Monthly Income

1. Monthly Income Tutorial on entering income figures in BkAssist

2. Scope of Tutorial • This tutorial covers how you enter business and personal income in BkAssist • Prerequisites: You should already have viewed these tutorials: • How to Use BkAssist • Setting Up a New Case • Who should view this tutorial: anyone who will prepare a bankruptcy case using BkAssist • In this tutorial, we’ll continue preparing the case of Sarah & Sammy Sample that we first created in the Setting Up a New Case tutorial. • If you want to follow along, download the file Sample_Sarah_Sammy_Basic.bkv to the BkAssist home directory and use the File/Receive menu command to load it into BkAssist (the Receive password is BkAssist). Then perform each of the steps illustrated during the tutorial. • If you instead want to see the end result from following these steps, download and receive Sample_Sarah_Sammy_Complete.bkv instead.

3. Business Income (1) • If the debtor earns income from self-employment (or if the debtor is a business entity), you will enter income on a dialog you reach from the Debtor or Spouse Page: BkAssist considers business income & expenses to be an attribute of the debtor. • Note that debtors who are not individuals do not file Schedule I, so it didn’t make sense to use an individual-oriented screen form to capture this information. • Check the box to indicate that the debtor is in business. (The box will be checked by default if the debtor is not an individual.) Then click on the Details button. • Sarah & Sammy aren’t really “in business,” but we’re showing you what you’d do if they were.

4. Business Income (2) • The Details of Debtor’s Business(es) dialog is very large. You will need a high-resolution screen (say, 1920 by 1200) to see all of it. If your screen is too small, use the scroll bars on the edges of the window to scroll portions into view. • For each business entity in which the debtor or spouse is involved, you should click on the Add button to provide information about that entity. • If the debtor is a business entity, BkAssist will create a default business entity that will appear here the first time you pop up this dialog.

5. Business Income (3) • Fill in the description of the business entity. In this example, Sarah has operated a scone bakery as a sole proprietorship from her home since 2010. (The N/A in the End Date field means she continues to operate this business.) • Click on the Edit button to pop up a dialog where you can enter basic income statement data. • You can also import the income and expense data from an external file. How to do that is beyond the scope of this tutorial.

6. Business Income (4) • Fill in the projected and historical columns with income and expense figures • Positive numbers are income • Negative numbers are expenses • The projected column is for expected future amounts • The historical column is for the means test • Based on the values you enter on these screens, BkAssist will: • Report income and expense totals on Schedules I and J for an individual debtor • Add a supplemental income statement form to the schedule documents for each business entity (click on the link to see what this looks like) • Report income and expense amounts on the B22x (means test) form

7. The Monthly Income Screen • This is the Monthly Income Screen, which you reach by selecting the Income choice from the Schedules & Forms Page. • This screen is divided into four parts: • Employment income • Non-employment income • Totals that BkAssist computes automatically • A free-text block where you can describe anticipated changes in income. • You cannot alter the Business or Farm Income values: you must use the process outlined earlier in this tutorial to enter business/farm income and expense figures. • Neither can you alter the Income from real property values: you will enter real-estate income from the asset dialogs as described a bit further on. • We’re showing you what the income screen will look like when you finish inputting the items shown on the next several slides. Naturally, all the numbers are zero before you do that. • We haven’t yet entered any expense data, either—the only expenses shown here are the monthly payments on secured debts and unexpired leases.

8. Employment Income • Complete an Employment Income dialog for each job either debtor holds. • For the most part, it should be obvious how to fill in this form, but note the following: • There are 3 separate deductions for health insurance, disability insurance, and a health savings account. The separation of amounts facilitates initializing the means test. • BkAssist tracks optional and mandatory retirement deductions separately, again to facilitate completing the means test in Chapter 13. • BkAssist assumes that a payroll deduction for child support is court ordered, which facilitates initializing the means test. • In a chapter 13 case, BkAssist will recognize the increase in disposable income that occurs when the debtor finishes repaying a retirement plan loan. • Use the Other button to record other payroll deductions.

9. Domestic Support Income • Click on the Alimony or other support button on the Monthly Income Screen to enter income either debtor receives from alimony, child support, and foster care or disability payments for a dependent child • In addition to describing the source of the income and providing the amount(s), select one of the classifications from the drop-down list so that BkAssist can properly initialize the means test. Refer to the help screen for this dialog for more details about the choices.

10. Government Benefits • Click on the Government Benefits button on the Monthly Income Screen to enter amounts the debtor receives as government benefits other than unemployment benefits and benefits under the Social Security Act. (Unemployment and Social Security benefits go on special lines on the Monthly Income Screen to facilitate completing the means test.) • Sarah doesn’t actually receive food stamps, but we wanted you to see how to report a non-cash benefit like that. This “income” will be reported on Schedule I, which makes sense because you should include all of the debtor’s food expenses when you fill out the Monthly Expenses Screen. • In a fee-waived case, BkAssist will automatically deduct non-cash government benefits from the income shown on the fee-waiver motion, in accordance with Judicial Conference guidelines.

11. Other Income • Click on the Other income button on the Monthly Income Screen to report income in other categories. • In this example, Sammy receives tips for delivering groceries to the folks in the ritzy building where he works in downtown Boston, and he wants to honestly report them.

12. Real Estate Income • Real estate income and expenses are attributes of the real estate in BkAssist, so you enter both of them together from the asset screen for each parcel of real estate. • Imagine that Sarah & Sammy own a two-family home and receive $1,000 per month from the rental unit. Here’s how you’d disclose that income:

13. Expense Contributions • When other members of the household contribute to the household expenses of the Debtor, use the Expense Contributions button on the Monthly Income Screen to report them. • In this example, the Debtor’s mother (Sandra Single) contributes $200 per month. • BkAssist will use this information: • To complete Schedule I • To initialize the Current Monthly Income amount for contributions to household expenses.