Does Applied Epic do accounting?

Applied Epic is best known as a broker management system — it runs clients, policies, carriers, and documents — but it also includes an accounting module that many Canadian brokerages use as their primary set of books.

That module maintains a general ledger and supports the accounting that is specific to a brokerage:

• Direct bill and agency bill billing workflows, which are accounted for differently.
• Premium trust tracking, separating money held on behalf of clients and insurers from operating funds.
• Carrier statement reconciliation, matching what insurers report to what Epic recorded.
• Commission accounting, including direct-bill commission reconciliation and amounts owed to producers.
• Month-end close, bringing reconciliations and adjustments together into a closed period.

Do you need QuickBooks as well as Applied Epic?

Start by defining which system owns each balance. If Epic holds the brokerage ledger, rebuilding policy transactions in another package creates a second set of records to reconcile. If you use a separate corporate ledger, document the transfer process, account mapping and reconciliation between the two systems.

Before adding or removing a ledger, have your accountant review your entity structure, reporting needs and existing setup. Decide where adjustments are posted and how they flow back to the source records. Our QuickBooks for an insurance brokerage answer discusses that choice.

What does your bookkeeper still do?

Someone needs to check transaction coding, reconcile bank and carrier statements, resolve differences and prepare the monthly close. Assign an owner and reviewer for each task. Software capabilities alone don’t establish whether a balance is complete or correct.

For the detailed workflow, see the Applied Epic accounting module and monthly review checklist.

What should you hand to your year-end accountant?

Agree on the package before year-end. A practical starting point is the final trial balance, financial statements, bank and trust reconciliations, carrier and commission schedules, and a list of adjustments with supporting documents. Ask the accountant what additional records they need for your engagement and filings.

Keep a record of which year-end adjustments have been posted back into Epic or the corporate ledger. Otherwise, the next year’s opening balances may differ from the accountant’s final figures.

For a deeper walkthrough of how it all fits together, see our guide to Applied Epic accounting for Canadian brokerages.

Epic will do the accounting. Someone still has to configure it and run it every month: that is our Applied Epic accounting service. See how we work inside Applied Epic for the wider picture.