3.4.15 Service Charge Accounts

3.4.15 Service Charge Accounts

This screen allows you to view all the financial year/service charge accounts for all blocks. 
Accessed via the Workbench -> Finance -> Service Charge Accounts -> Service Charge Accounts


The list contains all the financial years for a block and you can see the details of its accountant submission dates (normally found within the block itself under finance -> accountant submission).
To see the Published date, you need to tick the 'Include Published Accounts' checkbox and then filter.
You can update these submission dates and the published dates here individually or in bulk by selecting the relevant financial year and then clicking on [Bulk Update]. 
The Status also describes how late you are on doing the accounts which acts as an indicator to stay on top of them.
The conditions for this report:
  1. The Due Date is 180 days from FY End Date
  2. If the FY End Date has passed 6 weeks then the Status is set as Late
  3. If the FY End Date has passed 8 weeks then the Status is set as Escalate

SCOAP users ONLY (If you would like to subscribe to this module then please contact support@blocksonline.co.uk)
If you are subscribed to our SCOAP module (please contact support@blocksonline.co.uk to find out how to subscribe), then the screen will have some additional features related to SCOAP.
Firstly you get the widget on the home screen which breaks down how many outstanding accounts there are to be submitted or finalised with the status on the due date and also a pie chart with a status breakdown if you have the account connected to SCOAP to track the progress of the accounts until it becomes Published both in SCOAP and in Blocks Online. 
More info on the widget at the bottom of this KB article: 3.1.8 Workbench Dashboard and Widgets


You can allocate a financial year to an account by ticking the checkbox against it and then clicking on [Allocate SCOAP Accountant]. Once you do this then a pop up appears so you can choose the accountant:


Once it is allocated, the service charge accounts data from Blocks Online will be sent to SCOAP as a new instruction. Any updates retrieved from SCOAP relating to the account is then updated via the SCOAP Status column. 
You can click on [Revoke Access] for an account which will disconnect it from SCOAP. SCOAP may still have the record on their side as the data has been passed over but it will be outdated if nothing is being done to it. 
There are several SCOAP Statuses (These are all within SCOAP and Blocks Online just retrieves the update on the SCOAP status but doesn't update the status within Blocks Online):
  1. Not Started - The account has been linked to SCOAP and the new instructions have been sent over. 
  2. Transactions Loaded - The first action performed in SCOAP is to retrieve the transactions from Blocks Online
  3. Journalling Started - Manual journal entries to make adjustments in SCOAP
  4. Reporting Started - Account information is at a point where they can produce the initial service charge accounts report and in SCOAP the report has been initiated
  5. Waiting Client Input - when an Accountant has asked a question for the client and is waiting an answer (e.g. are you ok for me to accrue this?)
  6. Draft Being Reviewed - The draft PDF of the service charge accounts are generated
  7. Finalised - the draft PDF has been converted to the final version of the service charge accounts
  8. Published - the accounts are confirmed by the accountant and is updated as published
  9. Unpublished - if you are unhappy after publishing the accounts, you can unpublish them (small warning triangle shown in Blocks Online within the screen)
Once accounts come back from SCOAP as Published, you then have a button called [Get Accounts]. Once you click on this, you are presented with a pop up window:


1. The first part outlines which block and which financial year accounts have been retrieved from SCOAP. You can then view them using the blue document icon.

This service charge account can then be saved into the block documents for the block by clicking on the 'Save to Block Documents' button. 
It will be saved under the document type of 'Budget and Service Charge Accounts'.
If the document type is published in the Portal, then be aware that portal users will be able to see the accounts document.

2. The second part is a table which contains data retrieved from SCOAP relating to Surplus and Deficit. Each line is broken down per block schedule and also by whether it is a Surplus or Deficit. 

Using the 'Process ad-hoc demand' button, you will be logged into the block where the Surplus/Deficit data is pre-populated into our ad-hoc demand type 'Service Charge - Percentage'.
Now you can send a demand or credit invoice to the respective units based on the data provided by SCOAP relating to the service charge accounts. 

3. The third part is the ability to set the Published Date for the accounts within Blocks Online.

It may have been set as Published on the SCOAP Status but you would still need to check the document returned and make sure it is correct and you wish to publish it.
If you want to confirm the accounts, you can click on 'Confirm date published'. The date in the field is by default the date that SCOAP has returned the accounts with the status of Published but you can override this if you wish.
For example: If the accounts came back to Blocks Online as Published from SCOAP on Friday 09/02/2024 and you only saw it on Monday 12/02/2024 then you can confirm it on the Monday. 
The accounts where the SCOAP Status and Status (the one within Blocks Online) are both 'Published', will disappear from the Service Charge Accounts widget pie chart as you no longer need to focus on it. 
The widget will show a little warning when no data is present to display the bar or pie chart:

You can view published accounts from the list screen by ticking the 'Include Published Accounts' checkbox within the filter. 




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