About Creating Payment Batches Automatically

You use the A/P Create Payment Batch screen to create batches of payment entries automatically to pay all or a selection of your due accounts.

Important! You must create a separate payment batch for each bank account on which you want to write checks.

Once you create a batch of payments, you can edit them using the A/P Payment Entry screen if the Allow Edit Of System Generated Batches option is selected on the A/P Options screen.

Preparing to Create a Payment Batch

Before you create a payment batch, you should:

The Pre-Check Register

The Pre-Check Register lists the details and totals of checks that the program will produce, using the criteria you specify in the A/P Create Payment Batch screen.

After reviewing the Pre-Check Register, you may decide not to pay certain transactions, or you may want to force payment on certain transactions, or pay only a portion of a transaction.

If you use the A/P Control Payments screen to add payment restrictions, reprint the Pre-Check Register to check their effects.

Payment Criteria and Payment Selection Codes

The A/P Create Payment Batch screen selects vendors for payment according to criteria you specify, and creates a payment batch that you can later edit with the A/P Payment Entry screen.

You define the criteria for selecting payments by first defining at least one payment selection code with the A/P Payment Selection Codes screen. You then select the code you want to use when you create a payment batch, and modify the criteria, if necessary. More...

When you specify a payment selection code on the A/P Create Payment Batch screen, the criteria defined for the code appears, as follows:

  • The bank for the payment batch and the vendor. In multicurrency ledgers, you also specify the bank currency for the payment batch and the currency for the vendor.
  • The type of document date you want to use for selecting documents for payment. You must choose one of the following:

    Due Date. Select this option if you want the program to select transactions only on the basis of due dates and not consider discount dates. (The program ignores discount dates when selecting transactions, but still takes the discounts that are available when paying the transactions.)

    You must also enter the date on or before which the invoice must be due in order to be paid.

    Discount Date. Select this option if you want the program to select transactions only on the basis of discount dates and not consider due dates. (The program ignores due dates when selecting transactions.)

    You must also enter a range of dates during which the discount must be paid in order for the invoice to qualify.

    Due Date and Discount Date. Select this option when you want to pay all transactions that are due on or before a certain date, or that may not be due, but which have a discount available on or before the same date. (The program looks at both due dates and discount dates when selecting transactions.)

    You must enter an “on or before” due date and a range of discount dates.

  • Whether to pay all selected documents or forced documents only.

    • All Selected Documents. Includes all selected transactions.
    • Only Forced Documents. Includes only the selected transactions that have a Forced status.
  • Vendor ranges. You can select vendors by choosing ranges for each of the following:
    • Vendor groups.
    • Vendor numbers.
    • Account sets.
    • Vendor amounts (lets you place a ceiling on vendor amounts)
    • Payment codes.
    • Vendor optional fields.

On Hold Transactions

Some transactions do not appear on the Pre-Check Register unless you assign them a Forced status on the A/P Control Payments screen. These transactions include:

Note: The Pre-Check Register lists transactions that have a Forced status only if the amounts of the checks that would include the forced payments are within the minimum and maximum check amounts specified for the check run.

The Pre-Check Register can also include all payables that were bypassed in the check run. Bypassed transactions include transactions placed on hold in the A/P Control Payments screen, transactions being withheld from payment because the vendors have been placed on hold in the Vendors screen, and Forced transactions for amounts outside the specified range of check amounts.

Check Language

The language for printing the check amount in text is taken from the vendor record or primary remit-to record for each vendor. If you need to specify a different language for individual checks, you will have to edit the payment entries after you create the batch.

Note: The check language applies only to the textual amount printed on each check. All other text on the check or advice comes from the check report screen

Unposted Payment Batches

A/P Create Payment Batch scans the payment entries in all unposted batches to make sure that outstanding invoices are not paid twice.

Payment Controls

A/P Create Payment Batch also checks to see whether any payment controls have been placed on vendors or invoices using the A/P Control Payments screen.

Multicurrency Ledgers

All payment entries in a batch are in the same currency and are drawn from the same bank.

All vendors being paid must have the same source currency; however, payments do not have to match the vendor's currency. For example, you can create a batch of checks in US dollars to pay vendors whose source currency is the drachma.

Discounts

If you take discounts, you must specify a range of discount dates on the Vendor and Date Selection Criteria tab of the A/P Create Payment Batch screen. Accounts Payable will review all documents with a discount date within the range you specify (that meet other criteria), and take discounts if they are available as of the batch date you specify on the Bank and Currency Selection Criteria tab of the screen.

Optional Fields

If you use optional fields, an Optional Fields tab is available. Initially, the tab displays any payment optional fields that you set up for automatic insertion, along with their default entries. You can accept or change the inserted optional field entries, or you can delete the optional fields. You can also assign different payment optional fields to the batch.

When you generate payment entries, Accounts Payable assigns optional fields to the payment entries, as follows, using the values specified on the Optional Fields tab:

Printing Checks for a Generated Batch

After creating a payment batch, you should:

You will likely do check runs on a regular basis—semi-monthly, for example, or as often as necessary to maintain a consistent cash flow.