Fees
What are “miscellaneous fees”?
They are fees that can be added to any record in the BD program that normally allows for invoices.
What are the 2 methods that BD.NET can import property data?
Explain the difference between a Summary/Totals report template versus a List/Details report template?
Summary/Totals report templates=returns total counts/amounts, typically on a single page.
List/Details report templates=returns data for every record in the given population. There is a row (or several rows) for every record, resulting in many pages.
BSA Online user is unable to login to the BSA Online website because of a message that their username or password is invalid. What should be one of their first steps in troubleshooting?
They should reset their password from the login screen on the website as a first step of troubleshooting.
What is a bond?
A record type that allows a person to provide money to the Municipality for work to be done. The municipality then holds onto that money until the work is completed and then typically refunds it back to the person.
What is the purpose of an Inspection Group record?
Provide a record type to allow for inspections to be tracked for a property, where there are no invoices needed and the inspections are not part of any permit, enforcement, etc.
FI runs locally on a tablet/laptop. What does that mean?
It means that SQL is installed on the tablet/laptop itself and does not connect to the server when out in the field being used.
During the proof run process the results report is showing the wrong license number. What are some possible reasons for this?
Would a letter template created for business records be available to generate on a license on that business?
No, business letters can only be generated on businesses. A license letter must be created to be used on licenses.
What status would be given to a business that is no longer in business?
The status would be “terminated”.
What are requests?
Requests get entered when complaints come in from the public for issues such as pot holes, down trees, etc.
What is an “account” in CRA?
An account is the person or entity reporting the issue or calling about the complaint.
What is the difference between actions and action tasks?
An action comes from a request, and outlines what is being reported. An action task can be assigned to someone and is what sends someone to the field or prompts an actual TASK to be done in response to that request for action.
What is the main use of the BL program?
To track Businesses and their licenses.
What is the easiest way to setup a fee that follows the format “For the first 1000, the cost should be $50, for each additional 100, the cost should go up $10”?
Using the “Wizard” button on the fee.
What is an “orphan record” when comparing BD and ASG for imports?
Orphan record is a property that exists only in BD.
In the most simplest terms, what is the difference between CASH and ACCRUAL based accounting?
CASH accounting=Invoices are not journalized/posted, as the General Ledger is only effected when cash is in hand, when the payment occurs. Revenue is credited and Cash is debited in the same journal entry.
ACCRUAL accounting=Invoices are journalized/posted, making one half of the journal entry, then the second half of the entry is made when the payment occurs. When the invoice is journalized, Revenue is credited and a Receivable GL number is debited. When the invoice is paid, that Receivable GL number is credited and Cash is debited.
I setup a filter and ran the report but received a message that “No records were found.” What does this mean and what should be your next step to troubleshoot?
This means either
1. The filter is too specific and there truly are no records found that match the conditions.
2. The filter has bad conditions.
In either case the best solution is to begin disabling/deleting lines/conditions to find the culprit that is preventing any records from pulling into the report.
How do you break a link between a Contractor record in BD and the webusername?
Go to the Contractor record in BD and use tools → Break link to BSA Online Account.
What does the setting “Escrow Fee” do to a fee when enabled on the fee item setup?
This setting allows the fee to be used to “pay vendors from escrow” once it has been paid.
Where are attachments stored and where is this location set in the program?
They are stored in the attachment path on the server. The attachment path is setup in Program Setup -> Administration tab -> Attachment Sources
What is the difference between a copydown and a sync?
Copydown will completely overwrite the FI program to match what BD has. Sync will push new FI data to BD and pull new BD data into FI.
What is a possible reason why a municipality would NOT want to check “Journalize Generated Invoices Automatically” during the Renewal process?
They want to have a chance to edit the invoices before journalizing them and allowing them to be paid online. Usually done with places that use “gross receipts” from the previous year to determine the fee cost for the current year.
How do you change the license type of a license once it is added to a business?
You cannot. License type cannot be changed once the license is added to a business.
What is the difference between the “business address” and the “mailing address” for a business?
The “business address” is the physical location of the business. The “mailing address” is where they want documentation/invoices/letters/licenses/etc to be mailed, which could be different than the physical business address.
How is the “Take Call” button used?
That is the main way of entering requests and filling out the information regarding the complaint. You can fill out the account, complaint notes, location, etc.
What would be an example of an “account type”?
Some examples would be “Business, Resident, Staff, etc”.
How do you close an action and action task?
Set the status of the action task to closed. Once the task is closed, the system will ask if you want to close the action itself.
Can invoices be added directly to a business?
No, invoices must be added to a license on the business.
What does the checkbox “escrow fee” mean on the fee setup?
That setting enables that particular fee to be treated as an “escrow fee” meaning that once it is paid, you could pay AP vendors for 3rd party invoices using the money that paid that fee.
How does “update like names” work when importing from ASG?
If that import option is checked, and the property’s current owner, responsible party/occupant are currently both the EXACT same name, then if you run an import and the property owner name changed, it would also update the responsible party/occupant name to match the new owner name.
The first and best resource to use his the GL Activity tool found under Reports, then skip to the very bottom of the list. This tool looks and works generally the same way as the GL Activity view which GL.NET uses, allowing them to compare apples to apples based on the given GL Number and Post Date range.
What would be the recommendation for someone that had multiple reports they want to run monthly, but don’t want to search for all their reports each time?
They should use report profiles to organize all their monthly reports to put them in one spot for easy use.
When a Contractor is having issues online with applying for a permit and we connect them to the Municipality to assist, what is some of the information we want the Contractor to provide to help troubleshoot?
A combination of the following items would all be acceptable:
What are the main functions you can use held money for on a bond?
What are some of the most common causes when generating a letter gives a “system out of memory error “or the progress bar doesn’t move?
Most likely the letter has a large image file in the template (like a logo) or there are errant brackets [ ] being used and they should be using parenthesis instead ( ).
What are the two main record types you can add in FI?
Enforcements and Inspections
During the renewal process there is an option to generate and include a License Renewal report and/or an Invoice report. How do you determine who receives these emails?
It would send to either “Contact 1” or “Contact 2” email address, depending on what options were selected under general settings.
How does the “previous license number” get filled out for a license?
When you renew a license, the newly created license will display the “previous license number” of the license that was renewed into the new license.
What would be a good use for “Tracking Items” on a business?
This area would be used to track details for items the business uses, such as arcade machines, maybe taxi cars, etc.
How would you configure a request type to email certain employees when that request type is entered?
Each request type’s setup area has a section where you can fill out email addresses that should be notified with that request type is entered.
Where would you add or view attachments/letters for an account?
This would need to be found under the “Attachment” button on the top toolbar when on the account.
Can action tasks automatically be created when you create a request?
Yes, you can setup default action tasks per request type or per category within a request type.
How would you send a mass email to businesses?
This could be done under tasks → email businesses
How would you setup a fee so it can be transferred to tax?
The fee would need to have the “Fee is Lienable” option checked and then the optional transfer to tax code can be filled out if they wish.
What is the one of the most common reasons why information would not be updating in BD after importing from ASG?
Most common reasons would be scan only option is enabled or the import is still looking at last year’s ASG database because ASG users forgot to put their new database in the shared database group.
What changes for refunding if a “Transfer to Accounts Payable Credit GL Number” is filled in (found under Program Setup>1. Database Setup>Accounting>2. GL Settings>System GL Numbers).
Explain what a Display Object Filter does in a report?
Filters data directly on the report. This works as another layer of filtering that is set under Report Options. These filters are not typically changed once set since it’s not readily available on the front end to the customer. These are most commonly used when trying to filter out sub-records (since this data couldn’t be filtered under the report’s parent record’s Report Options).
A contractor is hitting an error when trying to apply for a permit on BSAO that that their licensee is not valid. What are the 2 possible issues and how do they fix this?
What is the difference between a “Cash” bond and a “Document” bond in the BD program?
Cash bond is a bond where the Municipality is holding onto the money and a document bond is where a bank holds onto the money, but they put a “note” of the bond existing in the BD program.
List the steps to manually merge two properties together.
A workflow was setup in BD but is not working in FI. What would be a possible cause of this issue?
The workflow most likely was setup to only trigger in the BD application and should have been created for the FI application. Then the FI users would need to do a sync to pull over the new workflow before it would start working.
If a customer wanted to track how many arcade machines a business has each year and have the renewal fee calculate based on the number of arcade machines, where could they track the number of arcade machines so that the fee always grabbed the right quantity when renewing?
It should be tracked in the “business units” field on the business.
How is it determined who can approve a license?
Each license type can have its own list of approval levels, and each approval level must be setup with which users can approve that approval level.
What would be the best way to merge duplicate businesses?
Under tasks, there is a merge business option, where you enter the business you want to keep, and select the business to merge into it.
Explain “categories” for requests.
Categories are a way to break down a certain request type. It allows you to create a sub-set of options when a certain request type is selected. Each category has it’s own settings if you want them to behave differently than the overall request type. An example would be a request type of “Parks” and then categories of “Bathrooms, Grass, Vandalism, etc”.
What is the purpose of the “requests” tab when on an account record?
That tab will list and show every request that has been called in or associated with that account.
What would be one of the best ways to find open actions?
Use the “search actions” node under application views. This will give you a table that can be filtered. You could also filter and run reports.
What is the difference between a “penalty” and a “late charge”?
Penalties can use a step-rate table and charge a certain percentage based on how many days the fee is overdue. Late charges just do a flat amount or flat percentage.
Explain the use of Fee Versions.
This allows customers to program changes to their fee schedule BEFORE the changes take place. They can queue up all the fee increases/decreases and set the fee version to take place on a certain date.
Timing.
Assessing departments typically take longer to process the sale/ownership changes of parcels. In BD.NET though, the given new owner may come to the municipality to begin pulling permits immediately after a sale. This timing mismatch can cause issues as BD.NET needs to proceed with their work even as they wait for ASG.NET to do theirs. If these changes synced in real time though, the 2 apps would constantly be fighting one another.
Why are overpayments generally not encouraged by us in CD?
How would you make a custom permit report override the system default "Weather Card" shortcut when printing from a permit?
BSA Online user gets message that their Contractor is “Inactive” when trying to apply for permits. What steps should the Municipality take to resolve this issue?
They need to go to the Contractor table in BD and make sure they are NOT hiding inactive records and then sort by the web username column to find the Contractors that are linked to the web user. Then they need to break the link on the inactive contractor record.
Bonds can be configured to allow them to “go negative” via a TSU. Why would a Municipality want to allow for a bond to go negative?
Some places need to start paying third party invoices for reviews and other reasons BEFORE a Contractor has provided bond money. Allowing for a bond to go negative, they can do a transfer from BD to AP to “pay” those third party invoices and the bond will then have an accrual invoice created for the contractor to pay, to get the bond amount held back to $0, then they can deposit more bond money on top so there is a normal amount held.
If a workflow has multiple filter actions, and a given record doesn’t meet one of those filter actions, what happens to the remaining workflow actions when the workflow is triggered?
The workflow will stop and no additional actions will be processed when a record fails to meet one or more of the filtered actions.
Explain a a few possible reasons why an attachment would show up in BD, but not in FI.
A user proceeded with the live run of their BL renewals only to find many issues with the newly created licenses/invoices. How can this be fixed?
Explain the difference between Revoking a license and canceling a license.
Revoking is done if the license was issued. Canceled would be done if the license has not yet been issued.
If you wanted to send an email to a business, how would you determine what email address the email would send to?
Under general settings, there is an area where you can tell emails to send to contact 1, contact 2, or both.
Each request type can be setup to add a specific quick code violation in BD. A quick code violation would need to first be created in BD and CRA would need to fill out the parcel number on the request so it knows what address/parcel to create the quick code violation on in BD.
Can accounts be merged together?
No, but you can transfer requests from one account to another.
Explain when the internal resolution would be different than the public resolution when an action task is resolved?
The internal resolution could contain more personal/sensitive information that would not want to be presented to the public.
What are the steps for refunding within BL.NET?