Bookkeeping in Applied Epic: 10 Best Practices for Accurate Financial Reporting

Accurate bookkeeping in Applied Epic is an area where many agencies struggle and lack confidence in the integrity of their accounting data and financial reports. Applied Epic has a well-designed accounting system that captures all your agency’s financial data and organizes it into various financial reports. These reports are critical analytical tools that can help management understand the financial health of your agency, as well as assist in making financial decisions about agency growth and process improvements. In this article, we will explore 10 best practices for bookkeeping in Applied Epic to help you ensure accurate financial data.

Best Practices for Accurate Bookkeeping in Epic

1. Record Every Financial Transaction with Receipts and Disbursements

Accurate financial data involves keeping track of every single financial transaction in your agency. Knowing how much you earn and how much money you spend is important for getting an idea of your actual income and expenses. Entering your receipts and disbursements and verifying them on your bank statement or your online banking portal is a critical step to ensuring that every transaction is recorded in Epic and reported on your financial statements.

2. Record Payroll Entries

Another important step of bookkeeping is recording the payroll. Whether you calculate, record and submit your agency payroll on your own or use an outsourced payroll service, entering your payroll data into Epic ensures that all payroll transactions are recorded on your financial statements accurately.

3. Reconcile Direct Bill Commissions

Reconciling your direct bill policy commissions is another critical step in accurate financial reporting. For direct bill commissions, you can download, import, or manually reconcile your commissions and once reconciled, tie them to your commission deposits to ensure that they will be reported on your income statement correctly.

4. Reconcile Premium Payables

There are multiple steps necessary for the accurate recording of your premium payable/agency bill policies in Epic. The accurate invoicing of the policies to your clients, recording the receipt of their payment, reconciling the premium payable to the company or broker, and disbursing payment of the premium payable to the carrier are the steps necessary to properly record these transactions in Epic.

5. Record Direct Bill Sweeps

Many agencies offer the courtesy of collecting policy payments for their clients and paying the carrier on their behalf. These are called “sweeps”. Making sure the client’s payment is receipted to their account and the payment to the carrier is recorded as a Premium Advance will accurately capture these transactions in Epic and keep the premium bank account balance and accounts receivable on the balance sheet accurate.

6. Reconcile and Pay Producer and Broker Commissions

Whether you use the Pr/Br Reconciliation feature in Epic or reconcile and review your producer/broker payables manually, you need accurate Pr/Br commission data in your system so you can pay them commissions that are owed. Verifying that commission agreements are set up and attached to policies in Epic will ensure that your producers and brokers are paid accurately and timely every month.

7. Perform Monthly Bank Reconciliations

Reconciling your bank accounts monthly is a critical bookkeeping step that ensures that all financial transactions are recorded in Epic and that your bank balance in Epic ties to the bank account. This reconciliation will ensure that all financial data is correctly reported on your financial statements.

8. Run Month End Accounting Reports

In Epic, there are several month end accounting reports that you can run and review before closing your month. These reports will help you determine if there are any incomplete transactions and ensure that you have reconciled all commissions received and that your receivables and payables tie to your General Ledger.

9. Analyze General Ledger Account Balances Using the Status of Accounts Report

The Status of Accounts report is a valuable tool to review the debit and credit transactions in all your General Ledger accounts. Use this report to analyze the detail of your balance sheet and income statement balances when balances look incorrect. Once you determine what caused the errors in your balances, you can further complete transactions and/or enter a journal entry to correct balances.

10. Review of Final Income Statement and Balance Sheet

Once you determine that your financial reports and data are complete and accurate, the final monthly bookkeeping step is to close the month in Epic. Once you close the month, you are now ready to submit your final monthly financial reports to your CPA if required. Management will also now have the tools they need to analyze the agency’s financial data to plan for future financial decisions.

Conclusion

Proper bookkeeping in Applied Epic is essential for agency management to understand in order to be able to make informed financial decisions. Without knowing the details of your agency’s finances, it’s difficult to evaluate opportunities for growth and investment. Monthly and yearly financial statements can give you a lot of information about your agency and help you pinpoint areas for improvement. They are also vital for your CPA to obtain for accurate and timely tax reporting.

Accounting and bookkeeping in Epic can be very overwhelming for an agency when they don’t trust the accuracy of their financial data. If your agency needs help with accounting and bookkeeping in Epic, the KiteTech Agency Consulting team is here to help! We have extensive experience in Applied Epic accounting and we are ready to provide customized solutions that meet your agency’s unique needs. We can assist your agency with accounting optimization, forensic accounting and cleanup, and even outsourced bookkeeping services. Contact us today for more information!