4. Pay

When you prepare payment, the following processes run:

    1. For checks, the check numbers are automatically allocated from the next available numbers in the active range. See About Check Ranges and Numbers and Creating and Activating Check Ranges for more information.
      • If the check range for the bank account is not active, or it has insufficient check numbers, you will see an error message.
    2. For checks, electronic, and Asperato, payment data is prepared.
      • The data is stored in three payment data objects that your printing application uses to print the correct information on checks and remittances. See Payment Media for more information.
      • If you have included any vendors with a zero payment value, these are excluded from the payment data. You cannot print checks or remittances for these vendors, but their transactions are matched during the Post & Match stage.
      • If an error occurs, the status is set to "Preparing Media Error" and an error reason is recorded in the Payment Log object. See Viewing the Payment Log for more details.
      • For payments using the Asperato payment method:
        • If you selected the Select Invoices for Separate Payments checkbox to create payments at invoice level, cash entries are created per invoice. If you deselected the checkbox, cash entries are created per account.
        • When you click Pay Now, a separate Asperato payment record is created for each payable invoice that has been selected on the payment proposal. The Asperato payment records are then immediately submitted for processing by the Payment Service Provider (PSP), Airwallex. The status of the Asperato payment records are updated to reflect the processing status from Airwallex. If the payment processing is successful, the payment stage of the Asperato payment records is updated to "Payment Sent" and the FinancialForce Asperato Integration creates, posts and matches a separate cash entry per vendor account. If an error occurs during processing, the Asperato payment record payment stage is updated to "Failed" and the payment proposal status changes to "Error". See 5. Summary for more details on resubmitting failed payments.
Warning:
  • For Asperato, you cannot make changes to the payments once you have clicked Pay Now.
  • For both checks and electronic, you cannot make changes to the payments once you have clicked Post & Match.

Checks

In Classic Payments, the data is created when you Save for the first time. However, in Payments Plus, the data is created when you click Prepare Checks.

Preprinted Check Stock

When the prepare checks process has completed, you can go to your printing application to print your checks. After you print the checks the Print Checks button changes to Reprint Checks, enabling you to reprint them if necessary.

Blank Check Stock

If you are printing onto blank check stock you must wait until after the payment has been posted and matched, as this is when the check numbers are stored (required for printing).

Note: If you are using Conga, in order to enable printing, you need to ensure you have completed the setup required as explained in the FinancialForce Conga Integration guide available from Community.

The Check Numbering Detail section lists:

  • The vendors.
  • The documents to be paid, if you have selected Select Invoices for Separate Payments.
  • The automatically allocated check numbers.
  • Their corresponding payment amounts.

If the payment amount for any of the vendor accounts is a zero value, the check number field is disabled and no payment data is stored. You cannot print a check or remittance for this vendor.

Your next step depends on whether the check numbers have been correctly allocated or not:

  • If the check numbers correspond, click Post & Match to start the Post and Match process. See Post & Match for more details.
  • If something has gone wrong (missing or incorrect check numbers, gaps or duplications), you must take some action first. Some examples and their solutions are described in Adjusting Check Numbers.
    When the problem has been resolved, click Post & Match to start the Post and Match process.

Asperato and Electronic

In order to avoid problems that can be caused by the bank rejecting a payment, before the post and match stage you can remove accounts. Alternatively you can use the Cancel Payment functionality after posting to reverse any payments the bank was unable to process. See About Canceling Checks and Electronic Payments for more information.

Note:
You cannot remove accounts that have a value of zero.
For payments using the Asperato payment method, you cannot remove accounts once you have clicked Pay Now.

To remove one or more accounts:

  1. Click . This activates the review grid for editing.
  2. Use the checkbox to select one or more accounts to remove.
  3. When you have selected the correct accounts, click Remove from Proposal.
  4. A popup window is displayed where you need to include a reason for removing the accounts. To continue, enter a reason and click Remove Selected. If you select more than one account to remove, only one popup window where you can enter a reason is displayed. Therefore, if you want to enter a separate reason for each account, you should remove one account at a time.
  5. If the process completes successfully, you can proceed to Post & Match. If it does not complete successfully, and the status is "Account Removal Error", see Removal Error below.
Note:
If you select some accounts to remove, but you do not click Remove Selected, they remain with the checkbox selected. If you then click Post & Match, a message will appear warning you that although you have selected some lines to be removed, they still remain. If needed, you then have the opportunity to go back and click Remove Selected. Alternatively, if you no longer want to remove the previously selected lines, click Continue.

There are three possible payment statuses:

  • Removing Accounts - indicates that the process is running.
  • Ready to Post - indicates that the remaining accounts can be posted.
  • Discarded - indicates that all accounts have been removed.

If while removing accounts the process is interrupted, the process will not complete and an error message is shown. The status will be "Account Removal Error". In order to proceed to Post & Match you must resolve the error.

To resolve the error you can either:

  • Try again
    or
  • Open the Error Log to find out why it failed

To try again:

  1. Click Edit.
  2. Select the accounts to remove.
  3. Click Remove from Proposal.

If you receive invoices and make payments in multiple currencies, and are making payments in a currency that is different from your home currency, you can override the default exchange rate applied to the payments on the proposal, to reflect the exchange rate applied by the bank to the payments. The payment rate is stored on the cash entry header and used to convert from payment currency to home currency when posting.

To override the exchange rate:

  1. Click Override Exchange Rate. The Override Exchange Rate dialog box displays.
  2. In the Payment Rate field, enter the exchange rate that you want to use.
  3. Click Apply Rate. The override exchange rate is displayed in the side panel.

If you want to reset the exchange rate to the default, click Override Exchange Rate and enter 0 in the Payment Rate field.

Post & Match

When you prepare a check payment, the Post & Match button is not enabled until you print the checks.

When you are ready to continue, click Post & Match to start the process. The process runs as an asynchronous batch job. You are notified by email of the success or failure of this operation. See About Asynchronous Batch Jobs in Payments Plus for important related information.

The Summary page displays when the post and match process completes.