Trust Transaction Utility

This KB discusses the functioning of the Trust Account Utility.  This is located in the System Settings>Utilities section. 

The purpose of this utility is:

• After an import of matters, to create and set a default trust account for each imported matter.
• To link imported trust transactions to the correct matter trust account.
• To update any existing trust transactions previously imported that are not currently in a matter trust account.

To use this utility, you must have the proper security permissions.  These can be set by your System Administrator.  Before running the utility, please read the explanation below of how it works, and that you fully understand the behavior of the utility.

Navigate to System Settings>Utilities section. 

The utility has two basic modes:

• Do not specify a bank account - This is used if you are either not using accounting or only using a single trust bank account.  This will add trust accounts to all the matters in the system.  If accounting is enabled, each trust account will use the default trust bank account and liability account.  All the trust transactions for each matter will be put into that trust account.  
• Choose a bank account name field - If different trust transactions affect different trust bank accounts, you will want to import the name of the bank account on your trust transactions.  We recommend importing this to the Imported Bank Account Name field.  Choose this field when you run the utility and it will create one trust account on the matter for each bank account that each one of the transactions affects.  For example, if Matter A has 10 trust transactions that all debit/credit Chase Bank, then one trust account will be created, it will use Chase Bank as the bank account, and all the trust transactions will be connected to that trust account.  If Matter B has 10 trust transactions where 4 affect Chase Bank and 6 affect Bank of America, Matter B would get two trust accounts (one for each bank account) and the transactions would be connected to the trust account that matches their bank account.

Following are the detailed rules and logic of how the utility works.

• If using the Bank Account Name Field
  • AND no bank account name is set on the transaction the transaction
    • Transaction will not be connected properly to a matter trust. 
    • Make sure if using drop down to set bank account, all imported transactions HAVE a value
  • IF BANK ACCOUNT NAME IS SPECIFIED
    • If bank account does not exist Centerbase will create bank account(s)
    • Centerbase will create new trust account for matter and use NEW bank account
    • If there are multiple transaction per matter, with multiple bank accounts, CB will create 1 matter trust account for each bank account specified
  • CB will find any existing trust transaction (in addition to newly imported) that are currently NOT connect to a matter trust account, and if the matter is specified, and a bank account name is set in the Bank Account Name Field
    • CB will place these transaction into the appropriate matter trust account, based on the specified bank account.
  • Any imported/existing transactions without a Bank Account Name filed value, will be ignored.
• If not using account drop down at all
  • CB will create matter trust if does not currently exist, and set as the default trust account
  • CB will find any newly imported/existing trust transaction that are currently NOT connected to a trust account, and if the matter is specified, it will link them to the default trust account for the matter specified.

When specifying a Bank Account Name field while using the utility, here is what happens:

• First, for every trust transaction in the system that has a value in the Bank Account Name field (that was picked), it will make sure there is an account with that name in the Chart of Accounts
• It then finds every trust transaction with a value for that field and checks if their matters already have a Trust Account connected to that trust bank account.  If not, it will create a new trust account.
• Finally, it finds every trust transaction with a value for that field and sets the Trust Account connected to that bank account as the trust account for that transaction
• Considerations when running more than once.
  
  • Overall, it is safe to run the trust import utility as many times as needed, but there is one thing that can cause an issue.  If you had previously imported trust transactions with this field filled, this should be fine as the bank account should exist in the chart of accounts.  If the account has been renamed or deleted since then, then you might end up with an account you didn't expect or extra trust accounts under a matter.  This should not affect any of the transactions directly as it will only update transactions that are not yet connected to a trust account.
  • If running a second time, you can clear the bank account name field from all transactions previously imported to make sure they don't try to do this if you are worried about issues like this.
  • You could also create a Bank Account Name (2) field so that you know this run of the utility will not touch any of the other transactions you had previously imported and run the utility against.