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Benefits of Electronic Payments

Cash receipts is the lifeblood of any organization including community associations. Community associations have to receive cash before bills can be paid, payroll checks written, and reserves funded. But the handling of cash receipts can be the single most time-consuming function done by a management company or a self-managed community. Look at the steps that have to be done when cash receipt are being manually entered into an accounting system:

1. Open envelopes containing checks
2. Sort checks by community
3. Enter payments into accounting system
4. Post payments in accounting system
5. Stamp checks "For Deposit Only"
6. Write deposit ticket
7. Take deposit to the bank

Have you stopped to think how much time is spent doing the above 7 steps? It’s huge. Now what if you could avoid all but one of these steps? A HUGE time-savings would be the result. Well that’s the big benefit and the big appeal of Lockbox Processing and Direct Debit payments. TOPS 2000™ has both of these capabilities built-in to give you the tremendous time-saving efficiencies of electronic payment processing. But what exactly is Lockbox Processing and Direct Debit?

Lockbox Processing

Under lockbox, payments are mailed directly to a bank along with a payment coupon which identifies the community and the homeowner. The bank scans the coupon electronically which tells it which community’s bank account to deposit the check into. From there, the bank builds a cash receipt file for each payment received into the lockbox system so it can transmit the file to the management office. The cash receipt file created by the bank is formatted so it will be recognized by TOPS Software. The file tells TOPS which community and which home the payment should be credited to along with the amount and, typically, the check #.

So if you use Lockbox Processing with your bank in combination with TOPS 2000™ what do you need to do to get the payments recorded into TOPS? Not much. First, you need to get the cash receipt file from the bank usually by going to the bank’s web site and downloading the file. Second, within TOPS 2000™ you browse your computer system to get the cash receipt file and bring it into TOPS. As it is brought into TOPS a lockbox processing report is printed showing each payment broken down by community so you can "proof" the cash receipts before proceeding. Third, simply click the option to "Post & Deposit" all payments. Each community is updated for the payments received by the bank plus a separate Deposit Report is printed for each community listing every home where a payment was received and how the payments were applied against the balances due. That’s all you need to do.

So by utilizing Lockbox Processing with your bank in combination with the powerful lockbox interface in TOPS 2000™, all the time spent on cash receipt entry is reduced from as much as several hours a day down to as little as 5 minutes. Imagine how these time-savings could be used to reallocate your staff to handle other tasks. Lockbox Processing can transform your office operations.

Direct Debit

Under Direct Debit, a file is generated in the ACH format (also called NACHA) which can be processed by your bank through the Federal Reserve system. The ACH file causes an electronic debit to be made against a homeowner’s bank account and the payment is then electronically deposited into the community’s bank account. An authorization must be obtained from each homeowner giving permission to debit their bank account for the amount of the recurring maintenance fees. Like lockbox, no payments are physically received by the management office, everything is handled electronically thus saving all the processing time compared to manual check processing. No payment coupons are needed for Direct Debit, so this saves on printing expense.

TOPS 2000™ has built-in ability to handle Direct Debits. In the Owner information, there is an area to record the owner’s bank account information. Also, the recurring charges to be paid by Direct Debit can be selected. Each billing period, simply generate a "global" ACH file which includes all homeowners who have authorized debits in all communities. Simultaneously with generating the ACH file in TOPS 2000™, each homeowner's account is updated for the Direct Debit payment—automatically, so no need to do any cash receipt entry in TOPS. A separate Deposit Report is printed showing the payments in each community and how the payments where applied against the balances due. The ACH file is then uploaded to your bank so it can process the debit files through the Federal Reserve system. That’s it, the cash receipts are processed electronically.

So, like Lockbox, by utilizing Direct Debit within TOPS 2000™, all the time spent on cash receipt entry is eliminated so that in as little as 5 minutes, you are done with all the payments being made by Direct Debit for an entire billing period. Think of the significant time-savings this offers your staff.

To summarize, TOPS 2000™ offers many labor saving possibilities to management companies and self-managed communities, but probably none are greater than the time saved through the use of Lockbox and Direct Debit payments to automate your cash receipt processing. If you are manually entering cash receipts, you should seriously consider the labor saving advantages offered by Lockbox and Direct Debit capabilities in TOPS 2000™.

For more information, please contact our sales department at 1-800-760-9966 or via email at sales@topssoft.com.

Jeff Hardy is the President of TOPS Software.

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