ACH Remittance Advice

Using the ACH method of payment (as opposed to paper checks) can help reduce errors; speed up payments, and save money and resources. ACH payments are simply electronic transfers from one account to another. The Business Edge allows you to send a remittance advice to your vendors as a notification of payments being sent via ACH. You also have the ability to send a spreadsheet to the bank generated through The Business Edge instructing them what to pay.

In order to use this feature you will set up each of your vendors that will be paid via ACH in the vendor master file. This can be accessed through:

Choose your batch process output default at the screen below. The options are Email, Fax, Print, Email & Print, and Fax & Print & Email & Fax. These defaults are the method you are choosing to send your vendors their remittance advices.

In Accounts Payable, A/P File Maintenance, E&E Vendors, Addresses, Remit Address, enter the Vendor's bank routing and account number.

Once you have set up your ACH output defaults in the Vendor Master File you have the ability to “Process Checks by Date” or “Process Individual Checks”. “Process Checks by Date” can be found in AP, Check Routines and Reconciliation, Process Checks by Date. When you “Process Checks by Date” you are processing several at once in a batch. If you are going to process ACH payments by date in a batch check run, you will want to make sure you use a specific range of check numbers lower than what you use for your non ACH Vendor’s so they will not conflict with the ACH checks.

If you are going to process ACH payments by date in a batch check run, you will want to make sure you use a specific range of check numbers different than what you use for your non ACH Vendor’s so they will not conflict with the ACH checks. You can use a specific prefix. For example, A+. If you were processing 8 ACH checks by date your first check number would be typed in as A+ and would display as A00001 and your last number would be A00008. Then, for the next batch check run you would type in A+ as your first check number it will display as A00009.

When you are preparing your invoices for payment while in “Process Checks by Date”, there is an “ACH Vendor Option” where you can choose to prepare invoices only for vendors that have “ACH Bank Info” in the system. This way only invoices due for payment for ACH Vendors with their bank information in the system will come up for payment. You can also choose to prepare invoices for payment for ACH Vendors with no bank information in the system.

Once you have put in the parameters for preparing your invoices for payment you will see a list of the ones you have prepared as shown below. At this point as you can see on the right under “Options” you can remove or add to the list.

After you prepare your batch you can go to “Print and Update Checks” and choose “No” to “Actually Print Checks” since these are ACH payments and you do not need printed checks. However, you do want to have check numbers in the system showing that the Vendor was paid. Below is an example of a check run being paid by date starting with check # 2968 which is well below the range of check numbers designated for non ACH Vendors that use paper checks.

Once your ACH payments have been processed you will update Accounts Payable as usual.

If you choose to process your ACH payments through “Process Individual Checks”. This can be found through AP, Check Routines & Reconciliation, and “Process Individual Checks”. If you process checks individually you will want to have check numbers unique to ACH payments as well. You can enter a check number ACH+ which will be ACH00001 (assuming you have not entered ACH checks this way before). Once you enter an ACH+ check, the numbers will increase as you use them. This way the checks will be specific to just ACH vendors.

Once checks have been processed and the General Ledger has been updated you can now send notification to the bank telling them what you would like them to pay. This can be done by outputting the check register to an excel spreadsheet and e-mailing it to the bank. The register can be accessed through Accounts Payable, Check Routines & Reconciliation, Process Individual Checks, Check Register. Choose the GL account you paid the ACH Vendors from and the date ranges of the payments. Then under “ACH Vendor Options” choose “Bank info in System” This way your check register will pull up only the ACH payments you made within the date range you chose. You can also choose “No Bank Information” if you have ACH Vendors that you do not have bank info stored for in The Business Edge.

The last step would be to send remittance advices to the Vendors. You can send one or a range of advices. “Send One ACH Remittance Advice” allows you to send them one at a time by selecting the cash account and a check number and how you want to output it (Paper, Adobe, Fax or Email). If you choose Fax or Email it will retrieve the vendor’s default output options and fill in contact name, email address/fax number for you. If you “Send a Range” you would input the date that the checks you paid were processed and the remittances would be sent based on the output defaults you have set up in the vendor. At this point you can choose whether or not to include remit advices that have already been sent.

The next screen “Send Range ACH Remittance Advices” will be a list of remittance advices that are ready to be sent to the vendors. The checks are listed with or without a green checkmark in each of the three columns (Fax, E-mail, Print). The checkmarks are set by how the vendor default outputs are set in the Vendor master file. The checkmarks can be changed on this screen by using the Fax, E-mail and Print Toggle buttons on the right hand side under options. Every time you click a toggle button it will change the corresponding checkmark in the highlighted line accordingly. If you click the E-mail toggle button, the green checkmark will appear under the E-mail column for check number ACH00001. If you decide you also want to print it you can also select “Print Toggle” on the right. When you have finished reviewing the list and making any changes, click Ok and the ACH Remittance Advice(s) will be sent. Using the example list below the remittance advices for check ACH00003 and ACH00004. Check number ACH00003 will be emailed to the Vendor and printed. Check #ACH00004 will be emailed.

You can output a check register to send to the bank. Choose a date range and under ACH Vendor Option choose Bank Info in System which will pull up only ACH payments that were made. Accounts Payable System Check Routines & Reconciliation Check Register

Note: Prior to using ACH a remit form will need to be formatted for you.