Prepare Lien File Instructions

The Prepare Lien File program creates the lien data for delinquent Tax Accounts in the lien files, PPLIEN  for personal property liens and RELIEN for real estate liens.  Using third-party word processing software, you can create Lien Letters from the data in the lien files.  A completion report notifies you that the process has finished and lists any error messages.

Notes:

• Run this program before running Convert Taxes to Liens.

• Refer to the Tax Billing and Lien Notice Runbook for guidelines about when to run the Prepare Lien File program.

• Prepare Lien File uses the following tables:

• GL# contains the current tax year.

• INTCAL and INTCAL2 contain dates and percentages for calculating the estimated Interest Charge Amounts.
  Note:  This program does not create any tax detail transactions for interest charges.  For more information, refer to the topic Understanding Interest Charges.

• For instructions about reviewing and updating the information in the lien files, refer to Personal Property Lien Maintenance and Real Estate Lien Maintenance.

• For more information about running reports, see Print View.

Directions:

• To open Prepare Lien File, click Lien Work from the Menu Bar, and then click Prepare Lien File.
  Keyboard shortcut:  [ALT] [l] [p]

• At the Prepare Lien File prompt window, choose the selections.  To see the prompt options, click More.

   

  Prepare Lien File Prompt Options
  Selection	Click one of the following options: Real Estate - Adds data to the Real Estate Lien File (RELIEN) for Tax Accounts with a Real Estate or Supplemental Account Type. Personal Property - Adds data to the Personal Property Lien File (PPLIEN) for Tax Accounts with a Personal Property Account Type.
  Initialize the Lien File	To delete all existing data from the lien file before adding new data from this process, click the box. To add data to existing data, clear the box.
  Calculate Interest Through This Date	Enter the date through which the estimated interest charges are to be calculated.  (MM/DD/YYYY) Note:  Defaults to today's date.
  Current/Prior/2 Years Prior	To specify the tax year for the liens, enter one of the following codes: C - Prepares lien data for the current year. P - Prepares lien data for the prior year. 2 - Prepares lien data for the prior two-plus years.
  Tax Year	Displays the tax year according to the selected code. Examples:  If the Current Tax Year is 03 (2003), and you specify the following code... C - Displays Current Tax Year:  03. P - Displays Prior Tax Year:  02. 2 - Displays 2 Years Prior Tax Year: 01.
  	WARNING: If the displayed year is incorrect, click Cancel to escape from this routine, and then correct the current tax year in the first row of the GL# table.
  Number of Tax Bill Due Dates	Click the correct number of billings in the drop-down list.  This number should correspond with the number of billings specified when you ran Post Tax Bills.
  Lien Costs	Enter the fixed cost for processing a lien.  The cost covers expenses for processing the lien, such as postage, special forms, and labor. Note:  Tax detail transactions for lien costs are not created until you run Convert Taxes to Liens.
  Prepare Lien for 1st billing due date only	If you want to prepare liens for only the first billing, click this box. To prepare liens for all billings, clear the box.
  Printer	Displays the default printer number.  For more information, see Printing Options.
  	To run the routine and print the completion report, click Process. Keyboard shortcut: [ALT + p]   Note:  To determine when the routine is complete: If you specified the Printer Number for Print View, you will see the completion report in the Print View window. Or, if you specified a Printer Number for a printer other than Print View, the Processing message on the Status Bar disappears and the Prompt window automatically closes.
  	To escape from the routine, click Cancel. Keyboard shortcut: [ALT + c]

• To see the report sample, click More.

• To see descriptions of the report fields, click More.

   

  Prepare Lien File Report Fields
  Completion Notice	Prints ** DONE **.
  Errors	Prints error messages.