Suggesting and Processing Payments

07/10/2021
8 minutes to read

With Payment Management, you can take advantage of an extended payment journal that provides enhanced functionality for your payment processes. This includes features like payment validation and direct communication with the bank when creating and sending payments to vendors and employees.

To use the extended payment journal, Payment Management must be enabled and set up on the payment journal. For more information, see the Setting up payment journals with Payment Management article.

To create vendor payment suggestions

To create vendor payment suggestions:

Use the icon, search for Payment Journals, then select the related link.
Open the relevant journal, and on the action bar, select Prepare > Suggest Vendor Payments.
On the Suggest Vendor Payments form, fill in the fields as necessary. Hover over a field to read a short description.
Tip
Use the fields in the Filter: Vendor section to, for example, filter on a specific payment code.
Select OK to generate the vendor payment suggestions.
The payment journal will now generate payment lines that align with the settings of the payment journal suggestion. However, it's crucial to note that all payment lines must be marked as Valid before they can be sent/exported to the bank. In case of errors on a payment line, you can use the Payment File Errors in the lower right corner of the payment journal to find a more descriptive error message.

Tip

After creating payment suggestions in the payment journal, you can rely on the associated Status of each payment line to understand its current stage in the payment process. If you use direct communication, statuses will also be imported from the bank. For more information, see the Using the payment status article.

To create employee payment suggestions

Important

Before creating an employee payment suggestion, you must fill in the fields Balance Account No. and the Payment Method Code on the Employee card for the existing employees.

To create employee payment suggestions:

Use the icon and search for Payment Journals, then select the related link.
Open the relevant journal, and on the action bar, select Home > Suggest Employee Payments.
Define the relevant criteria for suggesting employee payments.
- In the Use Payment Information from Employee field, select Yes if you want to use, for example, the balance account number and payment method code that is set up on the Employee card. To only use details from the Employee card if it's missing from the employee ledger entry, select Use for Missing Fields.
Select OK to create the suggested employee payment lines.

Note

How employee expenses should be processed in the payment journal depends on the purpose of the payment suggestion. If the expenses have already been posted to a bank account and you want to post the bank ledger entries, the payment method Manual must be used. If you, on the other hand, want to transfer money to your employees, you must use a payment method, for example, BTD, that is accepted in the bank.

To send or export payments

When the payment lines in the payment journal have the status Valid, they can be sent or exported depending on the chosen type of bank communication.

To send or export payment lines:

Use the icon and search for Payment Journals, then select the related link.
Open the relevant journal, and on the action bar, select Home > Export/Send Payments.
Tip
You can specify a custom-defined name for payment files manually exported from the payment journal. Use the icon and search for Payment Management Setup, then select the related link. In the action bar, select Troubleshooting and navigate to the FastTab General. In the field File Name (Payment File), define the file name to be used for manually exported payment files.
If you send/export payments to various banks, you must choose to which bank you wish to first send/export payments. After having sent/exported payments to one bank, you can repeat step 2 and then select the next bank to send payments.

The status of the sent/exported payment lines will be updated to Sent for exported payments, or Processing for payments send by direct communication.

To post payments

You can post a payment line when it has the status Sent or Processing. However, it is recommended not to post any payment lines before they have been paid in the bank. You can define posting criteria to ensure that no payment lines are posted before they have been paid. For more information, see the To determine a required status for posting payments article.

To post the payment lines:

Use the icon and search for Payment Journals, then select the related link.
Open the relevant journal, and in the action bar, select Post/Print > Post.

Accessing information about a payment

While working on the payment line, various information about a chosen payment line will be available on the right side of the payment journal. For more detailed information, select the information displayed in green text.

The payment line information includes the following:

Fact box	Description
Payment Management	All changes to the payment line status are logged for your reference. To view a complete log, select the status displayed in green text. This will open the page Credit Transfer Log, from where you can also access the File Archive for the payment line.
Journal Line Details	This section provides the most basic journal line details, such as Posting Group, Account, and Balance Account.
Incoming Document Files	If the payment line is related to an incoming document; this will be available here. Select Incoming Document Files to attach a file or view or edit an incoming document for the payment line.
Payment File Errors	If there are errors on the payment line, each error will be described in more detail in this list. When the payment line status is updated, errors that have been resolved will be deleted from the list.

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