Entering Customer Opening Balances in HawkSoft
Opening balance invoices and/or credit memos need to be entered for customers with a balance carried over from your previous accounting management system. Depending on how your retained commission was calculated in your previous accounting management system, you will either enter invoices and credit memos as gross premium or net premium.
This article explains how to enter invoices and/or credit memos in HawkSoft for customers who have a balance for:
- Company payables
- Advanced premiums
- Credit balances
HawkSoft must be configured before processing opening balances. See Opening Balances Configuration in HawkSoft for more information.
Entering your customer balance invoices and/or credit memos creates your accounts receivable balances. These balances can be paid or refunded through standard handling procedures.
This article refers to the Opening Balance Date at several points. This is the date you are going to start your accounting integration between HawkSoft and QuickBooks. This could be the date you went live with HawkSoft, the date of your last reconcile, or even the date information was entered.
This process is typically completed by an Owner/Administrator, Manager, or Bookkeeper when setting up a new QuickBooks® Company file or QuickBooks Online subscription, or before using the HawkSoft Trust Accounting feature.
Required permissions
In order to complete this task, user permissions must be set to include:
Accounting > Enable Client Trust Accounting > Allow Invoice/Credit Memo Creation
Accounting Reporting > Allow QuickBooks integration workflows
Accounting Reporting > Access Trust Accounting Report
Accounting Reporting > Access Company/Agency Payable Reports and Workflows
See User Permissions for more information.
There are two ways of entering the premium amount and retained commissions when creating an invoice for open company payables.
Enter Gross Premium and the retained commission, if retained commission is calculated after the opening balance date.
OR
- Enter the Net Premium without a retained commission, if retained commission was reported prior to the opening balance date.
- Retrieve the client in HawkSoft, and then select the relevant policy tab.
Click Action, and then select Internal > Trust Accounting > Create Invoice.
The New Invoice dialog opens.
- Set the Date field to your opening balance date.
Leave TBA selected for the Invoice Number.
HawkSoft assigns an invoice number when you complete the invoice and click Save Invoice.
Use the Search Agents field to verify that the correct agent is associated with this invoice.
Select The Carrier Name from the Item drop-down menu.
Invoice Line Item Templates are entered during Company Payables Setup.
Select a description from the Description drop-down menu.
Description options are entered during Company Payables Setup.
- Enter the gross amount due in the Amount field.
- Enter the retained commission in the Retained field.
- Enter another line item to zero out this invoice.
- Select Opening Balance from the Item drop-down menu.
- Select Balance as of xx/xx/xxxx in the Description drop-down menu.
Enter the gross amount into the Amount field as a negative number.
- Leave Retained Commission blank for this line item.
- Optional:
Enter comments in the Printed Comment field.
This information will appear on the printed invoice.
Enter an additional description into the Note field.
Information in the Note field provides a description for this item in the Trust Accounting tab in the client file. Notes are for internal use only and are not seen by the client.
- If this opening balance item has already been entered in QuickBooks, check the Do Not Transfer to QuickBooks box.
Click Save Invoice to complete the Invoice.
The Created Invoice dialog opens.
Click Close Window.
Click Finish to close the Action Menu.
The Finalize Log dialog opens.
Add comments as needed, and then click Save Log.
The invoice is automatically attached to the lower section of the log note.
- Retrieve the client in HawkSoft, and then select the relevant policy tab.
Click Action, and then select Internal > Trust Accounting > Create Invoice.
The New Invoice dialog opens.
- Set the Date field to your opening balance date.
Leave TBA selected for the Invoice Number.
HawkSoft assigns an invoice number when you complete the invoice and click Save Invoice.
Use the Search Agents field to verify that the correct agent is associated with this invoice.
Select The Carrier Name from the Item drop-down menu.
Invoice Line Item Templates are entered during Company Payables Setup.
Select a description from the Description drop-down menu.
Description options are entered during Company Payables Setup.
- Enter the net amount due to the carrier in the Amount field.
- Leave the Retained Commission blank, because you have already reported commissions in your previous management system.
- Enter another line item to zero out this invoice.
- Select Opening Balance from the Item drop-down menu.
- Select Balance as of xx/xx/xxxx in the Description drop-down menu.
Enter the net amount into the Amount field as a negative number.
Leave Retained Commission blank for this line item.
- Optional:
Enter comments in the Printed Comment field.
This information will appear on the printed invoice.
Enter an additional description into the Note field.
Information in the Note field provides a description for this item in the Trust Accounting tab in the client file. Notes are for internal use only and are not seen by the client.
If this customer already has a balance in QuickBooks, check the Do Not Transfer to QuickBooks box.
Click Save Invoice to complete the Invoice.
Click Close Window.
Click Finish to close the Action Menu.
The Finalize Log dialog opens.
Add comments as needed, and then click Save Log.
The invoice is automatically attached to the lower section of the log note.
Before using the HawkSoft Trust Accounting feature, you need to enter opening balance invoices for all customers that have a balance carried over from your previous accounting management system. These types of balances could be for policies where the agency had advanced premium, for example.
To save time, HawkSoft recommends compiling a list of all customers and their balances before starting this process.
- Retrieve the client.
Click Action, and then select Internal > Trust Accounting > Create Invoice.
The Invoice dialog opens.
Set the Date field to your opening balance date.
Leave the default option TBA for the Invoice Number.
HawkSoft assigns an invoice number when you complete the invoice.
Use the Search Agents field to verify that the correct agent is associated with this invoice.
- Select Opening Balance from the Item drop-down menu.
- Select Balance as of xx/xx/xxxx from the Description drop-down list.
- Enter the opening balance due in the Amount field.
- Skip the Retained field.
- Optional:
Enter comments in the Printed Comment field.
This information will appear on the printed invoice.
Enter an additional description into the Note field.
Information in the Note field provides a description for this item in the Trust Accounting tab in the client file. Notes are for internal use only and are not seen by the client.
If this customer already has a balance in QuickBooks, check the Do Not Transfer to QuickBooks box.
If unchecked, the invoice balance will be available from the To be Exported report. See Exporting opening balance invoices and credit memos to QuickBooks below.
Click Save Invoice to complete the Invoice.
Click Close Window.
Click Finish to close the Action Menu.
The Finalize Log dialog opens.
Add comments as needed, and then click Save Log.
The invoice is automatically attached to the lower section of the log note.
You have now created an opening balance invoice in HawkSoft.
Credit memos are used to set the opening balance for any customer who has a credit, or negative balance owed to the agency.
- Retrieve the client, and then select the relevant policy tab.
Click Action, and then select Internal > Trust Accounting > Create Credit Memo.
The Credit Memo dialog box opens.
- Set the Date field to your opening balance date.
Leave the default option, TBA, for the Invoice number.
HawkSoft assigns an Invoice # when you complete the invoice.
Use the Search Agents field to verify that the correct agent is associated with this invoice.
- Select Opening Balance from the Item drop-down menu.
- Select Balance as of xx/xx/xxxx from the Description drop-down list.
- Enter the credit balance in the Amount field.
- Skip the Retained field.
- Optional:
Enter comments in the Printed Comment field.
This information will appear on the printed invoice.
Enter an additional description into the Note field.
Information in the Note field provides a description for this item in the Trust Accounting tab in the client file. Notes are for internal use only and are not seen by the client.
If this customer already has a credit balance in QuickBooks for this invoice, check the Do Not Transfer to QuickBooks box.
If unchecked, the adjusted balance will be available from the To be Exported report. See Exporting opening balance invoices and credit memos to QuickBooks below.
Click Save Credit Memo to complete the credit memo.
The Open Invoices dialog opens with all invoices checked by default.
- Click Credit Application.
Click Close Window.
The Finalize Log dialog opens. The invoice information, including the invoice number, amount, due date, item and description, and the memo information is automatically included in the log comments.
Add additional comments as needed, and then click Save Log.
You have now created an opening balance credit memo in HawkSoft.
Once all the opening balance invoices and credit memos have been created, they can be exported to QuickBooks.
Click Accounting > Trust Accounting from the HawkSoft menu bar.
The End of Period Processing and Reporting window opens.
- Click Trust Accounting, and then select To Be Exported from the drop-down menu.
Select the Invoices and Credit Memos that should be exported to QuickBooks by checking the boxes on the left side of the report.
Click Export to post all of the listed invoices.
- Close the report.
Your invoices and credit memos have now been transferred to QuickBooks. Customer balances should now be the same in both HawkSoft and QuickBooks. Please see Comparing Customer Balances in HawkSoft and QuickBooks for the steps needed to verify that both HawkSoft and QuickBooks customer balances match.
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