The Financial Management area offers the Customer Fund Transactions folder where you can manage customer funds or other property that is in your company’s possession but not part of its own capital. To use this, your company must have bank accounts outside of your own bookkeeping, that are not used for paying the company’s own invoices or receiving assets that belong to the company itself.

Number series for customer fund transactions / vouchers

The legislation requires separate customer fund accounts for managing bankruptcies and customer funds of private persons. The system enables creating separate number series for transactions and vouchers of these accounts. 

You can take a customer fund account into use as follows:  

1. First, define a new customer fund transaction number series in the Settings > Financial Settings > Customer Fund Transaction Number Series. 
2. Select New to add a new number series.
3. Name the number series (Value). 
4. Define the format of the number series.
   • dd = current day
   • mm = current month
   • yyyy = current year
   • NOTE! Use small letters and "#"  for numbers. 
5. For the Number Series field, select the desired number series for customer fund transactions. 
6. Similarly, add a new number series for customer fund vouchers (Settings > Financial Settings > Customer Fund Voucher Number Series). 
7. Next, go to the business unit and add a new customer fund account in the Customer Fund Accounts folder. 
   
8. Define the number series for both customer fund transactions and customer fund vouchers. 

The new number series is now ready for use. They are saved to new customer fund transactions when selecting the customer fund account. After saving the customer fund transaction it is no longer possible to change its customer fund account. 

Managing customer fund transactions

Separating assets that belong to different customers is easiest if there are several bank accounts in use, although the same asset account (bank account) can still be used to handle the financial transactions of several principals. To keep track of the assets belonging to different principals it is advisable to use some type of simpler, separate bookkeeping of each principal’s transactions.

A customer’s funds can also be seen in the Customer Funds folder of the customer or matter window. 

Add a new customer fund transaction as follows:

1. Go to the Customer Funds folder and flick ’New’ on the ribbon.
   
2. Choose the customer fund account (i.e. bank account) to which the fund is registered. 
3. Choose the customer whose transaction you are registering, and a matter if the transaction relates to a specific one.
4. Fill into the Text field a description of the customer fund.
5. Enter a Saving Date (the date that the transaction is registered in the system) and a Bank Transfer Date (the date when the money reached your asset account).
6. Add the sum of the deposit or withdrawal in the Amount field.
7. The customer fund transaction is automatically listed as a Deposit. If the transaction is a Withdrawal, change the type under Booking Information.
8. Save.

A saved customer fund transaction gets its own transaction and voucher numbers. A customer fund transaction cannot be deleted, but you can settle it by making a counter-registration. Attach the original registration in the Settled Transaction field.

Using customer fund transactions as a template

To speed up creation of new customer fund transactions, you can select one of the existing customer fund transactions and the Use as Template button on the ribbon.

The function opens a window for a new customer fund transaction and copies to it the customer fund account, customer, matter, and text. If required, this information can be edited before saving the new customer fund transaction.

Customer Funds Reporting

Check the status of the different customer fund accounts as follows:

1. Go to the Customer Fund Transactions folder.
2. Select the blue account number link in the Customer Fund Account column.
   
3. In the window that opens you can check the basic account information.
4. Go to the Customer Fund Transactions folder to see the transactions registered on this account. Or select Show Customer Fund Transactions on the ribbon. 

You can also follow up on the customer fund accounts using a report. In the Financial Reports folder of the Reports area, you can find the reports “Customer Funds – Accounts and Transactions”,  and “Open Customer Funds” for that purpose.

The easiest way to check the status of a specific customer’s fund transactions is to open the customer window and to go to the Customer Fund Transactions folder. The list can be exported to Excel and sent to the customer if required.