Workflow: Processing Download Direct Bill Commission Statement Transactions

Download Direct Bill Commission Statement (DBCS) is offered as an optional download feature in AMS360. This statement is the electronic form of the direct bill statement received along with your commission check each month from the company.

 

DBCS requires a license. For more information, contact Vertafore Sales at http://www.vertafore.com/contact-us.

Once the direct bill download is received and Customer and Policy Assignment is complete, the transaction has been assigned based on your Company Setup:

Once DBCS transactions are assigned and processed, the "How Billed" field in Policy is set. Do the following based on the direct bill setup for the company:

  1. Build a New Direct Bill Commission Statement for the company, as normal.
  2. Expand the Compare Transactions Received in Statement Download section.
  3. Select the From and To dates and click refresh to pull all downloaded transactions in the date range selected. You can also use the Select Specific Statement list to fill the grid with only transactions contained in a specific downloaded company statement.
 

The Select Specific Statement method is the better choice if your goal is to match existing AMS360 transactions to a specific commission payment received from the carrier. You may also wish to post the statement with a GL Date equal to the commission receipt date to facilitate audit comparisons.
  1. The Compare process involves matching transactions in the Compare Transactions Received in Statement Download section of the Direct Bill Commission Statement with transactions in the Direct Bill Statement Billed section of the statement. For additional information on this compare process, see the following topics:
  2. With the DBCS Download transactions displayed in the grid, click Auto Match. Auto Match attempts to match as many transactions in the Compare... section with corresponding AMS360 entries in the Direct Bill Statement Billed grid.
  3. The following fields must agree for Auto Match to return a valid match:
Field What is this?

Customer Name

Customer name.

Policy

Policy number from the company.

Writing Company

Writing Company.

TranEffDate

The downloaded transaction effective date compared to the transaction effective date in AMS360.

LOB/Chg

Policy Line of Business (LOB) and/or non-premium charge (Chg).

TranType

Policy Transaction Type.

Prem/Fees/Taxes

Compares totals of premiums/non-premium amounts.

Agency Commission Method/Percent

Compares the Agency Commission Method and Agency Commission Percent (rate).

Agency Amount

Dollar amount of agency commission.
 

Since the billing source for AMS360 transactions involved in this process is most often policy Download, the DBCS download statement entry and the original company downloaded transaction should be a match.
  1. Once a transaction is matched it no longer appears in the Compare Transactions Received in Statement Download section. Any rows remaining after Auto Match is run, can be matched manually. To do this, click the Match Indicator link U (in the Match grid column) to open the Match Statement Transactions form where you can manually match remaining items.

When you have matched and merged all or Direct Bill transactions in a download file, print the Download Report. The report lists transactions that require further attention and may not have loaded completely. If a transaction was not loaded, a message appears on the report telling you why. The Troubleshooting Download Messages topic provides more information about the messages and their solutions.

It is important to review all download reports after each session, as each provides critical information about the success of your download.

Following are some tips for ensuring the quantity and quality of the information available to the statement matching process:

Tips for Consideration

Tip #1

It is very important that the settings in the Agency Setup form > Default Company Settings section and the Company Setup form > Billing Options section concerning direct bill and download, be properly configured so that transactions are available to this process.

Tip #2

The more information entered into the Company Setup form > Commission Setup section for commissions by line of business (LOB), and transaction type for each company, the better the quality of the match results.

Tip #3

You should make every effort to correctly match all company DBCS download statement entries in the Compare Transactions Received in Statement Download section to the corresponding AMS360 policy transactions in the Direct Bill Statement Billed Transactions section.

 

Only the data rows existing in the Direct Bill Statement Billed Transactions section and any adjustments to the Customer Center Billed Transactions actually post to the general ledger as part of direct bill commission statement posting.

Tip #4

The matching process is a "One to Many" and a "Many to One" process. This means that one entry in the Direct Bill Statement Billed Transactions grid can clear more than one entry in the Compare Transactions Received in Statement Download grid, and vice versa.

There are two ways to process a Direct Bill Entry Statement (DBE). Use the Manual method of entering your direct bill into the Direct Bill Entry statement when you do not download the DBCS Statement transactions from the company.

Download manual entry
  1. Download the DBCS Statement as normal. This statement is the electronic format for the Direct Bill Commission statement received each month along with the commission check.
  2. Assign the transactions a Customer and Policy as normal. For more information on this process, see the topic Customer and Policy Assignment.
  3. Based on your billing options in Agency Setup form > Default Company Settings section and Company Setup form > Billing Options section, the transactions are assigned one of the three billing options.
    • Customer Center (DBI)
    • Direct Bill Commission Statement Deluxe (DBS)
    • Direct Bill Entry Statement (DBE) For those transactions given a DBE designation, and Direct Bill Entry Statement is created automatically.
  4. Find and open the Direct Bill Entry Statement from the Direct Bill view in the Financial Center or the Register view in the Company Center. Review the statement.
  5. Post the statement.
  1. Open the Direct Bill Entry form from the Company Center or the Financial Center by selecting New Direct Bill Entry from the Actions section of the sidebar.
  2. Enter the required information into the Statement Identification section.
  3. Click Save. This opens the Direct Bill Detail section where you can enter the detail from the statement.
  4. Search for your customer. Your direct bill transaction must be attached to a customer. This does not happen if you type in the customer name.

    Type in a portion of the customer name and click Search.
  5. Manually enter the transactions by one or a combination of the following methods. For additional information on this process, see the Direct Bill Entry topic.
    • Finding the policy from the Policy System.
    • Finding the policy from a Prior Statement.
    • Entering the Policy Number (Accounting Only Policy)
  6. Once you have entered all of your transactions and the Company and Agency Totals are in balance, change the Statement Status to Ready to Post.
  7. Enter in the GL Date if not already entered.
  8. Post the statement.