Calculating Finance Charges

You can calculate, review, and post finance charges or late charges to billable clients who have past due account balances.

When you set up a finance charge in Lists, you can specify the number of days after which the system will automatically calculate a finance charge for an invoice. If you assign a finance charge to a client in the client profile on the Practice > Billing Options window, the finance charge will be applied when the finance charge criteria are met. Whether a finance charge is applied is based on the number of days from the invoice date the invoice remains unpaid. The number of days unpaid is calculated at the time finance charges are generated.

If transactions you were expecting to see do not appear in the grid, be sure you have performed the following:

• Set up a finance charge in Lists.
• Assigned the finance charge to the client.
• Created a bill dated prior to the date set up in Lists.
• Posted an invoice in Billing. If an invoice has been created but not posted, the client's record will not display.

To calculate finance charges, do the following:

1. Open Dashboard, click Application Links on the navigation panel, and then select Calculate finance charges under Accounts Receivable.
2. Enter the client criteria to determine which clients will receive finance charges. If you have previously set up the client criteria, skip to step 4.

Component	Description
Cut off date	Select a date to use in determining which unpaid invoices/charges qualify for finance charges. This is the only required field.
Include unpaid tax	Select if you want to include all tax amounts when calculating the finance charge.
Include inactive clients	Select whether inactive clients should receive a finance charge.
Office	Select an office if you want to limit the list of clients receiving a finance charge to the selected office.
Client responsible staff position	Select a client responsible staff position if you want to limit the list of clients receiving a finance charge to clients who are assigned to a staff with the selected client responsible staff position. If you select this option, you must specify the client responsible staff.
Client responsible staff	Enter a client responsible staff if you want to limit the list of clients receiving a finance charge to clients who are assigned to the selected staff.

3. Click Review Detail. The clients that meet the criteria you entered are displayed in the grid. This step is optional.
4. Review the finance charge information, and if necessary, do one or all of the following:
   • Click Remove next to a client’s name to remove their finance charge.

     Note: Unless a client is removed, finance charges will be processed for all clients that meet the criteria.

   • Click next to a finance charge amount to edit the amount.
   • Click Export to Excel to save the list of finance charges to a Microsoft^® Excel^® file.

   Note: You can click Clear Calculations to return to the Select Client Criteria window at any time. If you make changes to the finance charges, but are not ready to post yet, you can click Save.

5. Click Confirm & Post.
6. Enter a finance charge transaction date to associate with the finance charge transaction and with the clients’ AR account. You cannot enter a date that is on or before the lock reconcilliation date if your firm has selected to set the accounting period to current.
7. Click Post. Finance charges will now be reflected in the clients’ balances and also appear in AR statements and reports.