Note: If your company is going to use EFT as a method of payment, prior planning and set up are required before its actual use. You will need to establish system settings, bank accounts and Pay Plans. For more information, please contact your Insuresoft business analyst.
EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) transactions are cash applications that are created in the Diamond System and exported to a Diamond customer's bank. The bank electronically transmits the information to the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve sorts the transactions and transmits those to the appropriate bank for automatic payment from an insured's account.
Diamond allows two (2) different methods of EFT payments: Insured's EFT or Agency EFT.
When an insured elects "EFT" as a Pay Plan and the policy is issued (making it "Active"), the EFT file generation may occur in the evening just before the end of the business day. Using a pre-determined number of days before the installment's due date, the EFT transaction is created, and the policy is credited as "Paid." This is the automatic method for posting insured's EFT transactions.
When choosing Agency EFT, agents apply the EFT amounts using Agency EFT as a payment source via the Make a Payment screen. Once the receipts are accepted, the system immediately posts the payment to the insured's policy. Agency EFT payments are created / exported simultaneously with all Insured's EFT payments using the Company Configuration Tool: Generate EFT File.
Based on how a company establishes their Pay Plans in Diamond, EFT can be monthly, quarterly, semi-annual or yearly.
An EFT Pay Plan is selected when entering a policy from the My Navigator / Billing Info tree node.
Click the Manage EFT link and make the following entries:
Bank Routing Number: The routing number of the insured's bank where the transaction is being sent.
Bank Account Number: The account from which the transaction is deducted from each month.
Bank Account Type: Choose Checking or Savings.
Deduction Day: Defaults to the day portion of the effective date of the policy but may be changed. The day entered here is the actual deduction day that allows the insured to have an amount drafted from the specified account on the same day of each month.
Click Save.
Note: There are two (2) levels of validation that may be implemented for EFT information at the time a policy is issued: 1. If a Diamond user has not entered the EFT information, the user is instructed to do so, and 2.The bank routing number is validated.
Note: Only Diamond users having authority limits established are allowed to perform this function. At the end of the business day, a Diamond user runs the Generate EFT File. When executed, the process gathers all regularly scheduled EFT transactions since the last time a file was generated. On a pre-determined number of days before an installment's due date, an EFT transaction is created. It is at this time, the policy is credited as "Paid."
Access the Company Configuration Tool / Generate EFT File.
When the Export EFT Data screen opens, select the EFT Group from the combo box.
To initiate the file export, choose Process. This automatically begins the file export and displays the Select Items to Export screen. As the file is being exported, various messages display indicating the status of the file export. When finished, select the OK button to return to the Export EFT Data screen.
A message displays showing the totals of the EFT file being exported.
When finished, click OK to the confirmation screen statement: "EFT Export Complete."
Exit the Generate EFT File function.
Once an EFT payment is exported, payment is applied to the insured’s account. The payment may be viewed on the Statement Display screen.