Vendor maintenance process.

Bank Account Information

This is where the Bank Account system begins. In this function, bank account information is added to the system. All other modules will not process data or update bank account transactions unless accounts have been added. Multiple accounts can be set up for each client, and usually are. In addition, multiple clients can share bank accounts amoung them. This requires extra management at the data entry and administration levels therefore poor controls can result in invalid information being sent to clients.

This database also includes critical bank account numbering conventions supporting the specially designed MICR-Encoded check printing feature. Input accuracy on account numbers and MICR symbols is critical.

Bank Transaction Information

The Bank Account module is designed so bank account based transactions are posted automatically. There are times when the bank account may need to be be manually updated. This process is restricted to System Administrators. Be careful, arbitrary postings through this program can easily cause imbalances between the G/L and the bank accounts.

Bank Account Reconciliation

This is a valuable feature. It provides the ability to reconcile bank statements to the transactions recorded in the Bank Account module. The process is simple and fast and results in a printed report reflecting all outstanding checks and deposits as well as any adjusting entries needing to be made (like interest and service charges) in order to balance the bank 'statement' balance to your books. In one client's instance, the task of reconciling over 100 client accounts was reduced from a 3 day per month process to approximately 4 hours per month!

Bank Account Reports

Several reports have been standardized for your use, including a Bank Statement report for distribution to clients, and other reports reflecting information about bank balances, reconciled items, and footnotes. Other reports can be created to provide information tailored to each client's needs.