Finance Charges/Discounts

GlobalWare can automatically calculate finance charges and discounts and create the transactions for your agency's business (corporate) accounts. You establish finance charges and discounts for business account IDs on the Report Options screen, which you can access on the Edit Customer screen.

Finance charges are income for the agency, and post to the 4310 chart (Finance Charge Income). Finance charges increase the customer's due amount. Discounts are an expense and therefore reduce profit; they post to the 6038 chart (Discounts). Discounts reduce the customer's due amount.

Before you print statements each billing period, post finance charges or discounts applied to specific account IDs to the general ledger. The discount/charge will display on the next statement for the account. You cannot post additional finance charges until the customer statement has been closed.

1. On the Corporate submenu, click Finance Charges/Discounts.

   The Finance Charges/Discounts screen appears.

   Finance Charges/Discounts screen

   

2. Enter the date through which you want the finance charge or discount applied (generally the ending date for statements). For accounts with a grace period specified for finance charges, GlobalWare will subtract the number of days in the grace period from the cut-off date and generate the finance charge through that date.

3. Enter an account ID if you want to limit the finance charge or discount generated to that account ID. You can enter @interest for only those accounts that have an interest or @tagged for only those accounts that are tagged. Leave this field blank for all accounts.

   To find and select a customer account ID, click the lookup () button. The Find an Account ID screen appears. For details, see Using the Lookup Buttons and Screens.

4. Select Finance Charges to generate finance charges or Discounts to generate discounts.

5. Click OK.

   The adjustments are created and the report is generated. For information about the report destination options, see Printing Overview.

Posting to the General Ledger

When you generate a finance charge or discount, GlobalWare does the following:

• Writes a payment record, which you can view in Adjust Accounts and on accounts receivable reports.
• Writes two general ledger transactions for each selected account ID, which you can view in the general ledger and on general ledger reports. Discounts debit 6038 and credit the unapplied funds chart. Finance charges credit 4310 and debit the unapplied funds chart.

A record in the Cash Receipts (CashReceipts) table is also created, but this is not a true cash receipt (its type is "A" for adjustment) and does not appear on the cash receipts report.

Report Notes

• The Pay ID # is the unique identifier of the adjustment created. The Pay ID # prints on the report in Adjust Accounts. The Pay ID # can be queried in GL Edit & Query, and it prints on the GL Query report.
• The G/L Accounts columns display the charts to which the debit and the credit for the adjustment are posted. Discounts debit 6038 and credit the unapplied funds chart. Finance charges credit 4310 and debit the unapplied funds chart. The credit chart is the Unapplied Customer Funds chart, which is usually 2040.
• The Amount is the amount of the adjustment.
• The Branch is the branch specified in the Account ID Additional tab to which the discount or finance charges are posted.