About Accounts Receivable Coding Schemes

Learn more

Setting Up Accounts Receivable

Before you can use Accounts Receivable, you must add sets of codes to identify the account sets, billing cycles, distribution codes, salespersons, customers, and other records you will add to your system. You should take the time to design sensible coding schemes for each type of code you require, before you start assigning codes to records.

If you already have a system for most of these codes, you may be able to continue with the same system. Check the following list to see whether each code type allows for the number and type of characters used in your previous system.

Codes Used in Accounts Receivable
Code Name Maximum Number of Characters
Account set code 6 digits and letters
Billing cycle code 6 digits and letters
Comment type code 8 digits and letters
Customer number 12 digits, letters, symbols, blank spaces
Customer group code 6 digits and letters
Distribution code 6 digits and letters
Dunning message code 8 digits and letters
Interest profile code 6 digits and letters
Message ID 16 digits and letters
National account number 12 digits, letters, symbols, blank spaces
Payment code 12 digits and letters
Salesperson code 8 digits and letters
Ship-to location code 6 digits, letters, symbols
Terms code 6 digits and letters
Item number 16 digits, letters, symbols, blank spaces
Receipt type code 6 digits and letters
Recurring charge code 15 digits, letters, symbols, blank spaces

Recommendations for new codes

If you are designing new codes, you should assign codes that make it easy to identify each record type and that list records in the order you want them to appear on reports and in selection screens.

Each code is a unique set of letters, symbols, and digits. For example, each of the following could be a valid customer number:

To simplify codes, we recommend that you:

Sorting Order of Codes

Accounts Receivable sorts codes on screens and reports in a specific order, which you should take into consideration when designing codes.

The program reads codes from left to right, and uses the following sequence to put them in order:

[Blank] ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ? @ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z [ \ ] ^ _ ` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z { | } ~

Shorter codes are listed before longer codes.

Codes containing fewer than the maximum number of permitted characters are left-justified on screens and reports.

The codes listed in the example (earlier in this topic) would be sorted by the program into the following order: