You can customize escrow disbursement categories and set up the default escrow payees used by Keystone on the Escrow tab on the Affiliate Setup screen.
Keystone supports two types of Escrow Payees, recurrent payees and non-recurrent payees. Escrow Recurrent Payees are payees that homeowners will make regular, ongoing payments to, such as taxes and insurance. Non-recurrent escrow payees are payees who affect the homeowner’s escrow account only a few times and in many cases on an irregular basis.
Keystone comes with several preloaded escrow categories. These are listed in the Escrow Categories pane. You can modify and add new categories as needed. New categories might include such categories as School Tax, Flood Insurance, Pest Control, HOA, and so forth.
To add a new category, scroll down to the new record line in the Escrow Categories pane and enter the category. To modify an existing category, simply locate it in the Escrow Categories pane and make your changes.
When you create a new mortgage, any escrow category listed here that has its corresponding Recurrent Payee Defaults box checked is automatically added to the new mortgage. You can uncheck this box to remove a category from the default list for new homeowners. You can add additional categories to a new mortgage or remove any of the defaults as needed.
You also can enter escrow payees in the Escrow Payee Defaults pane. This can speed data entry when making escrow disbursements because you only have to enter regular payees once. These payees then appear automatically on the Disbursement screen payee drop-down list.
You can also assign categories to payees here. These categories appear on payee drop-down lists in Keystone as well, thus speeding up the entry and processing of escrow disbursements. The categories available in the Escrow Payee Defaults pane are the same categories in the Escrow Categories pane on this tab.
When you create a recurring escrow payee in Keystone, this payee is automatically added to the above Escrow Payee Default table. If you want to have non-recurrent payees in this table, you have to manually enter them. For more information about creating recurring escrow payees in Keystone, refer to the Entering Recurring Escrow Payees section. For more information about escrow categories, refer to the Escrow Categories section.
Keystone may change the font or background color of payees in the list under certain conditions. This is done to help you maintain this list.