What is the most efficient way to process Direct Bill Statements that are not in a CVS format?
PrintCarrier Download Policies/ Commissions
If the carrier is downloading directly to Nowcerts either through Ivans or another source, there is no need to reconcile as the direct bill download reconciles the commission for you. If you like, you can run an agency commission report for that carrier to see if there are any discrepancies. I usually do this every other month or so. What I am looking for is any record that did not balance completely when I know the carrier pays in full for each endorsement. This could indicate that the commission was applied to the wrong endorsement. This is rare, but it happens and can cause confusion. This can also be due to the way the carrier is downloading the commission they will pay and then their actual payment. It may be off by a penny or two. In that case you would just want to edit said endorsement commission to reflect what they actually paid making the commission still due zero. In the event that the balance still due is a large amount, you will want to look at the endorsements for that policy. More than likely you will see right away which endorsement the commission should have been applied to. You will add the commission payment to the correct endorsement and delete it from the one that it was applied to erroneously. Typically, you will see something like this when you are new to the Nowcerts and the downloads started coming in after other endorsements were already entered for that policy but no money was attributed to them in the system because it was reconciled in your old system. On renewal and with brand new policies, you are unlikely to see this happen.
Video instructions;
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Direct Bill Commission reconciliation that is entered manually
The key to keeping this simple is to make sure that you are creating the endorsements correctly. To aid in this please see the article on entering in Endorsements. As long as there is commission for the agency and agent you will be set up to reconcile both very easily. If you have not gotten that far you will want to enter each policy on the list and generate transaction so that the commission gets calculated.
When you are ready to reconcile, have your statement from the carrier/MGA handy and got to Miscellaneous, accounting items and then reconciliations from the left menu. In reconciliations you will select “Manually Select Agency Commissions”. In the search criteria you can filter by carrier or MGA, by endorsement date. If your commission statement is listed in alphabetical or you can sort by insured. If the list is by carrier, you can choose to sort by carrier.
Once you have sorted the way that suits you best, you will want to enter the total amount you were paid in the “Funds Paid” cell at the top of the list. Then you will go through the list of commissions available to be paid on and you can check the policies to reconcile. If the amount of commission in Nowcerts does not match the amount they are paying it might be that the carrier pays monthly towards the total commission. You can amend the amount received to reflect the statement your carrier or MGA provided. It will reconcile the amount you choose and leave the remaining balance for next time. Once you have selected all the policies and amounts the balance next to funds paid should be zero. Then you will go to the actions button on the right side of the list and select create new statement. This will reconcile the records and create a statement that you can export to Excel or in PDF format. It is a good idea to download a copy and save it, just in case you accidentally alter the statement and you need to see the original.