The Department of Revenue has specific guidelines for handling unclaimed property. The Guide To Reporting Unclaimed Property is available on the Department of Revenue website. Use the guide to determine what outstanding claims have been paid out but not cashed. Payroll checks must be reported after 1 year and most property should be reported after 3 years with no contact from the owner. The guide will have a complete list of abandonment periods. The following are the steps that need to be taken to record them properly in BIAS.
Go to Transactions > General Ledger
DO NOT MODIFY any transaction that has already been reported to the state. If the annual report has been filed, leave it alone!
- Click Add New
- Select today's Date
- Select Type Stop Pmt, Stop Payment
- Select the bank Account that the payments were originally processed from.
Click Redeemed Warrants tab
- Double click in the Warrant cell
- Click to highlight the outstanding claim for unclaimed property (repeat for all claims being submitted)
- Click Save & Close
A window will open to print a copy of the stop payment. Write Adjustment will automatically be checked. DO NOT UNCHECK. BIAS will automatically create the adjustment.
After the Stop Payment is printed and the Adjustment is written, BIAS will return to the General Ledger screen.
- Click desired transaction to highlight Adjustment
- Click View
- Click Edit
- Edit the BARS code to a prior period adjustment BARS code. This makes tracking easier for the auditor tracking purposes.
- Click Save & Close
The bank reconciliation for the current month will be off for both the Debit and Credit sides by the amount of the Stop Payment and the Adjustment. The Debit and Credit will net each other out and is not an issue.