Should you track payments with your client billing software?

Posted on June 1st, 2015 by Debbie Gaffney

Client billing software is designed to bill accounts and share the revenue. Why take the extra step to also record payments made by custodians or clients?  Typically a firm has accounting software that does all of that for them. You certainly don’t want to create extra work to have the same information in two different applications.

billPort has the ability to sync all of the payments made from your portfolio management system. Even if your portfolio management software does not record the payments you can mass add all payments with a couple of clicks. Then billPort can generate an export that is formatted for your accounting software, with a single click.  The result is that all of your accounting entries to record both revenue and payments can be automated. If the accounting process for your firm is currently manual or tedious then this may be worth considering.

What if you have some clients that pay by check and when you bill them next they have an outstanding balance?  Well, if you track the payments then you could have an invoice that also displays the amount outstanding.  Imagine if an account closes mid-cycle?  Handy to see that they have a balance in billPort when you are doing the final billing for them. Exports in billPort display aged receivables as of any date.

Does your accounting software currently record the revenue the same way that you bill the clients?  If not then billPort can export the data to fit to the way you record your revenue.  Different options allow the user to create accounting revenue and payment exports by:

• household total
• client total 
• total by fee paying account 
• total by account

If your existing method is cumbersome or tedious, you may want to consider billPort to help automate your process.