Accounts Payable - Payment Processing Procedure

This procedure gives you the ability to easily customize your cash requirements for a period.

The frequency of this procedure can vary by business. It can be run as often as required. We recommend that you process payments at least once a fiscal period.

1. Apply or Release Hold Status on Vendor

By applying the “Hold” status to a vendor, the system will not create a check for the vendor. The vendor will remain on hold until the status is changed.

2. Defer Vouchers for Payment

The Adjust Voucher Status screen can be used to defer particular vouchers, so that they will not be included in the cash requirements report, regardless of their due date, and so that the vouchers will remain deferred until their payment status is changed to “Normal (N)” or “Express (E)” via the Adjust Voucher Status screen.

There are two types of deferral payment statuses: “Permanently Deferred (P)” and “Temporarily Deferred (T)”. The latter only lasts until the next time a check run for the company is posted, after which the status is automatically changed to “Normal”.

3. Mark Vouchers for Express Payment

The Adjust Voucher Status screen allows a voucher to be flagged for payment after it has been posted, even if it is not yet due for payment.

4. Update Date Sensitive Compliance Codes

The procedure will verify and adjust any date sensitive compliance codes that have expired, marking the related vouchers as “On Hold” due to compliance issues.

5. Select Vouchers for Payment

This program will calculate which vouchers are due to be paid according to the date and selection criteria entered, and taking into account whether the voucher is:

  • ON HOLD

  • DEFERRED

  • Marked for EXPRESS payment

  • Marked as PAY WHEN PAID

  • Marked as NON COMPLIANT

  • Marked as PAY by MANUAL check.

6. Print the Cash Requirement Report

This report lists all of the vouchers the select payment program flagged as payable according to the selection criteria entered. This report shows only the total payable amount for each voucher. Any partial payments are entered in the next step. If there are incorrect vouchers shown on the report, or vouchers that should be paid are not on the report, re‑run steps one through five as required. These steps can be performed as often as necessary.

If vouchers are missing from the Cash Requirement report, re‑do the payment selection (step five), verifying that the correct dates have been entered, processing flags, and selection conditions. Also check that the vouchers are not being deferred and that the vendor associated with these vouchers is not on hold.

7. Apply Partial Payments Against Selected Vouchers

This option allows the user to remove vouchers from the payment selection, set the voucher’s payment status to deferred for payment, or to pay only a portion of the outstanding amount on a voucher, which sets its close status to “P” (Partially Paid). Vouchers with a close status of “Partially Paid” remain open, and further payments against them may be made at a later date. The system will keep any current non-compliant status, and it will set the payment status to either the user’s override payment status from the Partial Payment screen or to the payment status default set via the Default Voucher Status field on the Voucher tab of the AP Control File.

NOTE: A close status of “Partially Paid” can also mean that the partial payment was voided, as when a check is voided, the close status of the associated voucher is not switched back to “Open”, because there is still a link between the voided check and the voucher. Details about the close status of a voucher can be viewed in the Payments pop-up launched via the [Payments] button on the Voucher Query screen.

8. Re‑Print Cash Requirements Report

This is a safety precaution, to verify the report once more. Once the Prepare Check screen is run, it is too late to change the cash requirements.

9. Prepare Checks

This program assigns the check numbers to each payment being made.

10. Add Joint Payee Info

This is the last chance to add joint payee info before actually printing the checks, if not already done so via the Voucher Entry or Adjust Voucher Status screens.

11. Print Checks

After the payments have been prepared, the Print Checks screen is used to print checks or to generate electronic payment files for their payment. If the checks did not print properly, or the electronic payment files were not generated correctly, this screen can be used to re-print the checks or re-generate the payment files.

12. Post Check Run

Once the checks have been printed and verified, or the electronic payment files have been generated and verified, the payments can be posted via the Post Check Run screen. Posting will update the vendors and the General Ledger with the payment details, and as such, this step should not be performed until the payments have been verified.