AMS360 for accounting?

[John J90]

Do any AMS 360 users think that the accounting functionality is limited? Do you use a separate accounting program such as Peachtree or Quickbooks? I am very curious to know if anyone would actually use AMS360 for day to day general ledger accounting. Thanks.

[OldIndyAgent]

Quickbooks!

[pita3333]

Why would you not want to use it?

Integrates:
Client receivables - one place to see who owes what
Company/Carrier payables - one place to see what you owe carriers (or what they owe you)
Vendor payables - one place to see what you owe vendors
Commission (inbound and outbound) - you can see on customer or producer level where your comm is from
Full General Ledger - can customize it to your needs
Full Banking - see your balances, reconcile checks etc
Employee payables -

Only thing it does not do is payroll. Most still do payroll outside and enter the numbers via a Journal Entry. main reason for this is that there are many well established Payroll vendors and each state is different from the other.

Also you can attache documents to each of the above. No more needing to have file cabinets. Using doc security settings you can control what can be seen by who...and keep that confidential info confidential.

[OldIndyAgent]

Quickbooks does all of that, very well, and payroll very well. It will pay all your federal, state, and unemployment payments via direct deposit, create and archive documents of each - no extra charge.

All for around $40/month. How much does that cost in AMS360?

It also has all of the budgeting reports, for accounting, to see what your income is at any point during the year, and integrates with all of the tax software. The accountant is able to do our taxes in only a couple of hours with it.

It can also electronic invoice customers and many other things.

It is NOT a CRM system.

[CFO]

Do any AMS 360 users think that the accounting functionality is limited? Do you use a separate accounting program such as Peachtree or Quickbooks? I am very curious to know if anyone would actually use AMS360 for day to day general ledger accounting.

Yes, AMS360 has accounting limitation but it handles the trust side of insurance accounting so well that it is virtually impossible to pay an insurance carrier wrong when the set up has been done correctly. QuickBooks has NO trust feature or carrier payment feature, let alone direct bill deposit tracking or the ability to track commission payments down to the policy level at the volume AMS360 handles with ease.

I love the many features and drill down abilities of QuickBooks but once an insurance agent reaches a certain size, you need a specialized software that tracks the insurance side of things PLUS integrates it with your CSR activity. Plus AMS360 will help you with your E&O issues. QuickBooks won't. So, IMHO, the cost of the software is worth it and may save your company from ruin. In addition, AMS360 has a built-in electronic filing system that matches activity to scanned in documents and GREAT service included in their price.

I have 21 years experience with QuickBooks (even before they had a Windows version) and 3 years with AMS360.

[insstudent]

This is a very interesting topic. I would like to have your input on how to calculate the right amount of earned commission amount that I can transfer from Trust to Operating Account. Our state requires the separation of funds. Also, how do I make sure the trust account is solvent. How do I prove it is solvent. Thank you.

[OldIndyAgent]

In Quickbooks,
You can create an account for each trust that you have, we have just one trust for all, and one operating account, each one is a separate bank account. The carriers can pull from your trust, and QB will report that, and track it. (If you have a bank that works with QB...I don't believe that AMS360 has ever had the ability to pull data directly from your bank accounts, and I doubt they ever will, or any other management system)

Your commissions can be deposited into your operating account. Easy rule, in the trust, don't touch it, operating account, spend it.

[insstudent]

My question still is: how do you calculate the amount of earned commission in the trust account. The client sends us a gross premium check, we deposit it in the trust account, we send the net premium to the insurance company, and then we have to transfer the agency earned commission to the operating account. If an agency has just a few transactions, it might be easy, but if there are hundreds or thousands of transactions, it's not easy any more. We need the accounting system to tell us. Does anybody know of a method to calculate the earned commission accurately?

[tflood]

you deposit all the clients checks for agency billed items into the trust account. At the end of the month, run an AMS360 accounting report and it will tell you the total "agency bill income" received for that month. You then transfer that amount into your operating account. That is assuming that you billed it correctly and input the commission amounts.

[OldIndyAgent]

Interesting, is it really that easy?
What about when a customer is cancelled or quits mid-term? You have now moved commission into the operating account that is not earned. Does 360 account for that automatically? Is that part of download? If so, I really really doubt that your going to get even 50% of your carriers to report it via download...if its even available.

I do know that QB will report a debit from your account automatically. Issue is then, accounting for why and matching that up every month, and that is fun too.

[InsBoomer]

"Agency bill income" is really that easy. Remember the monthly agency bill income reflects the results of all agency billed transactions booked that month including return commission.

Download applies to Direct Bill commissions. We're about 95% direct bill in our office and we receive downloaded commission statements routinely. After posting, they hit all of the appropriate general ledgers. Direct Bill commissions show up seperately from agency billed commissions on your AMS/Vertafore reports depending the level of detail you request.

[JosephMartin]

As per my opinion "Agency bill income" is really that easy. Remember the monthly agency bill income reflects the results of all agency billed transactions booked that month including return commission.

[insstudent]

Just to be sure: is this the “AB Income” amount given by the Income and Expense Report?
Also, how do we determine which of these invoices were paid, since we can only transfer the earned commission (on paid invoices). Thank you all for helping me with issue.

[mhutch69]

Remember, in CA., commissions are not earned until they are EARNED. Therefore, if you are paid advanced commissions against premiums not yet earned, you can not transfer to operating and spend those funds.

If you do, an audit by the CA. DOI would find you out of trust.

[insstudent]

How do you calculate the EARNED commission that can be (legally) transferred to the Operating Account?