Fee schedules are set up to record administrative fees that are charged to pooled funds (typically 1% of endowment balance or less).  The administrative fee may also be set up to cover the salary of the person managing endowment funds, an investment consultant, or even the cost of endowment management software.  In Balance, not all funds are required to participate in an administrative fee; a customer can select specific funds that will be charged. Using the Assess fees feature in Balance makes it easy to record specific fees to the General Ledger.

Customizations of fee schedules are possible in Balance. Please contact support.balance@evertrue.com for more information.

Creating Fee Rules

1. To view the fee setup, navigate to Spending & Fees on the left side panel in your database.
2. Click on the Fee rules tab across the top of the page. Here you'll see a list of your fee rules. 
3. Click the 'Add fee rule' button at the top right corner to create a new fee rule.  

   

    
4. On the Create new fee rule screen (see below), type in a name for your fee, select a Transaction Type from the drop down menu and choose how you would like to apply the fees by selecting a Type from the drop down menu.

   

    

   Transaction Type

   This drop down list will show the standard "Expense" Transaction Type and any additional standard transaction types or custom transaction types that a customer requested be available. If you'd like a transaction type that is not listed be available and/or set up, please contact support.balance@evertrue.com.

   Types

   There are 3 types available to choose from. Fees are most commonly applied as a Percent of Fund Market Value or as a Proportional allocation. How often the fee is paid should help determine how you set up the fee schedule.  To track the timing of the fees assessed in relation to drawing from investments, please see Overview: Using Due To/Due From.

   1. Percent of Fund Market Value

   Enter Percent, Number of periods, and Evaluation frequency. Using this setup, only funds with market value > 0 will be charged a fee. Note: See section on Excluding Underwater Funds.

   

   2. Proportional allocation to all funds

   Enter the Dollar amount that will be allocated. 

   3. Dollar amount per unit

   Enter Dollar amount per unit.  

5. Enter general ledger information (not required), which will be used to map your fields if you are using the GL Export feature. Fields commonly used include Account (expense account) and Note. Any fields that are populated within the GL Information will be attached to the expense transaction when using the 'Assess fees' button (explained in further detail within this article).

   

    
6. If you would like underwater funds excluded from the fee assessment, check the Exclude Underwater Accounts box (shown above).
7. If a fund is underwater at the time of the selected post date (Historical Gift > Market Value), the fee will not be calculated for that fund. By default, the fee can bring a fund to underwater status.
8. Once you've completed all required fields, click 'Create rule'.

Assigning Funds to Fee Rule

Once you've created a new fee rule, you'll be brought to the Edit rule page for the new rule. You can switch to the 'Fund rules' tab at the top of the page to assign funds.

If you are assigning funds to an existing fee rule, go to Spending & Fees, then the Fee rules tab. From here, select the rule you want to assign and click on the 'Fund rules' tab.

Click the 'Add rule to funds' button and enter either the GLIDs or the fund names for the funds that will be assigned the fee rule. Certain funds may be excluded due to donor intent or the wishes of an individual institution. Click 'Add rule to funds' once you're done adding funds.

 

Assessing Fees

If you'd like to check your numbers prior to assessing fees, you can run the Projected Expenses report under Reports in the 'Other' folder.

1. Navigate to Spending & Fees on the left side panel in your database. Then select the Fee rules tab across the top and hit the 'Assess fees' button.

   

    
2. Choose a Calculation date (aka "As Of Date").
3. Select the fee you want to assess from the dropdown. Note: You can only assess one fee at a time.

   

    
4. Click 'Assess fees' once you're done.
5. Repeat procedure for each fee rule you want to assess.  

Note: You can assess multiple fees to the same fund. If multiple fees are applied to a fund, you can see each of the fee schedules listed on the Fund profile page.

Deleting Fees

Choosing to delete fees will delete any existing fee transactions for the selected rules in the current period.

1. If you need to delete fees, click the 'Delete fees' button under Spending & Fees > Fee rules.
    

   

    
2.  Select the fee rule to delete the transactions, then hit 'Delete fee transactions' button.

   

    

 Note: When you delete fees, they are deleted for ONLY the fee schedule selected and ONLY for funds currently assigned to the fee schedule selected.