Importing Interest on Trust (or Client) Investment Accounts

In this article:

• CSV File Contents
• Importing Interest

You can deposit interest for a trust investment account. There are two scenarios where this would be required: 

• Importing opening balances which can be done with the Bulk Importer 
• Receiving interest

This process involves importing a CSV file that contains the data you want recorded. This spreadsheet is designed to capture more information than just the interest amount. For example, it includes the ability to deduct the firm's fee or tax which was already deducted by the IRD. This allows more detail to be captured and used for reporting in the future (like preparing tax information for clients). This data is only available when using the interest specific importer/form which also bypasses restrictions like the inability to receipt funds directly into the Investment account (since funds should always be transferred through the trust current account).

CSV File Contents

The contents of the CSV file you will import includes the following columns:

• Matter ID: Lists the ID of the matter to import the funds to.
• Or Matter Reference: If no ID is specified, it will try find the matter by this reference instead.
• Administration Fee Rate: Shows the rate (e.g., 10%) that the administration fee (if any) is taken. This is only used for display value.
• Tax Rate: Shows the tax rate applied to this (e.g., 30%) or 0 if not applicable. This is only used for display value.
• Gross Interest: Shows the interest amount before any fees or tax.
• Tax Amount: Shows the amount of tax (gross interest * tax rate). This is required rather than calculated to account for any rounding issues from your bank system.
• Administration Fee Amount: This shows the dollar amount of administration fee (gross interest * administration fee rate). This is required rather than calculated to allow for different rules (like before/after tax or rounding errors).
• Net Interest: This is the dollar amount of the gross interest - tax amount - administration fee. This is required as a verification that the other numbers add up correctly.

EXAMPLE: 
In this example. there is interest but no tax or administration fee:

In this example, an administration fee or tax rate is specified and the actual number is used (note it does not include a %):

This import would create a receipt like this:

Importing Interest

To do this: 

1. In Actionstep, go to Trust > Interest > Receive Interest (Multi). The Receive Interest (Multi) page appears.
2. Click the Trust account drop-down list and choose the account you want to deposit the interest into. 
3. Enter a Transaction Date.
4. Optionally, click Download sample csv template file to save a copy of the CSV you can use to build your own import. 
5. Click Please select a file (next to Import File) to find and select the CSV file you created earlier that contains the deposit information. 
6. Click Save to complete the upload. 

Related Articles: 

• Setting Up Bulk Import Specifications for Trust (or Client) Accounting (Admin)