Workflow: Understanding and Entering Business Unit Assignments

Creating Divisions in Agency Setup, and making corresponding Department assignments is critical to establishing your agency's accounting and reporting structure in AMS360. All customers must be assigned to a division and department for their data to be saved.

In addition, based on the complexity of your agency operations, it may be desirable to use the additional business unit levels of Branch and/or Group, found in Agency Setup > Accounting Options, Business Unit Setup.

Each employee is assigned Division/Branch/Department/Group Security Access in Employee Setup that allows or restricts their access to customer records. Additions or changes to business units should be done with careful planning in order to limit possible adverse results. Review the sections below for more information:

Business Unit Setup is accessed from a link within the Accounting Options section of Agency Setup.

To access Business Unit Setup after initial system configuration:

  1. Open the Administration Center. On the Agency Overview toolbar, click Edit.
  2. Expand the Accounting Options section.
  3. Activate the desired business unit levels by checking the appropriate boxes in the Business Unit group.
  4. Click the Business Unit Setup link.

Create multiple divisions if you need:

  1. Security by location or operation. Security is available by division.
  2. Different fiscal year ends. Each division can have a different year end.
  3. Different Chart of Accounts. Each division can have a unique chart of accounts.
  4. Separate Balance Sheet reports for two or more business operations. Different ownership structures or primary business functions for each division, such as an insurance agency and a real estate agency with the same ownership, can create this necessity.
  5. Reporting by Division. Many financial and customer reports can be run using division as a selection criteria for the report.
  6. Different bank accounts for each location or operation.

The following conditions must be met to create separate divisions:

  • Since the accounting method, cash basis vs. accrual is set at the Agency level, all divisions must have the same accounting method.
  • Each division must have it's own bank accounts. Each bank account is coded to a specific division and serves the customers for that division.
  • Separate general ledger and customer beginning balances must be entered for each division.
 

If the divisions cannot operate as separate financial entities with separate bank accounts and account currents (by division, by company), you should not use multiple divisions.


Inter-division transfer of funds is available only for payments made using the Vendor Payables feature of AMS360. Otherwise to transfer funds between divisions requires a check from one division and a receipt to the other division. In these circumstances, we suggest creating separate branches or departments, allowing for separate and/or consolidated Income and Expense Statement reports.

There are two levels of Business Unit assignments in AMS360:

Level What is this?

Customer

A business unit assignment is required in the Name & Address section of each Customer. The fields available for selection in the Business Unit group are based on the levels activated in Agency Setup.

Policy

When creating a new policy, the business unit assignment defaults from the Customer level.

Until an accounting transaction posts to the policy, the business unit selections can be changed at the policy level by accessing the Business Unit fields of the Basic Policy Information section and selecting from the lists.

Once an accounting transaction exists on a policy, the Business Unit fields are no longer accessible at the policy level. If a change of assignment is required, due to adding an additional department or activating Branch or Group after initial system setup, see the possible work flow options below:

If it is not critical that accounting records reflect the new business unit assignment as of a specific point in time cut-off date, change the policy-level assignments as each policy renews.

  1. Activate a new business unit level by marking the appropriate check box in Agency Setup/Accounting Options.  If adding a new department proceed to step #2.
  2. Add the new unit/department in Business Unit Setup and attach it to the appropriate business unit level.
  3. Open each Customer assigned to the old business unit combination and change the business unit assignment.
  4. Change the policy-level business unit assignments as the policies renew.

If it is critical that accounting records reflect the business unit assignment as of a specific cut-off date and mid-term policy reassignments are required (such as in cases of a division change due to a corporate ownership change), follow the steps below:

  1. Activate a new business unit level by checking the appropriate check box in Agency Setup. If adding a new department proceed to step #2.
  2. Add the new unit/department in Business Unit Setup and attach it to the appropriate business unit level.
  3. Open each Customer assigned to the old business unit combination and change the business unit assignment.
  4. Use Copy Policy to create a new policy record with the desired business unit combination.
  5. Create a notation of "New Business Unit" at the policy level in Notation Setup and then select "New Business Unit" from the Notation list in Basic Policy Information to flag the new policy as an alert to anyone doing a billing to use the newly created policy.
  6. Change the Renewal List drop-down in the Basic Policy Information of the 'old' policy to Do Not Include to avoid a duplicate listing on the Expiration/Renewal report.
  7. All billings subsequent to the cut-off date should be billed to the policy containing the new business unit combination.

When adding a branch/department/group it is critical that the unit be assigned to the appropriate units in the next highest level using the [Higher Unit] Assignment for [Lower Unit] section. Just check one or more of the Assign check boxes corresponding to the higher units that should contain the new branch/department/group.

Once a business unit assignment combination has been assigned to a customer, the following message is received if you attempt to edit the assignment by trying to de-select the Assign check box: This department/branch have been assigned to one or more customers. When the department/branch are not assigned to any customers, the branch assignment can be removed for this department.

To edit the assignment, we suggest running a Target List for all customers with this particular business unit assignment. Once you have a list of the customers, change the business unit assignment. Then, when there are no longer any customers assigned to this business unit combination, you can edit the assignment in Business Unit Setup.

The following documents show diagrams for different types of business unit configurations.:

Single Division

Multiple Divisions - No Branch or Group

Multiple Divisions/Branches/Departments/Groups