Supplier Payments

To access this utility go into the Suppliers section and from the menu select Tools|Supplier Payments.

This utility allows you to pay multiple suppliers without having to enter a cheque or supplier payment manually for each one. It will allocate a specified amount of money to your suppliers, taking advantage of discounts where applicable. Payments can be allocated and reallocated as many times as desired until you are satisfied with the dispersal, simply by re-running the utility. Use the Cash Requirements Report to list and check your intended payments.

Allocations can be converted to payments, and then cheques or 'disbursement slips' can be printed, using the Write/Print Cheque Utility or an EFT (electronic fund transfer) file can be generated for transfer to your bank, using the Create EFT Payments File Utility.

Allocating payments is not the same thing as creating payments. The Supplier Payment Utility only marks (tags) transactions for intended payment. You must use the Write/Print Cheques Utility or the Create EFT Payments File Utility to convert your allocations into actual payment transactions, once you are satisfied that the 'tagging' is correctly done. You should not attempt to use this facility until you have familiarised yourself with the manual entry of supplier payments.

Supplier Category

The account category to allocate payments to. Leave blank to allocate all suppliers.

Account Code

If you wish to pay a single account only, enter the account code here.

Start Date

The first transaction date to begin allocating payments from. If left blank, CAPITAL will begin with the first unpaid transaction in the system.

End Date

The last transaction date to end allocating payments to. This is typically the last day of the previous month. If no date is specified, no cut-off date will apply.

Discount Start

The first date to start issuing allocations to. Only transactions entitled to an early payment settlement discount will be allocated.

Discount End

The last date to start issuing allocations to that are entitled to an early payment discount. If your firm is entitled to early payment discounts, this date is normally set to (or very close to) the cheque issue date.

Last Due Date to Pay

Specify the last date that a transaction must fall due to entitle it to a payment allocation. This is normally the same as the cheque issue date if cheques are written at the beginning of each month. (Since for standard 30 day accounts, transactions fall due on the first day of the next month. They should be paid by at least the last day of that month.)

For normal calendar monthly aged accounts (the normal ageing method unless changed by the operator), the due date is the first day of the following month. For example, if the date is either the 01/08/05 or the 29/08/05, the due date is the 01/09/05. In other words, if you only wanted to pay all outstanding invoices up to and including August, but none for September, you would enter the due date as the 01/09/05.

Payment Issue Date

The date that will appear on cheques or direct deposit payments (via EFT) that will be created after the allocation process is complete. This date is used to calculate whether you are entitled to an early payment discount.

Allocation Method

Select either automatic or manual. If automatic is selected CAPITAL will allocate payments based on the oldest outstanding transactions until no more money is left in alphabetical supplier code sequence. If manual is selected, CAPITAL will list accounts by account code sequence and their applicable unpaid transactions. You may then individually select who to pay and which transactions to pay.

Payment Group

The group of suppliers you wish to pay.

All

All suppliers that have outstanding account balances will be considered.

EFT Only

Only suppliers that have their EFT Payments setting ticked will be considered for payment allocation.

Cheque Only

Only suppliers that do not have their EFT Payments setting ticked will be considered for payment allocation.

Clear Prior Payments

Tick this to remove previous allocations in the specified date ranges. If this option is unticked, more payment allocations will be added to existing allocations.

To remove all allocations entirely, be sure not to specify any start or end dates.

Marked Only

Tick to show only marked payments on the allocation run. This is useful for dealing with early payments, etc. You can mark transactions by selecting Edit|Mark Special from under the Suppliers menu. You will need to press the Tran tab button otherwise this selection will be greyed.

This option only applies when the Allocation Method is set to Automatic. It does not prevent you from allocating payments to transactions manually.

A yellow traffic light symbol will appear next to transactions which are marked as special during the payment allocation proess in manual mode.

Amount to Allocate

The amount of money to allocate to suppliers. If you intend paying all your suppliers (or almost all your suppliers), then just make this a very high number. Remember that this process is reversable until EFTpayments or cheques are generated.

How To Pay Accounts With Early Settlement Discounts First

In principle,early payment discount transactions should be paid first to take advantage of supplier discounts when possible and if applicable. Do this by entering 01/01/80 as the Start Date and End Date respectively. This will ensure non-discount suppliers are not included on the payment allocation run. Leave the Discount Start Date and End Date blank. This ensures that the maximum date range is reviewed.

If you don't receive discounts for paying accounts early, skip this step.

How To Pay Accounts Up To a Specified Date

If you wish to stop the inclusion of transactions, in manual mode, beyond a specified date, e.g., the 1st of December, then enter the last day of the previous month, e.g., the 30th of November, in the End Date field and Discount End field. It is important that the last date you wish to include is specified in BOTH date fields.

IMPORTANT: Reviewing Your Payment Allocations

It can be useful to print a Cash Requirement Report before and after allocating payments to see who and what will be paid before the 'cheque run' is executed.

Typically, three steps are involved in allocating payments:

Early payment discount transactions are paid first to take advantage of savings in this area. This is done by allocating the starting and ending dates a very low date range, i.e., 01/01/80. Make the discount ending date the same as the cheque issue date. If you don't receive discounts for paying accounts early, skip this step.
A Payment allocation is made automatically. (This is of course the amount of money remaining once discounted transactions have been paid.)
Payment allocations can be made with a zero Amount to Allocate in order to step through all allocated accounts in order to manually make adjustments if necessary.

HOW Payments Are Allocated

Payments are allocated when the following conditions are met:

The Supplier Category specified is blank or the Supplier Category matches the supplier's category.
The total balance of the supplier account is greater than zero.
The supplier account is NOT on hold.
The first unpaid transaction is within the date ranges specified.
There is money left to allocate.
If Marked Only is selected and the Allocation Method is set to Automatic, the transaction must be marked as special.
The transaction's amount must be greater than zero and it cannot be a payment type. (Only invoices, credits and adjustments will be allocated.)

Hints & Tips

The automatic or manual allocation process will not consider accounts that are in credit, even if unpaid outstanding invoices are recorded against them. If you wish to assign payments to these accounts you will have to do so by manually entering the payment(s).
During manual allocation you can abort the allocate process at any time. Whatever allocations you have already made will be retained the next time go into the system. (Unless you specifically request to clear allocations the next time you run Supplier Payments.)
Foreign currency account transactions are allocated in their original foreign currency. These are converted to Australian dollars at current exchange rates during the Write/Print Cheques process. Be sure the Exchange Rate Table holds the most current rates.
If you just want to view your allocations or make adjustments without allocating more money, leave the Allocation Method set to Manual and enter zero as the allocation amount.
Any transaction placed on hold will be skipped over.
Any supplier placed on hold will be skipped over.
Accounts are allocated in alphabetical sequence until no more money is left when the Allocation Method is set to Automatic. If you have not assigned enough money to bring your accounts up to date, you may wish to manually (and selectively) allocate what money you do have.
This system presently does not support the automatic issuing of Retention deductions.
Keep in mind that if you have unallocated credits or payments against the account you should allocate these first, before running this procedure. If this is not practical or possible, just keep in mind that you may have to manually review the allocations assigned to these accounts (if any) after this procedure is executed. (An unallocated payment or credit is one that has been entered against the account, but not offset against a specific invoice or set of invoices.) Use the Unallocated Transaction Report to review these accounts.
CENTRAL BILLING. If you are using the central billing system then CAPITAL will assign the payment as having come from the 'head office' or 'buying group' account. (This occurs during the cheque/payment creation process.)
If the account is set to process early settlement discounts, these will be calculated automatically. If you do not wish to issue them you can clear them manually be zeroing the amounts under the Discount column.
You may enter a discount amount to allocate against each supplier when manually selecting payments. This option is not available when the account is set to process early settlement discounts.

____________________________