Introduction
The Pay up to Owner Balance routine is a set of procedures that may be followed when selecting Property Management Accounts Payable invoices for payment. These procedures will ensure there are sufficient funds in each underlying owner's account to pay for the selected invoices. In most US states this is a key trust accounting requirement. If an owner does not have sufficient funds to pay for an invoice (expense), the system will not select that invoice for payment.

Generally travel agent commissions should be paid prior to utilizing this routine in order to avoid exhausting an owner's funds prior to paying travel agent commissions. While this routine is sensitive to whether or not travel agent commissions charged to owners have been paid, the Travel Agent Accounts Payable module is not. Accordingly it would be possible to fully exhaust an owner's funds via the Pay up to Owner Balance routine, then overdraw an owner's funds by subsequently paying travel agent commissions charged to that owner account.

This routine does not apply to the Business Accounts Payable or Travel Agent Accounts Payable modules.

Procedures
There are two steps to correctly utilize the Pay Up to Owner Balance Routine.

First, you must run an Owner Balance Report (P,R,O) as of the current month end (the month you are currently working on) listing owners' unpaid payable balances. To do this, enter a 'U' in the 'U to list owners UNPAID payable balances' field. When done correctly this will result in the message 'Month requested is after latest statement month, Enter Y to compute balances.' When this message appears, simply type in a 'Y.' Also, be sure to tell the system how far back to look for unpaid owners' payable invoices by placing a date in the 'For unpaid payables, check back through MM/YY' field. For example, if you are running the Owner Balance Report as of 12/00 you will want to have the system check back approximately three months for any unpaid owner invoices so place '09/00' in the 'check back through' field.

This step must be performed prior to the second step EACH TIME you wish to select invoices for payment.

The second step is to utilize the 'Select Invoices Proposed for Payment' function (E,W,S) to select the invoices you wish to pay. On the selection screen, place either a 'U' or a 'Q' in the 'Enter U to pay UP to balance in owner account' field.

If you select option U to pay UP to the balance in the owner account, the system will select items for payment according to your other selection criteria in vendor and invoice number order up to each owner's available payable balance. For example, if you tell the system to select eligible invoices for all vendors without reviewing individual invoices, the system will look for unpaid invoices in alphabetical vendor order (numerical vendor codes come before alphabetic vendor codes) in invoice number order for multiple invoices within a single vendor (The system will select invoices with no invoice number before selecting invoices with specified invoice numbers. Invoices with duplicate invoice numbers will be selected according to their transaction number, lowest number first.). It will automatically select invoices for payment in this order up to each owner's available payable balance. This means that it will want to select invoices for a vendor such as ACME before it will for a vendor such as ZEBRA. Any invoice that, if selected, would cause the owner's payable balance to drop below zero will be skipped. It is possible to use this routine while selecting/excluding specific vendors or while selecting by due date (if due date is specified) instead of selecting by vendor order if you wish.

If you select option Q to QUERY if over balance, the system will function exactly as option U described just above with the exception that instead of just skipping over invoices which would drop an owner's payable balance below zero, the system will display the message"Balance not sufficient for next invoice, press return to continue." Upon pressing the Return (or Enter) key, you will see the invoice in question on the screen with choices available to skip selection of the invoice or pay it anyway.

Summary
Use of the Pay up to Owner Balance routine is an effective way to comply with trust accounting requirements for owners' funds. It will only allow the selection of Property Management Accounts Payable invoices to occur when sufficient funds exist in an underlying owner's account. It is important to follow the procedural steps carefully in order for the routine to function properly.