12.3. Adjust or Credit (refund) a Bond
Whenever a child's time in the service permanently increases or decreases, the account holder's Bond should be adjusted to reflect the change. If the amount of time in care increases then the bond will go up and the account holder will owe the service money. This is straight forward, a new debit simply appears on the account. However, if the new bond amount is lower, resulting in a credit to the account, you now need to decide how to allocate that credit.
You can apply it to existing account transactions.
Keep the credit in suspense (unallocated) to be applied to future transactions.
Thus, even if the account has no monies owing, you can still hold on to the money, applying it to subsequent transactions when they occur.
However, if the account is fully paid up or in credit, the account holder might request a cash refund. This could occur when a child is withdrawn from care.
NB. Refunding cash is not the task dealt with here. Adjusting or crediting a bond is a process of account adjustments, but these adjustments must be carried out before a cash refund can be made.
Your Responsibilities.
When the regular bookings for a child change, you should adjust the account holder's bond accordingly.
If this results in a credit to the account you must ensure that this credit is properly allocated.
Before going on to refund any money always be absolutely certain that the account holder's account history is completely up to date.
Steps to: Adjust or Credit a Bond
Select menu BOOKING+BILLING / ACCOUNT.
Select the Account from the Draw Down Selection List whose Bond you wish to adjust.
Select the BOND button, bringing forward the BOND ADJUSTMENT DETAILS edit screen.
Change the bond amount to equate with the new fortnightly fee.
Again, to Calculate the Nett Fee, you can use the Bond Calculator by following the previous steps and entering the date the permanent bookings are to change.
To credit a bond in total, adjust bond to $0.00.
Select OK.
If this adjustment results in a debit to the account, no further action is required as the debit is automatically applied.
If adjustment results in a credit to the account, then the ACCOUNT ADJUSTMENT screen will come forward.
In the white square which appears next to the oldest debit in the account, press ENTER or Double Click in the white square, repeat until the whole Bond Credit has been applied to outstanding debits.
NB. What you are trying to do in applying offsets is to reduce outstanding transactions to zero.
Select OK.
NB. If the result of this process is an unallocated credit you can leave it 'in suspense' to be allocated to a later transaction or you can make a cash refund to the account holder(see Refund an Account Credit).