TX Electronic Communication Tax Statements

Purpose

Use this procedure to setup electronic communication for tax statements.

Procedure

Configure Taxpayer and Agent records

1. Open the Taxpayer and Agent records.
2. Click on the Comments/Codes tab.
3. Enter in the Email address. This is so that your office can accept and send electronic communication from the taxpayer and agent.

1. On the Taxpayer record, enter in the necessary information in the Electronic Tax Statements paragraph.
   • Electronic Tax Statement Agreement checkbox – Check this box if you allow for Electronic Tax Statements from this taxpayer. Once you click on OK or Apply, an email will be sent to the taxpayer to inform them that you have processed their request. This email is hard coded.
   • Effective Date – Enter in a date to show when it is in effect. This is not a required field.
   • Processed Date – Enter in a date to show that the letter has been processed. Enter the date that you process the request, regardless if it is approved or rejected.
   • Expiration Date – Enter in a date to show when it is expired. This is not a required field.

Note:  Please contact True Automation in order to have the Electronic Tax Statement Agreement information visible on the Taxpayer and Agent forms.

1. Click OK to apply changes and close the dialog or click Apply to only apply changes.
2. Once this information is applied, a confirmation email will be sent to the email address listed on the Taxpayer record. This confirmation email states that your office has accepted their agreement. There is a checkbox by each one, which states that it has been accepted. If it isn’t checked, it hasn’t been accepted.

Setup User Rights for Online PINs

In order to generate online PINs in PACS Collections, add the new user rights to the user:

1. Click Tools > User Administration.
2. Double click on the user that needs the new user rights. The User Properites dialog is displayed.
3. Click on the Rights/Groups button.
4. From the Available User Rights column, select the following user rights:
   • Regenerate Owner/Agent PIN
   • Mass Create Owner/Agent PIN
5. Click the single right arrow to move those user rights into the Current User Rights column.
6. Click OK to save the changes.
7. Click OK on the User Properties dialog to close the dialog.
8. Click Close on the PACS User Maintenance dialog to close the dialog.

Generate Online PINs

1. From PACS, click Activities > Online Portal .
2. Click Mass Generation of Online PINs. This gives the user the ability to create PINs. This can also be done from PACS Appraisal.

1. The Mass Generation of Online PINs view appears.
2. Right click on the view and select Generate PINs or click Create PINs from the toolbar and then choose Generate PINs. A prompt appears stating that online PINs will be generated from all taxpayers and agents that do not currently have a PIN and who are associated with a property in that current appraisal year.

1. Click Yes to generate PINS.

PINs will be assigned using the following logic:

• For Collection Only Systems – Owners and agents that have properties for the current tax year and do not currently have an assigned pin. An event will be generated for the owner or agent that has been assigned a pin.
• For Appraisal Only Systems – Owner and agents that have properties that are active for the current tax year and do not currently have an assigned pin. An event will be generated for the owner or agent that has been assigned a pin.
• For Systems that are both Collections and Appraisal – Owner and agents that have properties that are collections only for the current tax year and do not currently have an assigned pin. Owners and agents that have properties that are active for the current tax year and do not currently have an assigned pin. An event will be generated for the owner or agent that has been assigned a pin.

Postscript Printer Configuration

1. Electronic Tax Statements are printed through a postscript printer driver to a file and then converted to PDF. To set this feature, click on Tools > Configure Workstation > Set Postscript Printer button.

Electronic Tax Statements Viewable Days Configuration

1. To set the number of days the Electronic Tax Statements can be viewed by the taxpayer, go into Tools > Set Electronic Tax Statement Viewable Days. A setting in PACS will count the number of calendar days until the taxpayer views the document via the online portal.

Website Configuration

1. Click Activities > Online Portal > Website Configuration. The Online Collection Website Configuration dialog appears.

The Online Collection Website Configuration contains the following fields:

• TAX Office Name – This will be the name of the Tax office.
• Online Portal URL –
  • For Collection Only Clients – This is the URL for the Online Portal.
  • For both Collection and Appraisal Clients – You will use the portal URL that has been set up.
• Property Access URL – Assign the PACS Appraisal Property Access URL, if your district uses it.
• Email Return Address – Enter in a return email address for outgoing mail. This will be an email address at your office.
• Show a Detail link – Check this box to show a Detail link for each property.
• Allow Electronic Correspondence – Check this box in order to allow electronic communication between your office and the taxpayers, agents or both.
• Contact Information – Allows you to enter contact information text.
• Agreements – Contact your attorney in order to help you set up your agreements.You can also edit:

Configure Event Objects

1. Select Tools > Event Object Maintenance > Server/File Location. The following dialog appears.

1. Set up the object location paths for the object types of PUBLISHTS and TAXSTMNT.

Purpose

Use this procedure to process electronic communication for tax statements.

Procedure

Publishing Electronic Tax Statements

1. Click Activities > Assessments > Levy Function > Levy Statement Maintenance. The Levy Statements view appears.

Note:  The Levy Statements and the Supplemental Statements list views contain three new columns:

• Electronic Stmnts lists the number of valid statement IDs.
• Published Stmnts lists the number of statements published to the web portal.
• Unviewed Stmnts lists the number of statements the taxpayer has not viewed through the web portal by the deadline.

1. Right click on the view and choose Print Levy Statements. The Print Levy Statements Wizard dialog appears. Enter in the appropriate information on the first page and then click Next.
2. On the second page of the Print Levy Statements Wizard dialog, check the Publish Electronic Tax Statements checkbox. This checkbox will publish Electronic Tax Statements for accounts that have an agreement, in effect to the web portal. This will directly affect the total shown in the Publish Statements column on the Levy Statements view.

1. Click Finish.
2. When printing, Electronic Tax Statements are generated before the regular statements are printed or exported. The user will see a separate progress dialog.

1. After the Electronic Tax Statements have been generated, right click on the Levy Statements view to open the context menu. Choose from the following:
   • View Electronic Statement List to list all the electronic statements in the run.
   • View Electronic Corrected Statement List to show all the corrected electronic statements in the run.

The View Electronic Levy Statements List

When you choose View Electronic Levy Statements List from the context menu, the dialog appears. It contains the following:

• View Limit Days shows the days that were set in the Electronic Tax Statement Viewable Days dialog. This is the number of calendar days the tax statement can go unviewed before it is eligible to be printed or exported and resent.
• Viewed Date shows the date that the statement is viewed online.

The View Electronic Corrected Levy Statements List

When you select the View Electronic Corrected Levy Statements from the context menu, the Corrected Statement Year dialog appears.

1. Choose the corrected tax statement year.

1. Click OK.

Note:  There is no guarantee that there will be any electronic tax statements in any particular year.

1. The View Electronic Corrected Levy Statements dialog appears.
2. If any are overdue, the Print Overdue button will be enabled. Click this button to print the overdue electronic tax statements.

Corrected Notices

On the Create New Tax Statement dialog, check the Publish Electronic Tax Statement checkbox.

Note:  If electronic tax statements have not been enabled for PACS Collections, this checkbox will not be enabled.

If the recipient has an active electronic tax statement agreement, then the corrected tax statement will be published to the web portal. The usual email will go to the recipient. The statement will appear on the web portal with YYYY Corrected Tax Statement as the link text.

To prevent multiple statements being generated and published or printed, the Print button will be disabled after the user clicks it once.

Note:  The Electronic Multi-Property Tax Statements progress dialog replaces the Crystal Reports progress dialog. As it’s generating PDF files, the user will see the Time Elapsed, Estimated Time of Completion, progress bar, and Statement Count updating. When it is finished, the dialog automatically closes and the print or export begins.

Purpose

Use this procedure in order to assist the taxpayer through the process of viewing electronic tax statements through the web portal.

Procedure

1. Log in to the Online Web Portal.
2. Click on Tax Statements in order to view Electronic Tax Statements.

1. From the Tax Statement List, double click on the Tax Statement to open then PDF.

Note:  The Edit Online Tax Website Config user right must be enabled.