Bank Accounts

General Principles

Bank accounts are set up in a similar way to general investments. The bank account itself (e.g. Barclays current account) is introduced to the system in the Investments, Stocks window, with the Deposit Accounts option selected and then the ‘New’ button. If there are many schemes with the same bank account (e.g. Barclays current account), only set up one account in that way. For each scheme, use the menu option ‘Investments, Bank Account’ and then the ‘New’ button. The bank account can be selected from a dropdown list.

Each scheme can have many bank accounts (including building society accounts) but only one can be selected as the ‘main account’ to be shown on the Scheme Merge documents. This is selected by ticking the Main Account box on the menu option ‘Investments, Bank Account, Amend’. When an account is closed the Main Account box is unticked.

Data Fields

The field ‘Our Signing Code’ allows the independent trustee’s authorised signatories for each account to be stored. The idea is that a list of all possible combinations would be drawn up, assigning a code to each and the code for that account would be stored. This caters for the problem where members of staff change and a new list of signatories has not been sent to the bank.

‘Our signing code’ is the reference number for the list of signatories for the independent trustee. Different banks will recognise different directors and authorised signatories depending on the independent trustee’s authorised signatories at the time the mandate was signed or updated.

‘Extension’ is another label that is shown on screens and reports to identify the account. For instance, if a scheme has 2 bank accounts of the same type with the same bank then 2 stocks can be entered with a slightly different account name e.g. ‘Barclays Current Account’ and ‘Barclays Current Account 2’. These 2 accounts can then be used by any number of schemes. Within each scheme, the first and second account can be identified by the extension e.g. if the accounts relate to different members then different initials can be used for the extensions.

The ‘Last Statement Processed’ relates to the closure of the bank account. The Date Closed may be entered when the closure instruction is processed but the final statement may be processed later.

If the ‘Fixed Term Deposit Account’ box is ticked, options become available elsewhere – Term Deposits

Isolated and Feeder Accounts

Sometimes bank accounts (e.g. Scottish Widows Bank) will only allow payments to be made to or from a single nominated account. Omni calls such accounts ‘Isolated Accounts’ and the nominated account is called the Feeder Account (i.e. it feeds money to the Isolated Bank account).

To show that a bank account is an Isolated Account there is a box to tick in the Special Flags section. A ‘Main Account’ cannot be an ‘Isolated Account’ and so the ‘Isolated Accounts’ tick box is not shown if the Main Account box has already been ticked.

If the Isolated Account box is ticked, an extra field ‘Feeder Account’ is shown. The drop-down list displays a list of all other bank accounts held by the scheme that are ‘Open’ and not ‘Isolated Accounts’. The Main Account, Contribution Tax Relief Account and Mortgage Account boxes will disappear and be cleared.

If you untick the Isolated Account box, the Feeder Account box disappears and the selected account is cleared i.e. it has been removed if the Isolated Account box is ticked again.

If you try to close a bank account which feeds an Isolated Account you will be told that 'This account feeds an isolated account which has to be closed or re-assigned before this account can be closed'.

Archiving

Bank accounts can be archived with the field 'Account status' (Open/Closed/Archived) – this is set using ‘Investments, Bank Accounts’ and the ‘Amend’ button.

When the status for the account is ‘Closed’ the transactions for the account can be viewed in ‘Bank Transactions’. Access will probably be needed for some time after the account is actually closed. When the scheme accounts have been completed the account can be archived and the bank transactions will then not be visible in ‘Bank Transactions’. The records can still be viewed at any time by changing the bank account status to ‘Closed’.

When opening the ‘Bank Transactions’ window, the program displays a choice of accounts that have not been archived. If there is only one account that has not been archived, then it displays that account automatically.

Borrowing

Borrowing can be stored in one of 2 ways. The different ways are explained in the borrowing help which should be read in detail before proceeding.

If all of the transactions through the mortgage account are to be tracked, the standing details of the mortgage should be entered into the Borrowing screen and then the ‘Mortgage Account’ box on the Bank Account screen should be ticked. This will then display a list of all Borrowing record for the selected scheme (often just one record). Select the borrowing details that relate to that mortgage account. The ‘View Mortgage Details’ allows the details to be viewed and edited – it is just a shortcut to the ‘Direct Investments, Borrowing’ screen. Details of that screen are in the borrowing help. To remove the link between a bank account and a Borrowing record simply untick the ‘Mortgage Account’ box on the Bank Account screen.

If the ‘Mortgage Account’ box is ticked then, on the investment valuation, the account balance will be included within the ‘Borrowing’ section and if it is not ticked the account balance will be included within the ‘Deposit Acnts’ section.