Agency Setup

Fields

What is this?

Agency #

Defaults to your Vertafore Agency Number, and cannot be changed.

Name

Enter your agency Name and Address as you want them to appear on all forms, applications and form letter defaults.

If your state insurance department requires the printing of the agency's license number on forms issued by the agency, include it on one of the address lines in this section.

Address

City

State

Zip

Latitude

These fields are read-only and fill based on whether or not Map Point (http://mappoint.msn.com) can determine the mapping coordinates for the agency address.

Longitude

Phone Numbers and Email

Enter your agency Phone Numbers, and Email Address as applicable.

• Business

• Fax

• 24 Hour

• Email

• Web Address

If you choose...

Name/Address and Phone Numbers Default From...

Agency

Agency Setup > Name, Address and Phone Numbers section.

Branch Assigned to Policy

Based on the branch assigned to the policy, pull fromAgency Setup>Accounting Options>Business Unit Setup form > Branch section.

Department Assigned to Policy

Based on the department assigned to the policy, pull from Agency Setup > Accounting Options > Business Unit Setup form > Departmentsection.

Division Assigned to Policy

Based on the division assigned to the policy, pull from Agency Setup > Accounting Options > Business Unit Setup form > Divisionsection.

Group Assigned to Policy

Based on the group assigned to the policy, pull from Agency Setup > Accounting Options > Business Unit Setup form > Group section.

Division Assigned to Bank

Based on the division assigned to the bank, pull from Agency Setup > Accounting Options > Business Unit Setup form > Divisionsection.

Branch Assigned to Customer

Based on the branch assigned to the customer, pull from Agency Setup > Accounting Options > Business Unit Setup form > Branch section.

Department Assigned to Customer

Based on the department assigned to the customer, pull from Agency Setup > Accounting Options > Business Unit Setup form > Departmentsection.

Division Assigned to Customer

Based on the division assigned to the customer, pull from Agency Setup > Accounting Options > Business Unit Setup form > Divisionsection.

Group Assigned to the Customer

Based on the division assigned to the customer, pull from Agency Setup > Accounting Options > Business Unit Setup form > Group section.

...Customer/Policy

Whenever the address selection includes these two options, the address pulls based on the customer settings, if a policy is not selected. (Policy takes priority, if selected.) If neither a policy or customer is selected the agency address is used.

Groups/Fields

What is this?

Agency Bill

Bill Using Downloaded Premiums

Select this option, if you want to Customer Center Bill downloaded policy transactions.

Bill Using Manually Entered Premiums

Select this option, if you want to Customer Center bill manually entered premiums.

Direct Bill

Customer Center

Select this option if you want to Customer Center bill your direct bill business. Then choose the appropriate premium billing option.

Direct Bill Statement (Deluxe)

Choose this option if you want to bill your direct bill business by Direct Bill Statement. See a synopsis of this feature below:

1. Fully integrated direct bill statement tracking driven from the policy transactions.

2. Reconciles the direct bill statement to the policy transactions.

3. Tracks premium and unbilled premium at the policy transaction level.

4. Automatically (and forces user to) match direct bill downloaded statements to the direct bill statements generated transaction by transaction.

5. Used for center billed reconciliation.

6. Generally takes more time to process unless the policy system is kept current.

Choose the Direct Bill Statement (Deluxe)option and then choose the appropriate premium billing option.

Direct Bill Entry

Choose this option if you want to bill your direct bill business by Direct Bill Entry. See a synopsis of this feature below:Choose the appropriate premium billing option.

1. Integrated at the policy level.

2. No reconciliation to the policy transactions.

3. Tracks billed statement premium at the policy level.

4. Requires manual keying of the data or direct bill download.

5. Does not support center billed reconciliation.

6. Generally takes less time to process if you don't need integration, reconciliation, and you use direct bill download.

Choose the Direct Bill Entry option and then choose the appropriate premium billing option.

Receipt Check from Company (basic policy information not necessary)

Choose this option if you only want to receipt the direct bill check from the company, without billing it. Then choose the appropriate premium billing option.

What threshold amount would you like to use for direct bill reconciliation?

This threshold pertains only to the Direct Bill Statement option above, when choosing how you want to invoice your direct bill transactions.

This is a premium threshold, set by line of business (all or specific). This amount determines when a policy transaction on the Direct Bill Commission Statement is considered reconciled.

Field/Group

What is this?

Business Unit

AMS360 allows you to define a hierarchy of Business Units based on your agency structure.

An agency must contain at least one division and one department. AMS360 comes with a default division and department. If you need more Business Units for your agency, you can turn on Branch and Group in Agency Setup > Accounting Options.

Available business units include:

You can add a Branch to an existing Division and/or a Group to an existing Department. You cannot convert an existing Division into a Branch, nor can you make an existing Department into a Group. If such a conversion is desired, contact the Professional Services Custom Group profsvcscust@vertafore.com.

Business Unit Setup

Once the business units are activated, click this link to setup the division(s), or branch(s), and department(s) or group(s).

Business Unit Assignment for Filtering

Opens the Business Unit Assignment form.

Users with security access to Agency Setup are granted access to Business Unit Assignment as well.

Field/Group

What is this?

Accounting Basis

Select whether your agency accounting basis is Cash or Accrual. For additional information, see Choosing the Cash or Accrual Accounting Method. Vertafore also recommends that you consult your agency accountant.

AMS360 defaults to Accrual basis accounting.

Once an Accounting option is selected and accounting information has been entered, you cannot change the accounting basis.

Receivable Aging Categories

Aging categories are the number of days old "buckets" for reporting your receivables open balances. Set up the day range categories most useful to your agency. For example:, (0-15), (16-30), (31-45), (Over 45). Fill in Category 1-3 as appropriate for your agency.

Notice as you change the number of days in the To fields, the From fields dynamically change to that same number of days +1. This ensures balanced aging categories with no missing days.

Fiscal Year's Beginning Month

Select the first month of your agency's fiscal year from the list. For example, if the agency is on a calendar year, select January. Check with your agency's accountant if unsure.

This setting cannot be changed once there are accounting transactions in the system.

Set Small Balance Threshold to:

The dollar amount entered here represents the maximum invoice balance, which employees with appropriate security, can write off through the Receipt process.

Number of Days to Invoice in Advance of the Invoice Effective Date:

This number specifies when the system generates and posts Customer Center Billed (Agency and Direct) invoice transactions, in advance of their effective dates. This allows you to print, send, and/or collect these premiums in a timely fashion.

This value can be set to any number the agency chooses. Common choices to bill in advance are 30 or 45 days.

Example:

Set the number of days to bill in advance to 30. Based on the current system date, when Daily Process is run, any invoice with an effective date equal to or less than 30 days in the future will post and print. Any invoice more than 30 days in the future will not.

For the occasional invoice that requires posting and printing more than the number of days to bill in advance, such as certain types of bonds, use the Post Future Invoice option.

Automatically apply receipts to oldest invoices

Allocates an Amount entered into the Receipt Information section of the Receipts form automatically in the Insured (or Broker) Accounts Receivable grid based on the oldest Invoice Date.

If this option is active, tabbing out of the Amount field applies the payment amount to the Invoice Balance with the earliest Invoice Date. Amounts matching Invoice Balances are applied until the receipt amount is exhausted.

The default method (option unchecked) allows you to allocate payments to specific invoices by checking the AutoFill box on a row or by typing the desired Amount and Description in the grid. This method is recommended if agency policy is to apply customer payments as directed by the insured.

Example:

Option is Active (checked in Agency Setup)

On tabbing out of the Amount field, $1000 was applied to Inv Date 1/11/05. Remaining $9,000 was applied to next oldest invoice (Inv Date 2/4/05).

Default setting (Automatically apply option is unchecked)

In this example, tabbing out of the Receipt Information Amount field caused no automatic distribution. The user then clicked the AutoFill box on Invoice #22, Inv Date 2/4/05, to match the invoice identified by the customer with payment.

Display Financial Center items as summary

If this option is checked, certain Financial Center summary items (Unbilled Policies, Unreplaced Binders and Invoices to Print) display either Yes (such items exist) or No (none exist). The option defaults as checked.

Unchecking the option causes the system to count how many of each item exists in the system and displays the resulting number. Depending on how large the count is, this selection may result in slower performance when opening the Financial Center.

Divisional Control

When agencies merge or form cluster alliances, the ability to maintain different Charts of Accounts and/or Fiscal Year Ends for each entity can be important. Use the Divisional Control group in this section to activate these features.

Important you must have security authorization for all divisions to set these options.

You cannot alter fiscal year ends for an existing Division. When a new division is added with a different Chart of Accounts you can remove authorization for existing Divisions to use a particular GL account, if desired. See Chart of Accounts Setup for more details.

The following options are available in the Divisional Control group:

Late Charge Options

The system assesses late charges during Daily Process on the last day of the fiscal period. The default option is Do Not Generate Late Charges.

Binder Post Method

This option determines when a binder invoice posts to the general ledger, payables, income and expenses.

Invoices will not pull to account current and/or commission statements until the binder policy transaction has been replaced, regardless of the binder post method selected.

Commission Parameter Ranking

This option allows you to identify how you want to rank Agency and Employee/Broker (Production) commissions. The rankings determine which rate the system uses if an agency or direct bill invoice matches on more than one commission parameter.

Agency commissions must be entered by writing company therefore Writing Company is, by default, ranked #1 and cannot be changed. The other categories in the Agency commissions group can be ranked as desired.

The parameters in the Employee/Broker group can be ranked in any order you desire.

Example:

Set up rankings for Company A to:

• Writing Company (1)

• Line of Business (2)

• Company Plan (3)

• Transaction (4)

As part of Company Setup, you then enter commission rates of:

• 10% for the Line of Business = Burglary

• 12% for Transaction = New Business

When you enter New Business for a Burglary policy, the system finds a match on Burglary (10%) and on New Business (12%). Since you ranked Line of Business higher than Transaction, the 10% rate would be used.

Fields

What is this?

Vendor Accounting Basis

Select the option you want to use for your agency's vendor accounting basis.

This selection must be made prior to posting any vendor invoices. It is not changeable after posting the first invoice.

If your agency accounting basis in Agency Setup > Accounting Options is set to Accrual, then you can set the Vendor Accounting Basis to AccrualorCash.

If the agency accounting basis in Accounting Options is set to Cash, then the vendor accounting basis must be Cash.

The following table includes considerations to use in making your decision.

Business Unit Allocation Setup

If you have already set up your agency's business units, then you can use the Business Unit Allocation data entry form to define vendor expense splits among these business units.

Click this link to open the Business Unit Allocation form.

Select the GL Number to use for Vendor Payables Interdivision Transfers

From the list, select the general ledger account number to which your agency posts its Vendor Payables Interdivision Transfer transactions.

The account number that you select must be a detail account in the Balance Sheet account number range (10000 - 39999).

Fields

What is this?

Display Options

Scheduled Reports

These reports are encrypted and can only be viewed from via the Scheduled Reports delivery method, according to an individual user's security access. See Scheduled Reports > Security Access to Scheduled Reports.

Center Banner-Integration Product Options

Download Information

Set Session Timeout to

Set this option  to determine how long an AMS360 user's Internet Explorer session can sit with no activity before closing AMS360. The default setting is 20 minutes. To increase/decrease the amount of inactive time before the system requires the user to log in, change the hours and/or minutes.

Making a change to this time setting affects all users on the system.

Agency Password Setup

Opens Agency Password Setup. Use this to modify Agency Password requirements and rules.

Retain Authentication Information for

Authentication history has a minimum of 30 Days and a maximum of 7 Years 0 Days.  Default setting is 90 Days.

Secured by default to Owner, Administrator, and Bookeeper.

Default option to automatically check 'Business With Agency' checkboxes ON for New Customers

Checking this box in Agency Setup, automatically checks the Automatically check based on active policies checkbox in Customer Setup > Name & Address section > Business With Agency group, for all new customers.

Field

What is this?

Benefits Agency No

Enter your AMS Services FOCUS number.

Example: 200XXXX

Password

Enter the word, benefits, in all lower-case letters. This password is pre-set and cannot be changed.

The password is case-sensitive.