IAAB records all payroll transactions in the agency’s management system. IAAB has accountants on staff who prepare & review your agency’s financial reports each month. We provide you with a Balance Sheet, Income Statement, and reports of Open Receivables & Open Payables. We also offer ad hoc reporting to answer your specific questions. All agencies have the opportunity to review their reports with a staff accountant. IAAB monitors your open agency bill premium payables for customer payments and pays the companies/brokers within a few days of receipt.
Ready to Make Accounting Easier?
The right accounting software support shaves time off repeatable tasks and better connects your business operations. IAAB records your customer payments and regularly provides you with reports of unpaid balances. More than 50 percent of agencies my company analyzes show their producers are being paid more than their contracts suggest. Most reasons though are not good including poor accounting, fraud, mistakes at the CSR level entering the right commission amounts, coding renewals incorrectly, and paying producers extra because someone feels sorry for them. Agencies are not 100 percent cash, and they are not 100 percent accrual. You want an accounting software that does the heavy lifting for you.
THESE NEW DOUBLE-ENTRY ACCOUNTING FEATURES INCLUDE:
It is a fact that most agency owners did not especially like accounting classes — if they even took accounting classes in college — or they probably would be accountants rather than insurance agency owners. Accounting practices for independent insurance agencies differ greatly from those traditionally used by other small businesses. The best accounting app for Insurance Agents is one that anticipates the needs of people, like you, who have a business to run, and who don’t have a lot of time to spend on accounting. It’s one that keeps the accounting terminology simple, provides an easy user interface, and an in-house customer support team that’s ready to help.
Additional Applied Pay Reconciliations in Agency Accounting
With our team working daily on the accounting tasks, we categorize numbers correctly and with the detail you need to make decisions. Gain complete insights into your agency’s financial health with EZLynx Agency Accounting. Your clients trust you to get them the best coverage and rates possible. You know how important it is to be able to weigh your options based on accurate information and stats. FreshBooks will send polite late payment reminders to your clients. You have your choice – charge a flat fee for a late payment, or a percentage of the amount you’re owed.
Record Direct Bill Commission
In that time, play with one of our invoice templates, do up a proposal or estimate, and see how easy it is to generate a report of your choosing. At the end of the trial period, we think you’ll agree that FreshBooks is the online accounting software solution that small businesses have been looking for. After we have collaborated to agree on the process and technology, we will get your unique accounting operational system in place. We’ll set everything up and can even train the relevant team members on the new capabilities. Your business systems will seamlessly integrate to reduce manual work and increase financial visibility.
- Boost profitability, save time, and maximize efficiency and accuracy.
- The FreshBooks’ dashboard will give you a snapshot of your company’s income and expenses.
- This comprehensive guide dives into essential bookkeeping and accounting tips tailored for insurance agencies, empowering you to navigate the financial landscape confidently.
- It’s time to say goodbye to hidden fees and hourly billing.
- The best accounting app for Insurance Agents is one that anticipates the needs of people, like you, who have a business to run, and who don’t have a lot of time to spend on accounting.
Understand exactly how much should be coming in to get an accurate sense of your cash flow. Decimal continues rapid growth with the acquisition of Facta’s accounting services businessClick here for more information. Whether your business requires a traditional audit or accounting and reporting advisory services, Deloitte & Touche LLP’s Audit & Assurance practice works to deliver more than a static snapshot of the past. The COVID-19 pandemic has presented insurance companies with several challenges, such as swiftly transitioning to a remote workforce and reassessing their financial goals and market strategies in a contracting economy. In addition, insurers should not overlook the need to manage their potential reputational risks in the midst of this pandemic.
We’ll work with you to improve processes and gain efficiencies throughout your organization, all for a fixed monthly price. It’s time to say goodbye to hidden fees and hourly billing. Decimal creates the accounting operational plan around your business, your needs, and your operations. We build a repeatable and scalable template to address your accounting operations so that when you grow, we can effortlessly scale with you. Show the details to your clients to answer any questions ahead of time. As you close more business, get a detailed view of the commissions being generated and where the best opportunities are.
We remit premiums electronically whenever possible and notify the companies/brokers with payment application details. We work with Agency staff and insurance company/wholesaler staff to ensure records agree. IAAB records your direct bill commission on a cash basis using company commission statements as the source document. We process commission statement downloads, imports, and manually record commission statements. No matter what you might think, agencies are responsible for fiduciary funds. The responsibility is memorialized in your carrier contracts and all 50 states, plus the federal government, require agencies to treat these fiduciary funds appropriately.
When creating an income statement for a P&C agency, it is recommended that only commission payments, broker fees and other contingent income be included as sales revenues. Any amounts paid to the insurance company from the trust account should be treated as a pass through for accounting purposes. This practice will best reflect the true operation of the agency and will eliminate common accounting errors.
Most P&C agencies receive monthly commission statements in the mail each month or they can access the commission data online from the insurance company’s website. It is also common for agency owners to ignore these statements and to toss them when they are received. While some states may not require an agency to maintain a separate trust account, it is highly recommended that two separate accounts be maintained. The Internet is filled with stories of agency owners being prosecuted and losing their licenses for improperly using trust funds to make payments in their operating accounts.
QuickBooks is a great system for most businesses but not insurance agencies. Never use QuickBooks unless you have a high degree in accounting and possess significant insurance agency specific accounting knowledge so you can address agency bill business correctly. By not analyzing these statements on a monthly and annual basis, the agency owner will have a more difficult time understanding the true operation of the business. To prevent this type of error from occurring, both the accountant and the business owner should compare the monthly deposits to the monthly commission statements received by the agency. Under Assets on the balance sheet, the accountant should include both the operating account balance and the trust account balance, and these should be kept separate bank accounts. Under Liabilities on the balance sheet, a separate entry should be made for the amounts due to the Insurance Companies from the trust account.
A balance sheet and an income statement are business report cards. I feel for agencies that have accountants who do not take the time to do their jobs correctly. Quite often balance sheets do not matter until they matter. Somewhere between 100 and 1,000 times, agency owners have, upon me questioning issues related to their balance sheets, said that no one ever previously cared about their balance sheet. That may be, and often an agency can continue to run just fine while their balance sheet is a mess or the agency is upside down per their balance sheet.
The FreshBooks’ desktop accounting software will sync automatically with the app, so you can access your small business finances from anywhere in the world. We offer a number of different accounting packages to choose from, with competitive pricing. We know you would rather spend your time selling insurance policies, not on accounting details. FreshBooks will automate tasks for you, such as tracking project hours and sending payment reminders. After implementing the solution, Decimal will look for ways to improve processes. With new technology being introduced every day, we’ll always be looking for ways to keep elevating accounting operations.
