ACQUAINT FINANCIAL – PREPARING TO GO LIVE

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When you decide to use the financial side of Acquaint for processing transactions and all the client account capabilities, please follow these steps to ensure you are fully prepared and the transition will be as smooth and hassle-free as possible.

TIMELINE

Ensure you leave enough time to plan properly for going live. This will vary depending on your knowledge of Acquaint, the complexity and volume of your transactions, how much time you can spare etc. But as a general rule of thumb, allow 4-6 weeks.

Week 1 and 2 – get comfortable with processing transactions, including training and practicing transactions;

Week 3 and 4 – get training on bank reconciliations, and do full parallel run on all transactions;

Week 5 – get ready for going live;

Live date – old transactions are cleared, insert opening balances and start as you mean to go on!

WEEK 1-2 ENSURE YOU’RE COMFORTABLE WITH PROCESSING TRANSACTIONS

• Read the document “Acquaint Financial Processes”. This gives an overview of the steps you’ll need to take daily/weekly/quarterly to keep on top of everything.

• You need to be fully up to speed on the processing of all types of transactions and completely comfortable with them and with the way Acquaint works.  If you’re not quite there yet – organise some training and allow a few weeks to practice them first.

• Initially, just choose just a few clients and replicate all the transactions for a week or two, comparing the transactions, statements etc. on Acquaint with your current records. Make some mistakes and learn how to correct them.

Helpful videos

Rent Processing

Adding a Booking Deposit

Closing a sale

WEEK 3-4 BANK RECONCILIATION PROCESS, FULL PARALLEL RUN

• Organise some training on completing bank reconciliations.

• Next step is to do a full parallel run, ideally for a few weeks, and compare to your current records. You should investigate anything different or unexpected and ensure you’re comfortable with fixing/deleting/editing transactions to ensure they are correct.

• This should include doing bank reconciliations for this period, running the bank account balance report, and investigating anything different or unusual.

Helpful Videos

Bank Reconcilation

Bank Account Balance Report

WEEK 5 GOING LIVE

• Decide on the cut-off date

• At least a week before the cut-off date, look at the client account breakdown, make sure it ties to the bank and clear up any anomalies;

• Try to transfer all fees, maintenance charges etc. on the final day, to minimise the volume of opening balances you’ll need to input;

• Arrange in advance for 4Property to clear all transactions up to that date.

LIVE DATE

• Compile a full breakdown of the client account bank balances that need to be input into Acquaint;

• 4Property to clear all transactions;

• Then enter opening balances – follow this procedure:

PROCEDURE FOR INSERTING OPENING BALANCES  

(i)  Create one full list (preferably in Excel) of the breakdown of your client account as at the cut-off date, with a total figure that agrees to the bank account balance.  This list should be further broken down by category (e.g. list of tenant deposits held, money due to landlord etc.), and should include Name, Property and Amount.

(ii) Update Acquaint with these balances in line with advice given by Acquaint support.  Use the cut-off date as the transaction date for all balances.

(iii) Run a “bank account balance” report immediately for the cut-off date and ensure that it’s all correct, the total agrees, and there is no variance.

(iv)    Do a bank reconciliation for this day, preferably with the help and guidance of Acquaint support. There should be no variance and no unreconciled items in Acquaint, of any kind.

(v) Then you can start inputting transactions (with transaction date after the cut-off date).

(vi) Do a bank reconciliation for the first full week (or shorter time period if there are a lot of transactions).

(viii) From then on, do a bank reconciliation every week and ensure that any unreconciled transactions are dealt with as soon as possible.