Rules for Effective Dating Account Adjustments

This feature is used to post a transaction to a member's account and have the system automatically calculate the adjustment to interest or paid dividends according to the effective date of the adjustment. In a nutshell, it effectively back-dates simple, common types of transactions with a notation in transaction history indicating the effective date.

It should be used very rarely, and is designed to handle situations such as a missed deposit, a deposit that was credited to the wrong account and not caught for several days, mail that was not posted immediately on the day it was received, and similar situations. Anything more complex may require additional manual calculations/adjustments and account maintenance to be performed.

  • Currently, effective dated adjustments can be done ONLY for savings products that use the Average Daily Balance method for computing dividends. Savings products that use a daily accrual CANNOT be handled properly by this system.

  • Currently, effective dated adjustments can be done ONLY for loans with interest calculation type 0 (365-day interest calc.). Online credit card loans cannot be adjusted using this tool.

  • This feature cannot be used on certificate accounts.

  • The transaction is NOT posted as of the effective date; it is entered into transaction history as of the date you enter the information and post it. In other words, past transaction history will not be affected. However, the system determines the effect on dividend/interest amounts that the member earns/pays as if the transaction had happened on that effective date.

  • If posting a savings deposit with an effective date in the current dividend period, the system will adjust the accumulated balance amount that is used to determine average daily balance, so that when dividends are later calculated and paid, the correct daily balance is used for the period. For example, if you missed a $1,000 deposit that should have been made a week ago, the system must add $1,000 to the accumulated balance field for each day that has passed since the effective date (1000 x 7).

  • If posting a savings deposit with an effective date in the prior dividend period, the system will use a simple-daily dividend calc method to calculate a recommended adjustment to dividends paid, posting it as a separate transaction with an effective date notation. The system will also adjust the accumulated balance for the current period, as described above. For example, if on Feb 15 you need to post a deposit that should have happened on January 20, and dividends were already paid on January 31, the system will estimate dividends for the 11 days in January using a simple-daily calculation (balance change at the base rate for that number of days), and also adjust the accumulated balance field for the days in the current period (Feb. 1 to 15).

  • If posting a loan payment with an effective date in the past, the system calculates the difference in the amount of interest due since the effective date and will recommend the amount of interest to be credited to the loan.

  • If posting a reversal of a loan payment (such as if a check was returned NSF a few days after the payment was posted), the system will calculate the recommended amount to be added back to interest due.

  • Adjustments on loan accounts will NOT calculate an interest adjustment if there are any transactions after the effective date specified. CU*BASE does not store a resulting interest due amount every time something happens on a loan account. Therefore, in order to calculate a recommended interest adjustment, CU*BASE must work backwards from the current date, subtracting from current interest due for each day to estimate what interest due would have been as of the effective date.

  • It is not possible to effectively date a transaction to a previous calendar year.

  • Adjustments cannot be effectively dated in the future; the effective date must be in the past.

  • Adjustments can be done to effectively date both debits (withdrawals/disbursements) and credits (deposits/payments).

  • The system will not bring accrued interest to a negative amount. If the calculation would result in a negative amount, an amount of $0.00 is used instead.

  • For savings products with tiered rates, the system will always use the base rate to calculate the recommended adjustment (no minimums, no exclusions), regardless of the account balance or other factors.

  • This system lets you post a single adjustment at a time. To post a batch of transactions with an effective date (such as if on Monday you are posting the mail from Friday), you will need to post each transaction separately, one member at a time, using these account adjustment screens.

  • The transaction description entered on the adjustment screen will be used as the primary description, and the system will automatically record the effective date as the secondary transaction description. So if viewing this transaction in Phone Operator History, or when the transaction appears on the member statement and in online banking, it will show as follows:

images\effdatetransdesc1_shg.gif

After using Toggle Description:

images\effdatetransdesc2_shg.gif

  • For savings accounts, you will be allowed to back-date a transaction even if other transactions have occurred since the effective date. However, for loan accounts, if any other transactions have occurred since the effective date, the system will proceed with a normal account adjustment and will NOT calculate a recommended adjustment to interest.

As you can see, there are many things to consider when making an account adjustment that is based on an effective date in the past. Because of this, access to this special Account Adjustment tool should be granted only to staff who understand the ramifications and can judge when and how the tool should be used in each unique situation.