Tax (Montana Counties)

Black Mountain is there for you!

  • Save time processing tax payments and receipts
  • Effectively manage municipal and school distributions
  • Balancing is supported by exceptional reporting
  • Easily handle assignments, redemptions, and protests

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Tax – Essential software tools for Montana County Treasurers

Black Mountain Software’s county tax software provides the treasurer’s office with all the essentials and more to conquer Montana county treasurer’s responsibilities. Take charge with Tax to process bills, payments, assignments, tax liens, protests, and distributions.

Show Tax Features

Tax Query Form

The Tax Query allows quick access to view and manage any tax record.

View

  • Tax payer name/address
  • Property type
  • Taxes owed/paid/redeemed/assigned
  • Legal description/geo code
  • Notes
  • Billing history
  • Market and taxable values
  • Class Codes
  • Archived tax bills
  • Assignment/redemption documents
  • Tax lien documents

Manage and Maintain

  • Attach supporting document files:
    • Scan hard copies directly to any tax record
    • Attach electronic documents
  • Enter unlimited notes
  • Change Address
  • Print Query
    • Complete legal information
    • Uncollected Taxes – all years
    • Taxes – all lines from query screen
    • Receipts for any year

Tax Billing

From bill creation to printing, enjoy flexible processes and options.

Bill Creation

  • Create all, a specific tax ID range, or specific district
  • Easily cancel, correct, and recreate if errors occur
  • Reconciliation process to help balance
    Tax with Assessor
  • System posts to your predefined
    receivable accounts

Bill Layout and Content  

  • Includes Standard Bill Layout
  • Full legal description can be included – may involve extra pages
  • Customize standard messages in the bill:
    • General information
    • Tax Bill Delinquent message
    • Tax Bill Assignment message
    • Class code based messages, e.g., Property Tax Assistance message

Bill Layout and Content (continued)

  • Archive tax bills in PDF format
  • Export list files of taxes due to banks and mortgage companies

Printing

  • Print to prepared forms or plain paper
  • Tri-fold, mail-ready design eliminates envelope stuffing
  • Optional outsource bill printing available:
    • Use your printing company
    • Or save money and use our partner BDS
  • Optional pressure seal tax bill format available for purchase
  • CASS certification available to reduce mailing costs

Receipting

Taxes

  • Scan bill stub barcode for fast receipting
  • Manual receipting is simple and easy
  • Payment import from mortgage companies
  • Optional WebPay for online tax payment
  • Reciepts post to your predifined accounts

Calculate Interest on Delinquents

  • Select current or future interest date
  • Print results for customer reference
  • Collect amount due during receipting

Assignments and Redemptions

  • Set assignments by payment or tax-
    due date
  • Adjust interest date to compute payoff
  • Print redemption query for future reference

Protested Taxes

  • For any property:
    • Protest taxes for one or more districts
    • Protest a specified amount or a percent of tax
    • Apply protest to first half, second half,
      or both
  • Interest entered automatically posts to the correct accounts

Protested Taxes (continued)

  • Centrally Assessed Settlement Receipt JV distributes Protest amount to:
    • University Mill and TIFD
    • State Equalization Aid
    • Elementary and High School Equalization
    • Vo-Tech

Motor Vehicle Collection

  • Fast entry of monthly collections
  • Motor vehicle codes match those of the Montana Department of Justice

Miscellaneous Receipts – A101s

  • Scanning auto-attaches relevant documents
  • Manual on-the-fly line entry
  • Predefined accounting templates will:
    • Speed entry
    • Reduce accounting entry errors

Miscellaneous Receipts with Distribution – A2s

  • Distributes payment to the correct funds
  • Distribute on levy or other distribution
  • Use for oil and gas, entitlement payments, AV Tax

Tax Liens, Assignments, Redemptions

Tax Liens

  • Create and customize:
    • Notice of Pending Lien Certificate
    • Tax Lien Certificates
    • Digital Lien Certificate signature
    • Tax Lien Redemption Certificates
  • Tax Lien Archive

Assignment and Redemption

  • Create and customize:
    • Certificate of Assignment
    • Certificate of Redemption
  • Predefine costs reimbursed by assignee for quick receipting during redemption
  • Archived for later viewing

Other Distributions and Disbursements

State Treasurer’s Disbursements

  • Loads previous month’s county collection cash balances
  • Click of the mouse creates monthly remittance files for:
    • Montana Department of Justice
    • Montana Department of Revenue

Interest Allocation

  • Eliminate spreadsheet
  • Proportionally allocates interest:
    • To various agencies and county funds
    • Uses prior month ending balances

Form Letters and Mail Merge

Create and customize letter templates

  • Basic formatting
  • Customizable letter templates for:
    • Tax Liens
    • Assignment
    • Reminder Post Cards
    • Sheriff Sale

Mail Merge

  • Tax merge file contains tax record data to use with Word merge
  • Microsoft Word allows advanced formatting to get your letter just right
  • Use Word merge to combine the letter template and tax data from the file, then print the letters

School Ledger

School Ledger, a sub-ledger to BMS Accounting, matches accounting codes to your county schools’ OPI accounting codes. This allows for more detailed accounting information than would be available if handled in your county general ledger. School Ledger also completely separates county account codes from the school account codes and provides a matching county to school account code comparison when working with a school to balance.

School Ledger – Accounting Sub-Ledger

  • Detailed accounting information
  • Separate from the County General ledger
  • Fully integrated with Tax and Accounting
  • Streamlines School to County balancing

Full Fund Accounting

  • Double-entry system
  • Pre-loaded with OPI chart of accounts
  • New fiscal year setup is a breeze:
    • Automatically creates new fiscal year
      line items
    • Automatically adds new receivable accounts

Full Integration

  • School Ledger entries update county
    school funds​
  • Accounting entries, A101, JV, and Check Redemption update School Ledger
  • No Double entry – transactions entered once
  • Import Warrant Cash Voucher
    (from BMS schools)

Import and Export School Warrants

  • Speeds check redemption
  • Eliminates manual warrant entry
  • Produce outstanding warrant report for
    each school
  • Export redeemed warrants back to school
  • Auto-redemption entries save schools time
  • Ensures county and school redemptions match for easier balancing

Tax Levies Detail

  • Maintains school district tax levies
  • Levy entry automatically compares to Tax mill amounts to ensure match
  • Produce school sample fund distributions

School Report Packages

  • Customize a package for each school
  • Each package can contain one or
    more reports
  • One-step printing or emailing at
    month’s end

Optional Modules

Purchase any of the following to improve efficiency and expand taxpayer services:

Cash Receipting

  • Single tax receipt interface for
    simpler receipting
  • Advanced cash controls by operator
    and batch

Out Source Bill Printing Interface

  • Produces a file for your printing company
  • Printing company charges apply

BDS Outsource Billing Interface

  • No BMS charge when using BDS
  • BDS charges apply

Pressure Sealed Tax Bill Format

  • Required when using a printer
    sealing machine​

WebTax

  • Look up property tax information
  • Linked to your website and opens in
    a browser
  • Program Access Options:
    • Password protected access
    • Open to public

WebPay

  • Interfaced with your credit card processor
  • Linked to your website and opens in
    a browser

Bank Check Upload

  • Auto-redeems county issued and other agency checks
  • Used to import redemption information provided by your bank

Built-in reports

The Tax, School Ledger and Accounting applications enable you to selectively tailor reports. Choose from a large selection of built-in variations, all of which can be previewed on screen, sent to a file, printer, or emailed to any number of recipients. Create simple reports using the built-in report writer.

Show Reports
 

Tax Reports

  • Tax distribution by Taxpayer
  • Receipt Reports – detail, daily summary,
    history, distribution, payment and more
  • Billing – detail and distribution
  • Sample Fund Distribution by Levy
  • Receivable Reconciliation
  • Property Assessment
  • Uncollected Taxes – detail, summary, reconciliation, delinquents
  • Mortgage company
  • Assignments
  • Protest Reports – detail, summary,
    history
  • Misc Receipts (A1) – details, details by fund, details by school, distributed detail

Accounting Reports

  • OPI FP6b Report Worksheet
  • County Trial Balance
  • Warrant Redemption by Day and Type
  • Cash – detail, transaction reconciliation, summary
  • Detail Ledger and Account queries

School Ledger Reports

  • Transactions with details
  • Warrant Reports – register, redeemed,
    outstanding
  • Trial Balance
  • Cash Reports – detail, transaction summary, motor vehicle, tax receipt
  • Detail Reports – ledger, ledger query
  • Chart of accounts and general ledger lists


View Tax PDF

What Our Customers Are Saying:

You are absolutely great with help and understanding. Without your help and without your software I would be up a creek without a paddle and with many sleepless nights and would need to take some stress relief pills.

Sharon S.–Clerk, Montana

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