CENTRAL SUSQUEHANNA INTERMEDIATE UNIT Application: Tax Collection. New Year Tax Collection Cycle Step-by-step Instructions

Transcription

1 CENTRAL SUSQUEHANNA INTERMEDIATE UNIT Application: Tax Collection New Year Tax Collection Cycle Step-by-step Instructions 2013 Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, USA

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3 Table of Contents Introduction... 1 Setting up Directories... 2 Year Assignment Directory... 2 Tax Code Directory... 2 Tax Bill Type Directory... 3 Municipality Directory... 4 Tax Rate Directory... 4 Occupation Directory... 5 Fund Accounting Info Directory... 5 Tax Agency Parameters... 6 Administrative Functions... 6 Setup Directories for New Year... 6 Release Tax Bills for Collection... 7 Summarize/Move Tax Bills to History... 7 Copy Fund Accounting Info Year to Year Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, USA

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5 INTRODUCTION This Step-by-Step Guide will cover how to setup the New Year Tax Collection cycle. Use the directories to define the taxing year, tax bill type, rate, code, and municipality for Real Estate, Per Capita, or Occupation tax bills. In this Step-by-Step instruction you will learn how to: Set up directories that work with the Tax Collection Cycle. Prepare the TAX ACCOUNT MASTER to collect revenue. Revised: 09/25/ Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, USA Page 1

6 SETTING UP DIRECTORIES Year Assignment Directory If your district uses the Tax Billing application and any shared directories have already been established, you do not have to add directories again. Select the YEAR ASSIGNMENT DIRECTORY from the DIRECTORIES menu to define a tax year for the new tax cycle in which bills are to be collected. Click the Add button; enter the Year Code, Description, Beginning, and Ending Dates for the tax year. Optionally, enter the Starting Receipt # and select to Auto Update Installment Eligibility Status. Locked: Select this option to lock the tax year for historical purposes. After a year is locked, no payments can be posted to bills within this tax year using the POST PAYMENTS/EXCEPTIONS, RAPID PAYMENT ENTRY, or POST PAYMENTS FROM INPUT FILE process. In addition, the TAX ACCOUNT MASTER records for a locked year cannot be edited. The following steps are needed if you are a first time user of the Tax Collection application. If you have more than one year of experience with the software, proceed to the ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS section of this document and continue with the Tax Collection Cycle. Tax Code Directory DIRECTORIES > TAX CODE DIRECTORY Add the correct Tax Year, Tax Code, and Description to maintain user defined tax codes. Revised: 09/25/ Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, USA Page 2

7 Tax Bill Type Directory DIRECTORIES > TAX BILL TYPE DIRECTORY/TAX TYPE Add the user defined tax bill types that your agency uses. The fields indicated in the box above are required fields that must have information added to them before you can save the record. NOTE: The Ending Bill # field will display the last bill number the system assigned. In cases where there are deletions or no bills have been calculated, this number will be zero. DIRECTORIES > TAX BILL TYPE DIRECTORY > TAX RELIEF/INSTALLMENTS > TAX BILL DESCRIPTIONS Enter the Number of Installments and Installment Penalty %. Check the box if All Accounts (are) Installment Eligible and if you want to Calculate Penalty on 1st Installment. Optionally, enter the Installment Bill Descriptions. Enter the installment Due Dates in the grid. In the Tax Collection application, the Tax Bill Descriptions information is not needed or required to be able to collect taxes in the software. Revised: 09/25/ Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, USA Page 3

8 Municipality Directory The fields in the box above are required. Enter a user-defined Municipality code (up to four characters) to identify the township, town, or borough, Name, and Type that best describes the municipality (City or Township/Borough), State, and Zip Code. Tax Collector name, Address, and Phone number are not necessary to collect bills. Tax Rate Directory Enter the Tax Year, Municipality, Tax Bill Type, Tax Code, Description, Type (millage, flat, or percent), Amount, Discount, and Penalty information. Enter the exclusion amounts (Homestead, Farmstead, and Gaming Revenue) that your agency requires, all fields are required. Revised: 09/25/ Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, USA Page 4

9 Occupation Directory Enter user-defined Occupation codes to identify taxpayer occupations. Enter up to six characters to identify the occupation. Enter a Description or name (up to 30 characters) for the occupation. Enter the correct Assessment value. (Only enter whole numbers up to Do not enter a dollar sign, comma, or decimal). Fund Accounting Info Directory Tax Collection uses the accounts listed in this directory when Tax Collection revenue information is transferred to the CSIU Fund Accounting application. The transfer will take place (if you have the proper security permission) when you generate the TRANSACTION AUDIT REPORT and select the Report, and Transfer to FA option. If you intend to use the transfer capability of Tax Collection, you should create one FUND ACCOUNT POSTING INFO record for each Tax Year, Municipality, Tax Bill Type, and Tax Code combination. To take advantage of Tax Collection s ability to transfer fund account information, the Transfer Revenue to Fund Acct checkbox on the TAX AGENCY PARAMETERS screen must be selected (checked for yes). If the checkbox is not selected, you may still use this screen to note Fund Accounting codes, but no transfer of information will take place. Revised: 09/25/ Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, USA Page 5

10 Tax Agency Parameters Add or change information on the Tax Agency Parameters screen. Make any changes needed on the General Info tab and change the Tax Year on the Tax Billing tab. Change the Tax Year, select Transferring Revenue to Fund Acct. if applicable, Allow Refunds (enter a Starting Check # if issuing checks from Tax Collection), and enter a Certification Fee if applicable. ADMINISTRATIVE FUNCTIONS Setup Directories for New Year This process copies Tax Code, Tax Type, and Tax Rate information from the current year (or older) to the new year specified. This process must be performed before the MOVE SATISFIED BILLS TO HISTORY or the PURGE OLD TAX BILLS process. When the process is performed, the TAX RATE, TAX BILL TYPE, and MUNICIPALITY directories will need to have correct dates, rates, and tax collector information for the new tax year (To Year) already verified. Revised: 09/25/ Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, USA Page 6

11 Release Tax Bills for Collection Select this menu item to transfer tax bill information from the CSIU Tax Billing application to the CSIU Tax Collection application. Use this process ONLY if the district uses both applications. Perform this process at the beginning of the tax year, after tax bills have been distributed. Additionally, perform this process throughout the year if the district/agency uses the Tax Billing application to generate and print amended or interim tax bills. The RELEASE TAX BILLS FOR COLLECTION process only transfers records that have NOT been previously transferred to Tax Collection. Bills released to Tax Collection will display the message "RELEASED FOR COLLECTIONS" on their TAX ACCOUNT MASTER/TAX BILLS/PAYMENTS tab. OPTIONALLY Summarize/Move Tax Bills to History This function summarizes Tax Bill and Transaction detail information, enters that summarized data into a history table, and deletes the TAX ACCOUNT MASTER and Transaction Detail records from the current tax file. Please be sure to run any reports for the Tax Year BEFORE completing this process. After bills are moved to History, report data for that Tax Year will not be accurate. If Maintain Accounts is checked on TAX BILL TYPE/Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. this program will not run. Remove the check mark to move satisfied tax bills to history. All Bills This option performs both the Move Satisfied and Move Unsatisfied options. Satisfied Only Select this option to move the records of satisfied tax bills to the Tax Collection history table. In most cases, clients transfer satisfied tax bills to history at the end of each tax year. Tax bills paid with partial payments are NOT considered satisfied until a category 1,2,3,D, E, M, or F payment is entered on the Tax Collection Payments screen. Unsatisfied Only Select this option to move the records of unsatisfied bills to the Tax Collection history table. Unsatisfied bills for the specified tax year post to Tax Collection History with a 'D' (delete) as the category code. In addition, Tax Collection will move records with partial payments unless they are recorded with a 'M' (satisfied with partial payment) category code. Use this option with caution. If payments will continue to be posted to unsatisfied bills DO NOT run this process. Note that if there are a large number of unsatisfied records, this process may take some time to perform This function moves all satisfied, exempt, and exonerated bills for the specified tax year, as well as all previous tax years. Note that a tax bill paid with partial payments is NOT considered satisfied until a category 1,2,3,D, E, M, or F payment is entered on the Tax Payments screen. Enter the tax year that includes the satisfied tax bills you want to move to history. Remember that Tax Collection will search all previous years for satisfied records. Performing this process for the current or future tax years could cause balancing problems on some reports. Revised: 09/25/ Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, USA Page 7

12 After selecting the appropriate tax year, click Run Now to begin the process. This will prompt one of two actions. If the execution is successful, a message indicating the number of records moved to history displays. If, however, you maintain accounts (established on the TAX BILL TYPE directory) and have not performed the SETUP ACCOUNT MASTER FOR NEW YEAR process, then the following error message will display: "The SETUP ACCOUNT MASTER FOR NEW YEAR process must be run before purging accounts." Complete the SETUP ACCOUNT MASTER FOR NEW YEAR function and perform this process again. Copy Fund Accounting Info Year to Year This process copies CSIU Fund Accounting information to a new year from the year selected. You are now ready to collect and process bills for the new tax cycle. Revised: 09/25/ Central Susquehanna Intermediate Unit, USA Page 8