How to Use the End of Month Wizard in Rest Professional

The Rest End of Month (EOM) Wizard allows users to process month end disbursements to creditors and owners and performing other trust accounting functions, whilst ensuring data integrity is maintained throughout the process. This facility also ensures that adequate auditing and bank reconciliation records are saved and maintained.

This document is for non clearing statements data base with unattached cheque stationery.

This document will cover the following:

• Accessing the End of Month Wizard
• Processing the Wizard Steps
• Completing the End of Month Wizard
• Rest Professional End of Month Procedure Checklist

Accessing the End of Month Wizard 

The wizard can be accessed via Files > Owner Payments / End of Month or by clicking on the Wizard Icon  on the Rest icon. The wizard can also be closed at any time between steps and can be resumed from that same point.

This screen allows the user to select the process they wish to commence, which is either:

• Mid-Month Payout – Allowing users to process creditor and owner disbursements, excluding report-printing and Files Update
• End of Month Payout – Allowing users to process creditor and owner disbursements, including report-printing and Files Update

Processing the Wizard Steps

Step: Initialise Wizard
This step allows the user to commence the End of Month wizard and enables Rest to ensure it is in the Wizard mode. Click on Next to complete this step and continue.

Step: Bank Reconciliation
This step allows the user to ensure the bank reconciliation is successfully balanced prior to commencing the wizard. After ensuring all receipts have been correctly entered into Rest and the bank reconciliation is successfully reconciled, click on OK and then Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: Set End of Month Lock
This step ensures that data is not altered by other users during the month-end process.

The Active user’s field displays all users currently logged into Rest. In the Other user’s field:

• May proceed with password
• May only read or print
• Must log out

Step: Clear Banking

This step ensures all cash and cheque receipts have been entered into Rest, allowing the user to print and clear the banking sheet to ready the funds to be banked into the trust account.

After ensuring the banking funds have been correctly receipted into Rest with the banking sheet/s printed and the banking cleared, click on Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: Pre-statement System Recovery & Backup
It is highly recommended to ensure a successful system recovery is completed at this stage in the wizard, as Rest re-indexes all files, verifies data integrity and correct balances. After the completion of the system recovery, Rest will then prompt the user to conduct a backup, known as REST_EOM-Pre.Dat.zip.
After the backup is completed, click on Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: Process Recurring Transactions
This step allows the user to process any recurring transactions and create outstanding disbursements and/or tenant invoices for up to the end of the current accounting period.
Once these disbursements have been created and processed, click on Next to complete this step and continue.

Step: Process Outstanding Disbursements
This step allows the user to pay disbursements that have previously been created as outstanding disbursements .Once these disbursements have been processed, click on Finish and then Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: Print Outstanding Disbursement Report
This step allows the user to view any outstanding disbursements not processed in the above mentioned step. Once this has been viewed, click on Next to complete this step and continue.

Step: Print Creditor Unpaid Disbursements Report
This step allows the user to view all creditor unpaid disbursements ready to be processed in the following step. Once this has been viewed, click on Next to complete this step and continue.

Step: Creditor Remittance & Payment
This step allows the user to pay all creditor payments and print and/or email creditor remittance advices.
This step:

• Produces a cheque payment in REST for each creditor disbursements via cheque;
• Posts all EFT payments into the internal AAAUTO account, ready to create the ABA file for upload to the bank, and;
• Posts all BPAY payments into the internal AABPAY account, ready to create the BPAY file for upload to the bank.

Send email remittances:
Send’s all remittance advices via email to each creditor with a valid email address. This is enabled via Other > Utilities > System Options and is determined by the settings for each creditor via Files > Creditor > Payment tab.

• Print Comments - This displays a global comment at the bottom of each creditor remittance advice and is enabled via Files > Descriptors and Comments > Master File and Transaction Comments > Creditor Statements tab > Global remittance advice comment. This will open an additional notepad to create a global comment.

Click on Next to view all payments ready to process.

This screen displays the totals of all disbursements ready for processing.

Click on Process to commence processing these disbursements.

Click on Preview to preview the payments and select/deselect these disbursements for payment.

Click on Cancel to abort this process.

All entered creditor disbursements must be processed during the wizard, otherwise the Files Update process cannot be completed. Any creditors left with a balance when trying to proceed beyond this step, the following message will appear:

You will then be prompted with the creditor remittance & payments screen to proceed to clear all balances.

Step: Owner Withhold Funds
This step allows the user to preview and edit any outstanding disbursement, flat payment amount, withheld amount and uncleared funds by owner. Existing fields can be edited where necessary and new entities can be edited. Once this has been actioned, click on OK–F12 and then Yes to complete this step continue.

Step: EOM-1 System Recovery & Backup
Rest will conduct a backup, known as REST_EOM-1.Dat.zip. After the backup is completed, click on Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: Print Owner Statements
This step allows the user to generate, print and/or email owner statements which display rent and sundry receipts, disbursements and fees and to process a payment for the amount due to the owner either by cheque or electronic funds transfer (EFT).
Statements with cheques not-attached display every transaction from the commencement of the current accounting month. These can be re-printed as often as desired and at any time for any owner, without the owner file being updated in any way.

• Print Comments - This displays a global comment at the bottom of each owner statement and is enabled via Files > Descriptors and Comments > Master File and Transaction Comments > Other tab > Global statement comment. This will open an additional notepad to create a global comment.
• Send e-mail statements - Select this option to email owner statements to the email address specified in the Owner Details screen.

This option will only be displayed if the option to email owner statements has been enabled, which can be accessed via Other > Utilities > System Options > Statement tab. The option to print and email owner statements is also available.

Once the statement criteria has been selected, click on Preview or Print to print and/or email the owner statements. Once this has been processed, click on Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: Owner Cheques, Fees and Split Payments
This step allows the user to generate and print owner cheques for those owners whose payment method is cheque or manual bank deposit for the balance of their account. Pre-printed cheques or plain paper may be used, manually writing owner cheques. Owner cheques can be processed at any time during the accounting month, which also accommodates for mid-month cheque payments to owners.
In addition to generating owner cheques, it is important to note that this step will also charge Postage and Split owner funds. You will be prompted with the following message when processing this step:

It is vital to ensure this process is completed even if there are no owners paid by cheque. It is equally important to not process this step twice as this will cause double charging of the postage and sundries, as well a further splitting on the split owner funds.

Once the cheque printing criteria has been selected, click on Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: EOM-2 System Recovery & Backup
REST will conduct a backup, known as REST_EOM-2.Dat.zip. After the backup is completed, click on Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: Automatic Deposit (EFT Payment)
This step allows the user to generate payments for those owners whose payment method is Auto Deposit (EFT). On completion of this step, Rest updates owner ledgers and the funds are disbursed into the internal AAAUTO account with the existing creditor payments (if any), ready for the ABA file to be created and uploaded to a client banking platform.
NOTE: This function may also be processed for Mid-Month disbursements; however this step will not create owner statements or charge postage/administration fees.

Click on Process to commence processing of these payments. Once this has been processed, click on Yes to complete this step and continue.
NOTE: when completing this step, Rest will confirm whether the user would like to create the ABA file for upload to the bank. Please ensure that if an ABA file containing any creditor payments has already been created, this must be uploaded to the bank prior to creating the owner payments ABA file.

Step: EOM-3 System Recovery & Backup
Rest will conduct a backup, known as REST_EOM-3.Dat.zip. After the backup is completed, click on Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: System Recovery (If Available)
It is highly recommended to ensure a successful secondary system recovery is completed at this stage.
NOTE: this step appears in the default wizard steps but can be removed as the previous step runs a system recovery.

Step: Send ABA Payment File to Bank
This step allows Rest to convert all EFT payments in the internal AAAUTO account into a file suitable for bank upload.
NOTE: this step appears in the default wizard steps but can be removed as the ABA file generally uploads automatically as part of the owner EFT payment step.

Step: Bank Reconciliation
This step allows the user to ensure the bank reconciliation is successfully balanced after processing all disbursements and transactions in the wizard. After ensuring the bank reconciliation is successfully reconciled, click on OK and then Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: Print EOM Reports
This step allows the user to print necessary end of month reports to be securely stored for auditing purposes.

To select the reports to print/export, select the Include option for the desired report, then click on Print.
NOTE: This may also appear as separate steps within the wizard if the EOM reports have not been setup or the default wizard loaded

Step: Audit Backup
This function will create an audit backup of all data, which encompasses the current and historical data for the specific database as well as any images, word merge and documents saved into document management. It is recommended to create two audit backups; one to be kept onsite and one to be kept securely offsite. Rest will automatically rename the backup to match the account period it was created in, such as RESTAudit-20XX-07.
NOTE: Due to auditing requirements, an audit backup must be retained for at least seven years. After the backup is completed, click on Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: Files Update
This step allows Rest to:

• Finalise and complete accounts processing for the current accounting period
• Clear all active transactions in the current accounting period
• Carry forward any owner balances into the next accounting period
• Copies all data in the current accounting period to historical data
• Advances the database into the next accounting period

All other steps in the wizard must be complete before continuing. Click OK to begin the Files Update and confirm the month and year you are about to roll over. After the files update is completed, click on Yes to complete this step and continue.

Step: Clear Read Only Lock
In the Active User List screen click on Release Lock. After releasing the lock, click on Cancel and then Yes to complete this step and continue.

Completing the End of Month Wizard

After the wizard has successfully completed, ensure Finish is selected, as this resets the wizard, ready to process at the end of the next accounting month.

Congratulations! You have successfully completed the End of Month Wizard!

Rest Professional End of Month Procedure Checklist

Non-Clearing Statements with Separate Cheques:

Recommended to Complete Prior to Commencing the EOM Wizard

EOM Wizard Checklist