Within PantherAccounting Plus, it is crucial to maintain balanced accounts. The primary objective of the onboarding process is to ensure that the information entered into PracticePanther aligns and reconciles accurately with your trust bank records.
Each of your firm’s trust accounts will be onboarded individually, resulting in an initial reconciliation for each account. To get started, you’ll choose a start date and provide the corresponding ending bank balance. We recommend selecting either the last day of a recent month or the date of your most recent completed trust reconciliation.
To help ensure a smooth and accurate onboarding process, please gather the following information — all reflecting the same onboarding date:
Bank statement for the trust account that will be used to obtain the bank balance.
The last reconciliation you performed for this bank to obtain a list of uncleared transactions.
The date of your last reconciliation.
You’ll be guided through each of your trust accounts, step by step, with real-time status updates to help you track your progress throughout the onboarding process.
Select the trust account you wish to start with, then click Get Started.
Step 1 - Set Onboarding Date and Bank Balance
Enter the Start Date. It should reflect the date of your trust account’s bank statement.
Enter the Bank Balance. This is the ending balance shown on your bank statement.
Click Continue.
Step 2 - Identify Uncleared Transactions
You will be presented with a list of your PracticePanther payments, dated on or before the Start Date entered on step 1. The goal of this step is to select the withdrawals and deposits that have not cleared your bank statement as of the start date.
What is the difference between Withdrawals and Deposits?
Withdrawals are payments that represent money leaving your account. Common examples of withdrawals include refunds, transfers, or taking money out.
Deposits are payments that represent money coming into your account. Common examples of deposits are retainer and invoice payments received.
If you do not have or are not aware of any uncleared transactions, you can click Continue to skip this step.
To select your Uncleared Transactions, follow these steps:
Select the Withdrawals tab and review the list of payments.
If you have your previous reconciliation, use this to search for uncleared payments.
Note: Use the filters, such as date or contact, to search for specific payments.
If you see a payment in the list of transactions (meaning the payment has been entered in PracticePanther) but you do not see that payment on your Bank Account (e.g. an uncleared check), then select the check box associated with that payment and move it to the Uncleared Transactions List by choosing Add Selected.
This will add those transactions to the Uncleared List, removing them from the initial reconciliation.
Follow the same steps for the Deposits tab.
You can always view the payments you’ve marked as uncleared by viewing the uncleared list - see below for more information on viewing your uncleared list.
Once you’ve identified all your uncleared payments, click Continue.
To view the transactions you’ve selected as Uncleared follow these steps:
Click View Uncleared List at the bottom of the page.
Here you will see all the payments you selected as Uncleared, organized by Withdrawals and Deposits, allowing you to verify that these transactions are not on your bank statement.
You can remove any payment by clicking the check box associated with the transaction and clicking the Remove Selected option.
Compare the list of payments displayed to your bank statement and previous reconciliation.
When you’re finished reviewing your transactions, click Save Changes to save your updates.
Step 3 - Review and Finalize
This step will show you if your information in PracticePanther matches your bank account. A $0.00 difference means everything is balanced.
The reconciliation summary will provide the following:
The bank balance you entered as of your Start Date.
An adjusted bank balance, calculated by deducting uncleared withdrawals and adding uncleared deposits.
A comparison to confirm that your adjusted bank balance matches the total of all contact and matter balances in your trust account.
If you have a $0.00 difference, you can review the reconciliation summary and choose Finalize Onboarding to complete the process for this Trust account!
You will then be returned to the main onboarding page where you can choose to onboard your next trust bank account or can begin onboarding your firm’s operating accounting.
What if there is a Difference in the Reconciliation Summary?
A positive difference means there is more money reflected in your bank account and something has not been entered in PracticePanther.
A negative difference means there is more money reflected in PracticePanther, which may mean something has not yet hit your bank account or your contact payments within PracticePanther are incorrect.
What Should You Do Now?
If there is a discrepancy between your bank account and payment records you should attempt to locate the difference. In order to do this, we recommend going through your contact payments first, as you will typically locate the difference there.
You can choose Save and Finish Later to save your current onboarding details and can return here to resume it after looking into the issue.
Note: This trust account will show an In Progress onboarding status. You will be able to Continue from the last step you saved.If the difference cannot be resolved, you can accept it to complete the onboarding. An Unspecified Funds contact will be created to record the difference and allow you to start with a balanced trust account.
You can continue to investigate this discrepancy and make correcting payments or adjustments in PracticePanther to address the balance on the Unspecified Funds contact.
To accept the discrepancy, click the Acknowledge button. This will enable you to save and finalize the reconciliation.
Click Finalize Onboarding.
What Happens Now?.
You will be returned to the main onboarding page where you can choose to onboard your next trust bank account or begin onboarding your firm’s operating accounting.
Viewing your Onboarding Summary
Once a trust account is onboarded the status will be displayed as Completed. A link to the reconciliation created as a result of the onboarding will be available for review.
What Happens Next?
Once onboarded, ensure your users can access all the PantherAccounting Plus capabilities. Click the link on the onboarding status page to manage user Permissions. Click here for more details on managing these permissions.