Daily Operations -- Processing Payments

Click a link below to view the other sections in Receivables:

Return to the Daily Operations page here.

Deposit a counter sale

    Use Bank Accounts/Configure/Cash Receipts Journal

    Your counter sales have been entered as invoices. Now you're ready to deposit the customer receipts.

    The cash receipts control account was debited for cash sales when you recorded cash and check counter sale invoices. The credit card account was debited when you recorded credit card counter sale invoices. When you deposit these receipts, you will want to credit these accounts. The deposit will debit the deposit bank account for the receipt total.

    Now create a cash receipts journal for depositing the payments that you entered when you entered the invoices. Name the journal "Counter Invoice Receipts" (for example.) Select CJCR for the source code.

    At Columns allowed, select "Credit" and select the credit card account for each credit card. These are the accounts that were automatically posted when you entered credit card payments with the invoice.

    At Columns allowed, select "Credit" and select the cash receipts control account. This is the account to which cash and check payments were automatically posted when you entered cash and check payments with the invoices.

    Use Bank Accounts/Deposits

    Start a new batch in the Deposits window when you're ready to enter a deposit consisting of mixed cash and credit card receipts from your cash register.

    At Receipt type, select "Counter Invoice Receipts" (or whatever you named the counter sales journal). At Receipt amount, enter the total amount of receipts to be deposited in the bank (INCLUDING the credit card receipts). At each credit card prompt, enter the total receipts for the credit card. At the cash receipts prompt, enter the total amount of cash and check payments.

    The Undistributed amount should be $0.00. Enter an optional Description, click OK, and save the batch. When you've completed data entry for the batch, post the batch.

Record Customer Payments on Account

    Use Bank Accounts/Deposits

    To record payments on their Receivables accounts that you receive from customers, you use the Deposits command. When you post a Deposits batch containing customer receipts, the payments are posted to the designated customer accounts and to the associated Receivables control accounts.

    The total deposit is recorded as a single credit to the bank account you designate as the account to which the deposit will be made. (The system uses the deposits clearing account as an interim holding account to consolidate multiple receipts into a single deposit.)

    Use Bank Accounts/Deposits/Batch Options

    All data entry sessions that create batches open with the Batch Options dialog.

    Enter the ID of the bank account where the receipts will be deposited. You can leave deposit number blank so the system can default the next available number. Review the batch name and posting period. Click OK when you're done.

    Use Bank Accounts/Deposits

    For open item customers, at Invoice Number, you use the drop-down list to see the customer's outstanding invoices. You can select "all" or individual invoices for application of the payment, as appropriate. Finance charges that are due appear as separate invoices for open item customers and can be selected for inclusion in the payment.

    For balance forward customers, you apply payments to "all."

    At Applied amount, you enter the amount of the receipt to apply to the invoice(s).

    Post the batch of payments when you're done.

Handle Down Payments or Deposits

    Use General Ledger/Configure/Chart of Accounts

    You record an advance payment received from a customer and then enter the invoice when the job or delivery is complete.

    First, set up an advance payments liability account. The account can reflect deposits, downpayments, and any other payment customers make before receiving goods or services.

    Use Bank Accounts/Configure/Cash Receipts Journal

    Set up a Cash Receipts Journal to enter advance payments received. In the "Columns allowed" field select Credit only. In the "Account" field, select the Advance Payments account you set up in the COA.

    Use Bank Accounts/ Deposits

    Enter a deposit to record the Advance Payment received from the customer. In the Deposits window, at Receipt type, select the Cash Receipts Journal you created for this purpose. In the credit column of the CRJ, enter the amount of the advance payment.

    For the Description, you can enter the customer's name or any information you wish to identify the advance payment.

    Use Bank Accounts/Print/Cash Receipts Journal

    Verify your deposit. Select the journal (for example, "Advance Payments") to preview or print the journal.

    Use Sales/Product List

    Create a Product List Item for advance payments received. For the GL account to which transactions for this item will be automatically posted, select the advance payments liability account you set up.

    Use Sales/Invoices

    Process the Sales Invoice when the job is complete. Complete the top portion of the Sales Invoice as you normally would. On the first line in the Invoice details table, enter the product or service for which the advance payment was made. On the second line, select the Product List item you set up in the Product List for advance payments received. On the second line, in the Amount field, as a negative amount, enter the amount of advance payment (which you have already recorded as a deposit) to apply to this invoice.

Handle Regular Customer Charges

Use Receivables/Configure/Recurring Charges

Set up regular customer charges like rent and monthy fees in the special "Recurring Charges" configuration window. When you create a recurring charge, you indicate whether it is taxable and you associate the charge with the sales income accounts to which you want the charge to post.

(You can also create batches of recurring charges in the Sales/Invoices window. Select any existing batch you plan to post periodically, right-click, and choose "Make recurring" from the right-click menu.)

Use Receivables/Configure/Customers

Certain regular charges in Receivables often apply to a large number of customers: for example, leases, subscriptions, and other fees that you periodically assess. Associate each charge with the appropriate customers. Any number of regular, periodic charges can be assigned to a customer.

Use Receivables/Billing Cycle Checklist

To apply and post recurring charges in Receivables:

  1. Run Receivables/Billing Cycle Checklist.
  2. Check the Recurring charge "Apply" checkbox for the billing cycle to which the customer with the recurring charge is assigned.

The Recurring Charges window opens automatically, for you to finish the operation.

Use Receivables/Recurring Charges

In the Recurring Charges window, click the Apply button to create and post the recurring charge transactions. (The customers in the selected billing cycle are automatically checked for processing. You can UNcheck customers if you don't want to apply the charges at this time.) The charge is posted as a regular invoice with a special RC invoice number.

Close a billing Cycle

Use Receivables/Billing Cycle Checklist

Use the Billing Cycle Checklist to process customers. After you complete all processing for customers in the billing cycle (apply finance charges, apply recurring charges, and print statements), then close out customer activity for the cycle. (Remember that you can have any number of billing cycles, from one to as many as you need.) Balances are rolled into aging buckets according to the current (Aging) date. The system considers transactions entered on or after the Aging date as current transactions. The system considers transactions entered before the Aging date as past due.

The checklist helps you remember to do all the processing in the recommended sequence and prevents you from doing any of the steps more than once per cycle.

Dunning - Sending Past-due Invoices

    Use System/Company/Export/Customer Mail Merge

    Export customer contact name, company name, address, and current or past due amounts. This allows you to send customer overdue account information to a spreadsheet or database for analysis. The export also provides a comma-separated or tab-separated file you can use with a mail merge program for preparing letters to customers for dunning, for announcements, and for other purposes. For mail merges, check the option to Include header record. Customer Mail Merge Information provides account information that is not provided by the Customer Contact Information export, which exports only customer names, addresses, phone numbers, and contact names.

Dunning - Sending Past-due Invoices

Use System/Company/Export/Customer Mail Merge

Export customer contact name, company name, address, and current or past due amounts. This allows you to send customer overdue account information to a spreadsheet or database for analysis. The export also provides a comma-separated or tab-separated file you can use with a mail merge program for preparing letters to customers for dunning, for announcements, and for other purposes. For mail merges, check the option to Include header record.

Customer Mail Merge Information provides account information that is not provided by the Customer Contact Information export, which exports only customer names, addresses, phone numbers, and contact names.

Use MS Word to prepare a mail merge

  1. From the Tools menu, select Mail Merge.
  2. Follow the instructions to create a letter, envelope, or mailing label.
  3. For the Get Data menu, select Open Data Source.
  4. In the browser window, make the file type "All Files (*.)", then find and select custage.csv (or .tab).
  5. Use the Insert Merge Field function to select the fields from custage.csv (or .tab) for your merge.

Analyze Sales

Use Sales/Print/Sales Analysys by product, by category

Print sales reports that show quantities sold and sales dollars.

Sales reports can print either a single line showing a product's sales for each selected date, item, customer, and category or a single line showing Category 1's sales for each selected date and item, with optional invoice details and invoice totals.