Released to Clients on 06/24/2014.
APPRAISAL
Comparable Property
Commercial Equity Search
When using the commercial equity search, an issue was discovered with the calculation of market value per square foot. In cases where the appraisal method was Income, the market / SQFT calculation used NRA as the square footage. For all other appraisal methods, the Market / SQFT calculation used Living Area as calculated on the property as the square footage unless GBA was not null. If GBA existed on the property, the Market / SQ FT calculation used GBA as the square footage.
For further clarification:
- Living Area = SQFT
- GBA = can be sum of Living area or override value entered by user
- NRA = entered by user
Note The modifications to calculations affect only the Search Results dialog, not the grids which may be created from the results.
This inconsistency was confusing and left the office open to risk when consulting with taxpayers or presenting evidence to the ARB, specifically for Income valued properties. Research of the existing fields and calculations resulted in the need for a change in how the living area and square footage fields populated. Additional fields have also been added to the search results view.
- The SQFT calculation on the following fields, as done through the Commercial Search dialog, will no longer be determined from the value method or whether certain fields exist.
- Living Area – will reflect the square footage from the property, as opposed to using GBA if Income appraisal method is being used on the property
- Market / SQFT – will reflect market value divided by the square footage from the property
- Stabilized Market / SQFT– will reflect stabilized market value divided by the square footage from the property
- Certain fields that are pulled directly from columns on the income table will not be modified since the Commercial Equity Search does not do the calculation.
- GPI / SQFT
- EGI / SQFT
- NOI / SQFT
- Expense / SQFT
- NEW columns have been added to the Commercial Equity Search results. In order to view the columns in the search results, the user will need to right click from the search grid column headers and select Customize Columns. The new columns are available in the list.
- GBA
- Market/GBA
- Market/NRA
- Cost/GBA
- Income/GBA
- Stabilized Market/GBA
- Stabilized Market/NRA
- NOI/NRA
- Expense/NRA
- GPI/NRA
- EGI/NRA
- NEW calculations have been added to the Commercial Equity Search results. These new calculations display above the search results with the existing median calculations.
- Median Market/GBA
- Median Market/NRA
Commercial Sales Search
The Commercial Sales search results have been modified for consistency in displaying square footage.
- NEW columns have been added to the Commercial Sales Search results. In order to view the columns in the search results, the user will need to right click from the search grid column headers and select Customize Columns. The new columns are available in the list.
- Sale Price/NRA
- Adjusted Sale Price/GBA
- Adjusted Sale Price/NRA
Effective Acres Group
The user rights limiting access to Effective Acres Group have been modified.
- Renamed user right Edit Effective Acres Group View to View Effective Acres Group. The Edit Effective Acres Group user right is required to create or change effective acres groups.
- If a user has the View Effective Acres Group user right but not the Edit Effective Acres Group right, that user can view effective acres groups but cannot create or change them.
Legal Descriptions
For mineral lease header properties, legal description configuration options have been added. Currently, the legal description is hard-coded and does not allow user manipulation.
- A NEW menu option is available from File> Open> Lease> Lease list > Context Menu > Legal Description Configuration:
- This will allow the user to configure the display for mineral lease header legal descriptions from the lease header.
- Upon clicking Rebuild Legal, the descriptions will be updated to match the configuration.
Letter Processing
The BPP Rendition Barcode has been added to Property letters. This will allow clients to generate the BPP Rendition as a property letter.
PTAD Updates
Important changes for 2014
Beginning in 2014, PTAD will use data in the EARS file to test for indications of sales chasing instead of requiring a separate data submission. In order to eliminate the separate request, fields have been added to capture the previous year’s category code and the previous year’s total market value. It will also be important that the fields for the most current sales date (APL08) and the second most current sales date (APL11) are accurate. 2014 Electronic Appraisal Roll Submission: Record Layout and Instructions Manual
In addition to the specific projects mentioned below, the PTAD Electronic Appraisal Roll Submission (EARS) file layout and associated Property Value reports have been updated.
Exemptions
Several new exemptions took effect in 2014. Fields have been added to indicate that the properties qualify and to capture the amount of the exemption.
- AJR78 Surviving Spouse 100% Disabled Veteran Indicator
- Populates from PACS exemption type DVHSS
- Value is reported in AJR64 Total Appraised Value Lost to State-Mandated 100% Disabled or Unemployable Veterans Homestead Exemption
- AJR79 Surviving Spouse Deceased Service Member Indicator
- Populates from PACS exemption type MASSS
- Value is reported in AJR64 Total Appraised Value Lost to State-Mandated 100% Disabled or Unemployable Veterans Homestead Exemption
- AJR80 Disabled Veteran Charity Donated Home Indicator
- Populates from PACS exemption type DVCH
- Value is reported in AJR83
- AJR81 Energy Storage System Exemption Indicator
- We do not currently have this exemption separated out in PACS. For now, the indicator should be N for all records.
- AJR82 Energy Storage System Exemption Amount
- We do not currently have this exemption separated out in PACS. For now, the amount should populate with 00000000000 for all records.
- AJR83 Disabled Veteran Charity Donated Home Amount
- Populates from PACS exemption type DVCH
- AJR84 Methane Capture at Land Fill Amount
- We do not currently have this exemption separated out in PACS. For now, the amount should populate with 00000000000 for all records.
- AJR85 Methane Capture at Land Fill Indicator
- We do not currently have this exemption separated out in PACS. For now, the indicator should be N for all records.
Prior Year Fields
NEW fields have been added to the Electronic Appraisal Roll Submission (EARS) to represent prior year category codes and values.
- PACS does not store the code and value reported so we will have to determine the previous year value. This will be based on the latest supplement in the previous year, per internal discussion.
- Reporting the previous year code and value is complicated due to the current format of the EARS file and PACS category code maintenance. The AJR file reports by category code, not necessarily by individual improvement and land segments. Where a single land and single improvement record exists, the previous year code and value can be reported fairly accurately. We will have problems where multiple improvements and/or land segments exist. The export file does not support this kind of breakdown.
- The assumptions for this project from Texas State are based on a single category for a property (sales concentration). This project will not consider if the state code are partially changed within multiple improvements or lands.
- For rows having the same
[state_cd] and [exempt_category_cd] in prior year under the same prop_id/entity, it is assumed they are the same records that were reported in prior year. State codes and market from prior years will be populated to field AJR86 and AJR87.
- For rows having different
[state_cd] and [exempt_category_cd] in prior year under the same prop_id/entity, it is assumed they are the same records but were moved to different state_cd/exempt_category. State codes and market from prior years will be populated to AJR86 and AJR87.
- For added/extra rows under the same
prop_id/entity, it is assumed they are new records. Space will be populated to field AJR86, and all 0s will be populated to AJR87.
Parent Account Field
A NEW Field has been added to the Electronic Appraisal Roll Submission (EARS) to represent a parent account relationship. For example, two or more properties appraised together as one property.
- Existing valuation link functionality will be used to report the parent account:
- Hierarchy, where a property may be associated with 2 or more of the following:
- UDI: always report as parent
- Income Valuation: report as parent, unless UDI
- Homestead Group: report as parent, unless UDI or income
- Effective Acre Group: report as parent unless UDI, Income or Homestead Group
- Report the property with the highest market value, then lowest property ID as the parent account number in the PTAD EARS file for each except UDI which already has a parent identified.
State Code C1 on Improvements
With the implementation of the PTAD Classification changes in 2013, an issue was discovered when applying the C1 state code. Where nominal improvements exist on a lot, it is appropriate to report these with the state code/PTAD category code C1 per the PTAD.
Note Please ensure that your codes are mapped appropriately to the new PTAD category codes.
- The existing recalculation error for C1 on an improvement has been removed. No error will initiate upon recalculation or on the PTD Verification report.
Collections
Exemptions
Homestead Groups/Exemption Allocation
Homestead Groups were introduced to allow the ability for properties to be grouped together for the purpose of allocating exemptions among the properties linked. This is maintained in the Appraisal application. After implementation, several Collections offices submitted concerns with not being able to see the Homestead Group information.
- Due to the difference in capability between Appraisal and Collections, the Homestead Group maintenance that a user would experience in Appraisal will not be available in Collections. However, exemption allocation functionality has been extended to allow for the same end result.
- On a shared database, HS Groups will display in both Appraisal and Collections on the SplitMerge- Link tab, but the HS Group will only be maintained through the Appraisal application.
- To allow the same end result of allocated exemptions, a new field HS Group Exemption Factor has been added to the Entity Maintenance dialog. This field can be edited in Collections for a Collections Only property. For example, properties created in Collections by the Collections user.
Example:
- Collections Only Office, non-imported CAD properties entered manually
- Create properties manually
Prop 1 – MH value = 17400
Prop 2 – Land value = 14800
- Add Homestead Exemption manually
- Enter 10% Cap value manually
- Allocate the $15000 exemption amount per property on each entity using the NEW HS Group Exemption Factor:
Prop 1 – 17400/32200 = 54% * 15000
Prop 2 – 14800/32200 = 46% * 15000
- The NEW HS Group Exemption Factor field:
- Is not editable in the Appraisal application.
- Can be populated by the Appraisal Information Import if the field has valid data.
Payments
Over Payments
Usability enhancements have been made when processing an Over Payment. Previously, upon making a payment which resulted in an over payment, the user was prompted to select each bill to receive the over payment. If the user was in a module allowing multiple payments resulting in over payments, for example Mass Post Escrow, the user is prompted for each over payment to select bills. For usability purposes, it seems that the bills should be already selected by default, reducing the user intervention required.
- A NEW selection has been added to the bill list dialog which is initiated from an Over Payment.
- The Select All check box will be checked by default.
- Once unchecked, the user can select individual bills, as necessary.
- The Bill List dialog is launched through several processes in PACS. The dialog should display the new selection each time.
- Mass Post Escrow
- Post Payment
- From Activities
- From Property
- Quick Post: Single
- Quick Post: All Items
- Property Post Escrow
- The process has been modified to allow the user to Cancel the over payment dialog without selecting a bill to receive the overpayment. The over payment will not be processed.
Payment Import
Functionality to import payments made online will be implemented with the PACS Collections. At this time, the import will accept only full payments matching the amount due determined by the posting or settlement date provided.
Note This requires a configuration setting to be enabled. Please contact True Automation if you would like to use the Payment Import. Please coordinate with your Office Payment vendor to receive payment information in the file format below.
- Payment Import layout is dictated by what is required to post payments and what is currently sent out from Property Access. The table below describes the column details of the layout.
- This new option will launch the Import Payment Information dialog. The dialog can be used to import multiple payment files. The user simply browses to another file after importing a file.
- Using the ellipses button […], the user can browse and select a text payment file. This will initiate a preview for the key pieces of information in the first 4 records.
- The Import Info button, when clicked, causes the payment file to be imported; creating a payment import run and populating the appropriate PACS database tables. During the import process, any duplicate records are discarded and invalid dates are handled. For example,
payment_init_date and settlement_date.
- The View Imports button is enabled when the user has the NEW Post Payment Import user right. Clicking View Imports will take the user to Payment Run List.
- A new Imported Payments option will be added to the Activities menu. This will access the Payment Run List.
Note This option will be enabled only when a NEW PACS configuration is enabled and the user has the NEW Payment Import Processing user right.
- Each row in the list presents an imported payment file along with relevant information as detailed in the table below.
- The Payment Run List also has a context menu, enabled as follows:
- The tax due is calculated for each year a payment is being made using the Payment Date as the effective posting date. The date used as the Payment Date will be determined by the users input upon Preparing the run.
- The import file contains 2 dates. Based on conversations with the existing Online Payment providers and clients, one or both of these dates will be available. Based on availability, the user will make a determination regarding the use of Settlement Date versus the System Posting Date.
- Payment Initiation Date: provided but may not represent final completion of the payment
- Settlement Date: generally indicates completion of the payment
- The Prepare Run option will find the amount due for each property that is to be paid. The Prepare Imported Payments dialog displays where the run posting date is populated with the current System posting date. The user can override this date by checking the Posting Date checkbox.
- Payment Date Rules:
- Posting Date Not Overridden: When the settlement date for a payment is invalid or empty, the captured run posting date is used as the Payment Date.
- Posting Date Overridden: When overridden, the posting date entered by the user is used for the payment date on all the payments being imported in the given run regardless of a valid settlement date.
- Payments may be rejected for a few different reasons.
- The Payment Import will only accept full payments at this time. If the amount imported does not match the total amount due on all years for which the payment is being made, then the payment is rejected.
- A payment can also be rejected when a property being paid doesn’t exist in one or more years.
- If the tender type is invalid or doesn’t match the configured types indicated in the file layout, the payment is rejected.
- When all the payments in run have been prepared, the following message is shown:
- Once a run has been prepared, the Pay Run option becomes available if at least one of the payments within the run was accepted.
- The Pay Run option takes the user to Pay Import Payments dialog. The number of accepted and rejected payment counts, amount due, and amount imported along with a list of rejected payment are displayed.
- Clicking the Details button opens the Property associated with the rejected payment. If the property is rejected as an Invalid Property in the import, the Details button will be disabled.
- The View Accepted button on the Pay Imported Payments dialog opens the Accepted Payment List dialog. Payments within the run that are accepted are listed in the dialog.
- When the Post button is selected, the following message box is displayed to the user.
- Clicking OK opens the Post Imported Payments dialog. The accepted amount and run posting date selection information is displayed and the print receipt option is checked by default. The user is prompted to select a batch and clicks the Post button to post the accepted payments in the run.
- Users can print property tax receipts for all payments posted via paying a payment run. When printed to a duplex printer, a blank page is inserted as required to separate receipts.
- When the Print Report option is selected, the user is presented with the Imported Payments Report dialog.
- By default, the Rejected Payments option is selected. Below is a sample of the Imported Payments Report with both Accepted Payment and Rejected Payment sections included.
- The Daily Balance Detail and Daily Balance Summary reports will have the new payment import tender types, OCC (Online Credit Card) and ECHECK (Electronic Check), added for tracking.
Property Access
Deleted accounts that have a tax amount due will now display in Property Access.
Search results for deleted accounts will be shown in red and a footnote will display at the bottom of any search results containing a deleted account. The footnote reads: Results shown in red are Inactive in the current search year but have taxes due in another year.
The property details will display with the text (INACTIVE) for deleted properties at the top of the page. A footnote reads: This property is Inactive in the current search year but has taxes due in another year.
The Pay Taxes tab for a property is now available regardless of the year in which the property is opened. Previously, this tab was only present for properties opened in the current year.
Statements
Entity Discounts Eligibility
Tax Code interpretation regarding discounts has initiated extended functionality. Supplemental Tax Statements are affected.
- Currently, entities can approve a discount on taxes paid prior to the due date according to Tax Code Section 31.04 (c).
Tax Code Sec 31.04
(c) A payment option provided by Section 31.03 of this code or a discount adopted under Section 31.05(b) of this code does not apply to taxes that are calculated too late for it to be available.
(d) If a taxing unit mails its tax bills after September 30 and adopts the discounts provided by Section 31.05(c) of this code, the delinquency date is postponed to the first day of the next month following the fourth full calendar month following the date the tax bills were mailed.
- A NEW configuration has been added from Tools > Set Entity Tax Discount Configuration to allow clients to indicate that discounts should not be available on supplemental changes. Discounts should only be applied in the tax year prior to the original bill due tax year or statement date. For example, October, November, December 2009 of bills due January 31, 2010
- The supplemental tax statements will reflect this change.
Display of Late Ag Penalty
The Late Ag Penalty will now display on Tax Statements for Levy Statements, Corrected Statements and Supplemental Statements. The statement export will also include the Late Ag Penalty.
- The total amount of late AG penalty for all entities (up to 10), per year, per
sup_num will display.
- The total late AG penalty is only printed when the total late AG penalty amount is greater than 0.
Updates
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Help STAR
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Description of Update
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Appraisal
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84759
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The Prop ID Barcode letter tag was not available in all letter types, including ARB Inquiry and Protest letters. This letter tag is now available.
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84771
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Clients did not have the BPP barcode as a letter tag. The BPP Rendition Barcode for Property Letters has now been added under Property.
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85356
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When users used the Split Wizard to create new properties, the auto build on the Legal defaulted to off, resulting in properties with incorrect legal descriptions. This is no longer an issue.
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100028
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When trying to export the PTD Sales Stratification report to Excel, the Sale Date did not transfer to the Excel spreadsheet. This issue has now been fixed.
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102928
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The Appraisal Notice export file cut off the situs address. This occurred when a long situs was over 35 characters. This issue has now been resolved.
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119400
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Supplemental information was written to property_val in the current year. (File > New > Property > Certified Year > Complete Wizard > Finish). This issue has now been fixed.
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120055
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Users reported an issue when PACS imported NCOA/CASS files. When the file was imported into PACS, the city, state and zip code were placed in address line 3 and the cass/routing information were placed in the city section. The state and zip code section were left blank. This is no longer an issue.
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120773
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When a user was on the Identification tab on a personal property account and hit the next property arrow button, the apply changes button was automatically enabled. This made it appear that changes were made on an account, causing a message to pop up. This has now been fixed.
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121866
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When users ran a supplement in both collection-only and appraisal properties within the same group and tried to balance appraisal properties, the collection-only deleted accounts appeared in the appraisal calculations. This has now been resolved.
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122898
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When a property in a homestead group was supplemented through freeze/refreeze, the other properties in the group were not included in the supplement. The procedure now supplements the entire homestead group.
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123542
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When running two Top 10 Taxpayer lists, if a property had a rendition penalty, it did not pull up on list. This issue has now been resolved.
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124629
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When running a Custom Report, users reported an error message. (Reports > Custom Reports > Right Click Report > Select Run Report). This issue has now been resolved.
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124778
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The user PUBLIC could Add, Modify, or Remove properties in an Effective Acres Group with very limited user rights. This issue has now been fixed.
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124864
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When profiling, the Sales Ratio Chart was missing a 90% line in the chart for all profiles. (Activities > Profiling > Create Profile > Next > Change Radio Bullet to Custom > Select Neighborhood Code > Next > Check Box Next to Sale Date > Enter Begin/End Date > Next > Finish). This is no longer an issue.
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125574
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When entering values in the Rendition Summary Screen, depreciation tables were applied according to the Column and SIC code. The BPP Depreciation set up for Machinery and Equipment used the wrong table. This issue has now been resolved.
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126018
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Owner letter type and event did not stay selected. (Tools > Letter Processing Maintenance >Letter Maintenance). This issue has now been fixed.
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126171
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When the system had ARB values locked, the user could change the property value. This should have only occurred through the ARB module. This issue has been resolved.
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126335
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When an account had an open protest, users with only View rights could not access the Evidence Tab because PACS stopped responding. This issue has been fixed.
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126425
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The Description field on the Event on an inquiry did not wrap. (Create Inquiry > Click Event panel > Description field > Type Comment to end of line > Issue Appeared). This issue has been resolved by allowing the description textbox to scroll vertically.
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127272
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The XN and XO exemptions appeared to be regular total property exemptions. The existing XN and XO exemptions did not have the ability to assign specific segments. This issue has now been resolved.
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128021
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Agent Property Report did not have enough space to display an eight-character Property ID, and the spelling on a property was incorrect. (File > Open > Agent > Click List All Agents at bottom left > Click Search > Find Agent with Properties > Click Properties Tab > View Report Button). This issue has now been fixed.
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129185
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On the first run of Certified Totals, users’ Effective Tax Rate Assumptions were incorrect. (Report > Certification > Print Certified Totals > Select All Entities > Check the Include Effective Rate Assumptions > File > Export > Truth in Taxation Data > Right Click New Export). This is no longer an issue.
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129261
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Summary ETR for certification did not match ETR detail reports. (Activities > Certify Appraisal Roll > Print Certified Totals with Effective Rate Assumptions). This has now been resolved.
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129367
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The state code descriptions were incorrect in PACS Query. This issue has been fixed by filtering the list to include codes for the selected year.
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129485
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When sorting the search results by DBA in the Commercial Grid search, the sort option was not working correctly. This has now been fixed.
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129720
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When running PTD reports for 2014, the report was not available. (Activities > Certified Appraisal Roll > PTD > Generate PTD Submission > Select 2014 > Export). This is no longer an issue.
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130833
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The country was not printing on the Sales letters. Buyer and Seller letters are now printing the country in the address section.
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131259
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After adding the actual rates to entities and printing the supplemental Notice of Appraised Values, the rates labeled on the Notice were from the previous year. The rates, however, were coming from the actual year’s entities. This has been corrected by removing the year from the Tax Rate column header.
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132584
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Users reported an error when an improvement was marked as C1 state code. This issue has now been fixed.
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135515
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The options to copy search results from PACS to Excel or Clipboard were greyed out. This issue has been resolved.
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136038
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Line Twelve on the School Tax Limitation Report did not match what was pulled in from the pre-HB 5 monitor. This is no longer an issue.
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136318
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Personal Property accounts that contained PPV exemptions received PTD errors. (Activities > Certify Appraisal Roll > PTD > Generate PTD Submission). This issue has now been resolved.
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136591
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When printing a Delinquent Notice, the verbiage appeared on all of the pages. This caused an issue when a property had multiple delinquent years and the total appeared on a separate page. This has now been fixed.
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136776
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If a property had Ag Use on it and the appraised value was different than the market value, the appraised value was being used to populate the offer amount field on the online settlement. This has now been resolved because properties with Ag Use are employing Market value.
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137544
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When users added an improvement with a C1 State Code, a recalculation error appeared. This issue has now been fixed.
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137546
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The SQFT in Comparable Property Search Results did not consistently use account Living Area Situations. This issue has now been resolved.
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137549
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Users reported the disappearance of Land to Building Ratios in the Equity Search Results. This is no longer an issue.
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137550
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Users reported the disappearance of most of the Commercial Sales files. (Comparable Sales > Manage Comparables from the Account > Create Commercial Grid > Remove Property Use Code Search Criteria > Modify Date Range to 1/1/2013 to 4/1/2014). This issue has now been fixed.
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137570
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When changing the Geo ID for a new property during the Split Wizard, PACS did not keep the Geo ID after the Wizard finished. The Wizard page now saves the changes to the Geo ID in a new property.
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137602
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When copying to Clipboard, the columns were converted to TEXT. This is no longer an issue.
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Collections
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80720
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Deleted properties in PACS were not being displayed in the Property Access. This caused an issue for deleted properties that still had a tax due. Deleted accounts with taxes due now show up in the Property Access search results.
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109100
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When printing checks from distribution option, the accounts did not print in the correct ID order. The batch_journal_distribution.check_number was assigned based on the ID number order, causing the printed checks to not match the check numbers in batch_journal_distribution.check_number. This issue has now been resolved.
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109600
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When a prior year bill had the same statement ID as the current year bill, the user could not place the current year into the quarter pay status. The verification function now checks for both Statement ID and Year.
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110025
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Supplemental statements created after Levy were assigning new statement IDs. The bills on the Tax Due screen showed the new statement ID and did not reflect the previous Statement ID. This issue has now been resolved.
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111734
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When Installment Agreements entered into more than one year, the agreement schedules
did not post correctly. This has now been fixed.
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131012
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When printing mineral statements in house to a PDF printer, users reported an error. (Activities > Assessment > Levy Functions > Levy Statement Maintenance > Choose Run > Right Click > Print Levy Statements).
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131124
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The December discount percentage was left off of the payment schedule on the payment coupon. (Activities > Assessment > Levy Functions > Levy Statement Maintenance > Right-click on Mineral Statement Run > Select Print Levy Statements). This issue has now been resolved.
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131620
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When printing a tax receipt for prior payments, the Balance Due amount changed on the receipt. This total was different than the original receipt. This has now been fixed.
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131624
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Weed Control District bills on properties with the new EX exemptions were being created with taxes due. This issue has now been resolved.
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132014
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When multiple properties with a single bill are paid, the Balance Due line for the 4th property per receipt page was omitted. This is no longer an issue.
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133950
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When printing tax statements for ownership changes, the process took longer than the expected time to complete. This issue has now been fixed.
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135633
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The percentage of TIF paid compared to the Levy amount paid did not look at the appropriate bill data when the property was supplemented. This has now been resolved.
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137540
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When trying to reprint a receipt, users reported an Invalid Cursor State error. This has now been fixed.
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