Suggested Room Choice Month End Close Process

Date Inputs

Date inputs should correspond to the first and last day of the period being closed. In the case of reports run as of a certain day the last day of the period should be used

Making Corrections

Changes to a transaction in an unclosed month can be made directly in Room Choice.

Transactions in a previously closed month should not be adjusted without permission from Accounting. Instead, a new manual charge/payment/credit should be added to the student’s ledger as follows:

• Use a negative number in the “amount” entry form so that the combination of the original transaction amount and the new transaction is equal to the corrected amount.
• Select the same charge code type as the original entry.
• In the “Description” field, document the reason for the change and cite any supporting documentation (“Fixing double-charged Rent in August, see 2/1/2014 email from Bob”).
• Select a date in the current period.

Onsite Team:

Before you begin your monthly close, review all open alerts. You should close nearly all alerts at least monthly (we suggest alerts are closed weekly). 

I. Payment & Settlement Reports

• All applicants should be reviewed and then approved or denied in order to settle their initial payments.
• Any unsettled transactions with an effective date during or before the closing period should be investigated and then either deleted or settled as appropriate.
• Any NSF’s on manual transactions should be entered as a negative payment and settled to their own settlement report.
• Review all manual settlement reports during the close period and ensure they have a deposit date assigned. The system will assume that a settlement not assigned a deposit date has not cleared the bank.

II. GPR Report

• Review the “Student” column to ensure that all students are correctly placed. Pay particular attention to vacant beds and students that are “unassigned” to ensure that a student was not moved by mistaken during the period.
• Next, review the loss/gain to lease column, this amount should not typically vary from month to month, if you notice a change contact your account manager.
• Finally, review the “Actual Rent” column to ensure that all “vacancy” amounts make sense. Investigate high or low amounts. If requested by Accounting provide a short description of any discrepancies.
• Any “unassigned” students should either have their rent pro-rated as of the day they moved out or should be placed into their appropriate bed if being unassigned was an error. Take note of which bed the unassigned student occupied prior to being moved out.

III. Deposit Report

• Review the “Late/Overpaid” column, follow up with late students as necessary.
• Review the “Deposits on Hand” column and review any amounts that are not standard, pay particular attention to amounts that are negative (contact your account manager) or larger than the standard amount (check for a double charge).

IV. Delinquency Report

• Review all delinquencies. Ensure that there are no errors or ledger mistakes. Contact the students to put in place a payment plan. If appropriate, book late fees. Sort the report by “status”, to ensure that there are no inactive students with money owed. If inactive students have ledger balances please contact your account manager.
• Open the “Aging” section of the report. Review all transactions that are excessively late and make an action plan to resolve or write-off as appropriate.

V. Prepaid Report

• Review all prepaid. Ensure that prepaid amounts are a result of true prepayments and not missing charges or payment errors. Contact your account manager if future ledger entries are missing for a student.

VI. Cash Variance Report

• Review the Cash Variance Report. Review the undeposited column of this report. Review all manual settlement reports during the close period and ensure they have a deposit date assigned. The system will assume that a settlement not assigned a deposit date has not cleared the bank. 

VII. Send Utilities to Room Choice (with Room Choice Utility Billing)

• Review utility bills, make any adjustments necessary and then email the finalized CSV to Room Choice (if room choice is posting and managing convergent utility bills for your property).

VIII. Review Move-Outs and Send to Room Choice (with Room Choice Deposit Dispositions)

• Ensure that all move-outs have been removed from their beds and placed on the waitlist. The GPR report can be used to quickly identify move-outs as they will be listed as “unassigned”. Review each move-outs ledger to ensure that they have been billed appropriately, pay special attention to rent for the final month (check proration), utilities in the final month, and selling fee (if applicable).
• Send the final list of move-outs to Room Choice in an Excel spreadsheet to initiate deposit accounting. The spreadsheet should include student name, address for the deposit check, and any special handling instructions if applicable.

IX. Notify Accounting Team to Begin Month Close

• Email Room Choice and Accounting letting us know that you are done. Room Choice will notify Accounting once we have finalized utilities and deposit accounting so Accounting can finish their processes (when using Room Choice Utility Billing and Deposit Disposition Services). With your email please send your bank statements for the accounting period.

Accounting Team:

I. Reconcile Bank Statement to Settlement Reports

• Ensure that all settlements in Room Choice have a corresponding bank deposit and that all deposits have a corresponding settlement. Check that no historical reports have shifted.

II. Run Charges & Credits Report

• Run the charges report, export into Excel. Review general amounts to make sure nothing seems off or categorized incorrectly.

III. Run Cash Variance Report

• Run the cash variance report. This report identifies any variance of cash between the Room Choice platform and the property bank account. It also identifies deposits outside of the current period. In some cases, a tenant has paid and those funds have not reached the property bank. In which case you may book a short-term asset variance which you relieve when the funds are received.  In practice, this is a recommended step to ensure that all payments booked to the student as paid are also reconciled with the bank via a completed settlement. 

IV. Run GPR Report

• Next, review the loss/gain to lease column, this amount should not typically vary from month to month, if you notice a change contact your account manager.
• Finally, review the “Actual Rent” column to ensure that all “vacancy” amounts make sense. Investigate high or low amounts. Request additional clarification from the onsite team as needed for any discrepancies.

V. Run Deposit Report

• Review the “Late/Overpaid” column, follow up with the onsite team regarding late students as necessary.
• Review the “Deposits on Hand” column and review any amounts that are not standard, pay particular attention to amounts that are negative or larger than the standard amount (check for a double charge).

VI. Run Delinquency Report

• Check total amount for reasonableness, review largest balances with the onsite team if needed.
• Sort by “Status” such that all inactive students are shown at the top. Review the listed students and consider writing off their balances.
• Open the “Aging” section of the report. Review all transactions that are unacceptably late and coordinate payment action plans as needed with the onsite team.

VII. Run Prepaid Report

• Check total amount for reasonableness, coordinate with the onsite team if amounts look off.

VIII. Email Room Choice for Rent Roll

IX. Re-Run and Export All Reports

• Save in month-end folder for audit tracking.