8.1.12 Release Notes

Released to Clients on 03/21/2013.

PACS Appraisal 8.1.12.15 (GA)

Updates

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Description of Update

Certification Procedures

114138

An unexpected error occurred when attempting to generate the Certification of Value letter (with a Property record open, choose Property > Print Value Certification Notice). In the database, the recently added Omitted Improvement Value data was not factored in to a table used in generating this letter. This issue has been resolved.

Comparable Sales

114122

Attempts to pull up sales records did not return the expected results (File > Open > Comparables – Residential, select Sales Comparables, enter criteria and click Search). Sales queries have been refined to account for database changes adding As-of-Sale search and compare functionality.

114332

Data entered in the State Code, City, Class and Sub Class fields of the Property record Sales Information view was not saved. In creating the As-of-Sale functionality, these fields were moved from one table to another in the database. But the Sales Information view still referred to the old table. To resolve this issue, the fields have been restored to the table. Note about database setup: The sale_property_profile table no longer populates the Sale Information tab, summary information on the Sale Improvement tab, or the summary information on the Sale Land tab. Those tabs communicate with the sale table. Recalculating the sale record only affects the sale_property_profile table, not the columns in the sale table. When sales data is created for an ownership transfer, the columns in the sale table are initialized with the data from the corresponding sale_property_profile row. Comparable sales searches and comp grids will continue to use the sale_property_profile table. All other processes will revert back to using the sale table.

General

114091

During testing with new password encryption activated, a user tried to log on to PACS simultaneously on two machines, then couldn’t log on at all. An issue with updating password fields in the database has been corrected, resolving this issue. Note Encryption is not active at the time of this release.

Supplement Processing

114306

After supplementing a Mineral-type property, an attempt to accept that group generated an unexpected error (Activities > Assessment > Supplement Functions > Supplement Group Maintenance, right-click on a group and choose Accept Supplement Group). The cause of this issue related to that of 114227; omitted improvement homestead value and omitted improvement non-homestead value were not set to 0 in the database prior to processing when the property type was not Real or Mobile Home. The issue has been resolved.

PACS Collections 8.1.12.15 (GA)

Updates

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Description of Update

Levy Roll

114227

After supplementing a Mineral-type property and accepting that group in PACS Appraisal, bills created in Collections incorrectly showed a large negative balance with negative interest. This occurred because omitted improvement homestead value and omitted improvement non-homestead value were not set to 0 in the database prior to processing when the property type was not Real or Mobile Home. The issue was discovered internally (TFS 21854) immediately following the 8.1.12.0013 general release and has been resolved.

Released to Clients on 03/09/2012.

PACS Appraisal 8.1.12.13 (GA)

New Features

This release includes the following additions and modifications to functionality:

Comparable Sales

• Enhanced settings for comparable sales grids are now available. When this functionality is enabled, users have additional means to determine which set of data is used when property characteristics at the point of sale differ from those at the time of assessment. Please take note: while these settings are present and visible in PACS, the functionality will not work correctly until you contact LPS True Automation Support to set up your data.

  Users can use the existing functionality simply by changing nothing. But for users wishing to use as-of-sale data when comparing property values, the following three settings are now in play:

  1. System setting

     

     (Tools > Comparable Property > System Wide Configuration)

     The new Enable As-Of-Sale data on grids configuration option determines grid default behavior. This option must be selected if you wish to see the option to view sale data at the grid-level.

  2. Property-level setting

     

     (open Deeds & Sales panel, select record in Ownership History section and click Details, then view the Sale Information tab)

     When the existing configuration option Characteristics of involved property at the time of this sale reflect current property characteristics is selected, only the property’s characteristics as-of-assessment are displayed. Therefore, the property-level option overrides other options.

  3. Grid-level setting

     

     (File > Open > Comparables – Residential, enter criteria and click Search, select properties, right-click and choose View in Grid)

     The new Return As-Of-Sale Info option controls data at the grid level. When the property-level Characteristics of involved property at the time of this sale reflect current property characteristics option is not selected, selecting and deselecting this option can change the grid display.

     Important As-of sale characteristics, when different from those assessed, only display when the property-level Characteristics of involved property at the time of this sale reflect current property characteristics option is not selected, and the new system configuration Enable As-Of-Sale data on grids and grid-level Return As-Of-Sale Info options are selected.

     System configuration	Property-level configuration	Grid-level configuration	Characteristics displayed in grid
     Selected	Unselected	Selected	As-of-sale
     All other configuration combinations				As-of-assessment

• When creating default comp grids or mass creating comp grids with the new Enable As-Of-Sale data on grids system configuration option selected, PACS uses and displays as-of-sale data unless overridden by the property-level configuration option, Characteristics of involved property at the time of this sale reflect current property characteristics.

  Important (1) The functionality described above will not work correctly until you contact LPS True Automation Support to set up your data; (2) If you use Penpad, because of coding changes related to this new Comparables functionality, you might receive the error “Invalid column name ‘sl_living_area. Statement(s) could not be prepared” when checking a property out to Penpad. If you receive this error, contact LPS True Automation Support for assistance.

General

• User passwords will be encrypted shortly after your office receives this release. Encryption secures passwords by making passwords unreadable to anyone viewing or querying the database.

  Note Encryption is not active at the time of release.

Legislative Changes

VIT Processing/Special Inventory Tax

• HB 2476 amends subsection (a) so that profits from equipment rentals or leases are now added to a property’s total taxable sales. The following changes accommodate this legislation:
  • A Lease/Rental Units field has been added to the Units Breakdown dialog box (from VIT property view, choose VIT Sales/Escrow tab, click Details, click Unit Breakdown). Any value entered here is included in the total.

    

  • A Lease/Rental Sales field has been added to the Sales Breakdown dialog box (from VIT property view, choose VIT Sales/Escrow tab, click Details, click Sales Breakdown). Any value entered here is included in the total.

    

  Following this legislation change, references to “VIT” in PACS Appraisal and Collections have been replaced with “SIT” (Special Inventory Tax). This change can be seen, for example, on the property view’s SIT Sales tab (formerly VIT Sales in PACS Appraisal) and SIT Escrow tab (formerly VIT Escrow tab in PACS Collections).

  

• The Notice of Protest has been changed to match the state form. These changes are limited to the Instructions box near the top of the form.
• To comply with legislative changes, property associations in PACS called Homestead Groups were introduced in the 8.1.11 release. 8.1.12 adds one point to this functionality: when calculating the Homestead cap for a group, the earliest Homestead cap base year of the group components is used. This allows for properties with pre-existing Homestead exemptions to be grouped with newly exempt properties. For example, an existing MH property having a HS exemption since 2010 is grouped with its associated land property, which will have the HS exemption from 2012 forward.

  This also resolves issue 113656 mentioned below.

Improvements

• The previous release, 8.1.11.19, introduced functionality for adding omitted improvement values. An additional, related change in 8.1.12: After supplementing a property in PACS Appraisal and selecting the Omitted Improv option, the default value displayed in the Omitted Improv field is the same as the value stored and displayed in the Improvement Value field regardless of the selected valuation method or source. (When viewing a property in the current year, supplement the property by choosing Property > Supplement Property, choose from the list of prior years, then select your preferred supplement group option and, after the supplemented property opens, choose the Improvements tab and select the Omitted Improv option displayed in upper right.)

New Documentation

• Appraisal Notice Procedures (updated)
• Comparable Sales (updated)
• Improvements (updated)
• Litigation Management (updated)
• SIT Processing (updated, formerly VIT Processing)

Updates

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Description of Update

PACS Appraisal

Appraisal Notice Procedures

112970

When printing the preliminary roll totals, too many lines per page were added, generating blank pages (Reports > Preliminary > Preliminary Totals). This issue has been resolved.

Exemption Processing

113656	A recalculation error occurred when properties in the Homestead Group did not all have the same base year. Now, when calculating the Homestead cap for a group, the earliest Homestead cap base year of the group components is used.
113849	An exemption’s value was not apportioned across properties in a Homestead Group as expected. DV1, DV1S, DV2, DV2S, DV3, DV3S, DV4, and DV4S exemptions are now applied in the appropriate percentage, resolving the issue.

General

108769

After entering data in the Unit Count field for a Segment in the Asset Listing dialog box, an unexpected error occurred on recalculating (from Property view Personal Property tab, click Asset Mgmt, and then enter data and click Recalculate in the Asset Listing dialog box). This column has been added to the database, resolving the issue.

GIS Viewer/Appraiser

113651

Clicking and holding the mouse in GIS Viewer/Appraiser caused the map application to crash. This issue, which occurred after switching between applications (i.e., Internet Explorer and PACS), stemmed from a conflict between map functionality and Windows. The Window’s feature responsible for the bug is now disabled when GIS Viewer/Appraiser is initiated.

Letter Processing

95042	The following VIT-related fields have been added to Business Personal Property letters: School Description, City Code, City Description, UPTVF, and Aggregate Tax Rate.
103326	The primary Situs address did not display consistently on property letters (from Property view Identification tab, enter Situs info and select Primary Situs Address option, then click Add to enter a second situs–you are given the option whether or not to specify the original situs as the primary). This issue has been resolved.

Rendition Processing

92852	The expected letter was not used, resulting in an error after using the Query option in the Print Rendition Penalty Letters dialog box (Activities > Rendition Processing > Print Rendition Penalty Letters …, choose Query). The sequence of events executed through the code behind this process has been edited, resolving the issue.
113493	Rendered property data did not save after being entered in the Rendition Entry Screen dialog box and recalculating the property (from the Personal Property tab, click Rendition Summary). The issue related to the way Windows 7 remembers data. A memory method more appropriate to PACS is now called on from Windows and used, resolving the matter.

Values

104496

Incorrect Pct Ownership values for each individual property displayed on the Roll History tab of parent UDI properties (after capturing ARB submission values (Activities > Appraisal Notices > Capture ARB Submission Values > Capture Values), view UDI parent property Roll History tab). This issue has been corrected.

PACS Collections 8.1.12.13 (GA)

Updates

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Description of Update

PACS Collections

Export

83137

The printed version of the Collection Transfer Totals now includes the criteria entered by the user in the Export Collection Information dialog box (File > Export > Collections Data). Also, the M&O due and the I&S due are summed, and that value is displayed on the totals as the total amount due.

Payment Processing

113948

The system’s rounding of credit card convenience fees differed from what was displayed on receipts. Single tender payment processing used more decimal points than multiple tender payment processing, causing an accounting imbalance in the total swipe amount. Now both methods round off to the nearest high decimal value using float-point rounding.

Tax Statements

108946

The Mineral Tax Statement Export did not suppress the five year history as expected (Activities > Assessment > Levy Functions > Levy Statement Maintenance, highlight a group, right-click and choose Print Levy Statements, choose Export to File option on second page of Print Levy Statements Wizard). The history suppression mechanism now applies to the export in addition to the printed version of statements.

109372

Paid By information did not display as expected after entering a statement ID in the Post Statement dialog box (Activities > Post Statement). In addition, Paid By info was unexpectedly retained in the Post Statement dialog box after entering the data, closing without posting, then returning to the dialog. The expected Paid By data now displays when expected.