Automatic Supplier Bill of Exchange Payment

Description of Process

Use this process to create automatic supplier bill of exchange payments, print them, and then send them to suppliers. The process begins with the generation of a payment proposal based on criteria such as payment date interval, currency, or suppliers to be covered. You can select specific invoices, include credit invoices, and use cash discounts. The selection can be made using a number of terms. You can also generate an empty proposal and enter invoices manually. Only authorized invoices can be selected. The payment proposal must be acknowledged and a payment order created with supplier bill of exchange as the payment method before the bills are printed. When the payment is matched, the matched invoices and the payment will be assigned with a unique ID and a matching date.

Depending on how the basic data is set up in the Payment Documents window at entry, bills of exchange are considered as cashed at printout, or posted on an interim account until confirmation is received from the financial institution, or payment institute, that the bill of exchange has been cashed. When bills of exchange are printed, a voucher is generated with postings to accounts payable and, if used, to the transit account. The transit account is a temporary account to which bills of exchange are posted that are waiting to be cashed by the bank. When the bills of exchange are reported as cashed, another voucher is created that reverses the posting to the transit account and debits the cash account. 

The bills of exchange can be defined to be allowed for stamp duty, in the Payment Documents window. If the bill type that is used to create the bill of exchange is allowed for stamp duty, then stamp duty will be applied to the bill of exchange according to the information specified in the Stamp Duty window. The bill will be divided into several bills if the bill amount exceeds the specified limit, and stamp duty will be applied according to the information specified in the table for all the bills that have been created. 

The final step is to confirm that the bills of exchange were cashed by the supplier. This is done in the Mixed Payment window. This creates a payment as well as a voucher in the hold table in IFS Accounting Rules. The supplier dept (PP26) is removed and posted to the cash account (PP1). After this, the status of the bill of exchange is Cashed.

Supplier bills of exchange can be specified in the accounting currency, or in euros (EUR) if the accounting currency is a European Monetary Union (EMU) currency.

When matching a supplier bill of exchange with invoices, you can mix EMU currencies. A supplier bill of exchange in EUR can cover invoices in DEM or FRF, for example.

Although each payment is always made by a single company, a payment proposal, payment order, file, document output, or acknowledgement for that company can include invoices and payments on account from other companies. Companies included in the payment must support payment methods used by the paying company. If specific payment instructions exist on an invoice, these are always used, no matter which values were set up as the defaults for the supplier for the company making the payment. Inter-company claims and debts are automatically created to cover the relation between the involved companies.

Before you begin entering information, verify that the basic data has been set up according to the instructions in the Define Financials Basics/Set up Basic Data Accounts Payable process.