End of Month Preparation – HOMHERO

These steps should take place on the day before the last day of the month or on the last day of the month i.e. in a 31 day month this should be done on the 30^th and in a 30 day month on the 29th. We recommend that you don’t leave it until the 31^st as if there are any issues/problems it’s best to know about them with plenty of time to correct.

Ensure all bookings are departed.
Check that all bookings departing for the month are fully paid up and have no debit/credit balances as any booking with a balance (credit or debit) will not pay out to the owner.

Departing all reservations for the month:

In Homhero – Select Reservations + List
Select Advanced Search
Set the search field to Departure
From date = 1st of the current month
To date = last day of the current month
Status – remove Quote and Unconfirmed
Select the Status column and click on the arrow to put it in alphabetical order. Ensure that all bookings have departed.

Debtors Ledger

This Report should be checked once a week throughout the month also to limit the amount of work required at the end of the month.

In RMS in Menu Search type Debtors Ledger and choose Reports + Debtors Ledger
In Account Classification select Reservations only
In Reservation Status select Departed only
Build

Work through this report going to the reservations and fixing them so that they balance.

📌 Please Note:

The same report should also be done for Cancelled Bookings on a weekly basis. If you have any funds that should be paid to the Owner for a cancelled booking, please make sure this is done within the month you are disbursing.

Monies Held in Trust

This report can be run prior to EOM but should also be run after you have run EOM to identify any funds that were not paid out at the EOM disbursement. The purpose of running this report is to ensure that funds are being paid out when they should be. Debtors Ledgers will only show if a booking is unbalanced. This Monies Held in Trust Report will show bookings that still have any funds in them at all for whatever reason.

Menu Search type Monies and choose Reports + Owner Accounting + Monies Held in Trust
You do not need to change the date
Select Build
Once the report is built select the download icon and choose CSV
Turn on the Filter under Sort & Filter
Filter column F Amount – Amounts to Smallest to Largest.
If there any transactions that are negative, please report them to your Trust Trainer or Homhero Support immediately (please only copy them to another tab, do not move them)
Filter column C Res No and sort – any Owner or Client will have a “0” in the Reservation number column and the departure date 1-Jan-00.
If you have any transactions for just Client accounts you should do regular checks on these to make sure that you are not holding funds for clients that should be refunded or moved to new reservations. You would need to know your owners names pretty well to differentiate which are owners and which are clients. These client funds could also be moved to a new tab for checking.
Delete all owner and client funds from the sheet.
Delete all reservations for future reservations.
Sort by Res No Smallest to Largest – if you have negative amounts, you could also have a positive amount for the same reservation for the same amount and it’s important to know this when you report this to us

⚠️ Important:

The following section (General Transfers) is for agencies that are withholding funds in the trust
(Z-Accounts) Only

General Transfers

All General Transfers are paid out to the agency’s general account. General Transfers are sundry charges on non-owner accounts, e.g. Reservations or Client Accounts that have been paid with a Trust receipt. Therefore, there should not be any Accommodation charges showing on here as these belong to the Owner, not the Manager. If so, please rectify before running this process.

These charges belong to the Manager (or to be paid to an external party e.g. Booking.com etc). In many cases some agencies prefer to keep some of these funds out in the trust account for the following reasons:

Hold funds in a Client Account within the trust account to keep these funds in the trust or
To an “Agency Owner Account” created to enable the retention of funds in the trust account in order to pay 3rd party creditors from the trust account

If any General Transfers that you wish to hold in the Trust Account are not moved until the last day of the month, they will automatically be included in the EFT file upload for the Owners and creditors.

⚠️ Important:

The movement of these funds within the trust account should be done on the day BEFORE the last day of the month or any other day other than the last day and the day of disbursement.

In Menu Search type General Transfers and choose Reports +Owner Accounting + General Transfers
Sort by the GL Account Column and select the funds to be moved. Only select general transfers with departures dates for the month of disbursement
Click Pay or the arrow
There will be a box advising the amount of funds to be transferred, click the tick
It will then tell you that the General Transfers has been completed – press OK

3^rd Party Payments

Paying 3^rd parties is part of the EOM procedure however payments to creditors can be done prior to the last day of the month but CANNOT be paid on the last day of the month. Any payments other than refunds would be included in the EFT file and would end up being paid twice.

Checking Owner Statements

It is recommended that rather than leaving this until the day you run EOM, that you have a look over your Owner statements in advance to allow time to address any issues.

📌 Please note:

If you do not run your Creditor disbursement on this day, then creditor payments will show on the owner statement as being unpaid.

In Menu Search type Owner Statement and choose Reports + Owner Accounting + Owner Statement
Leave on This Month (the trust month you are finalising eg June) + Apply
Choose More Options and select as required + Build
Make a note of which options you wish to use so that you won’t select different options each month.

⚠️ Important:

Please take the time to check all owner statements thoroughly. If you note that there are any issues with the statements i.e. no management fee charged, then you need to take the time to investigate and fix this prior to paying the owners. Once Pay Owner/Manager is run, no amendments can be made for the Trust month you are disbursing and only an adjustment can be made in the new month. It is easier to fix issues now before the month is closed.

Bank Reconciliation

Do a reconciliation and three-way balance up to the last transaction on your bank statement for the whole month of disbursement prior to running End of Month. This can still be done on the first working day of the new month.

Any funds received on the last day of the month that you wish to be included in the Owner Disbursement must be receipted in RMS for the last day of the month. Make sure both the Transaction Date and the Date Banked are changed.