I am wondering the best way to book electronic payments as more and more companies are starting to lean towards not wanting physical checks. We still have over 500 paper checks to work through and we have been able to put off most by stating we want to be good stewards of the products we have on hand first.
Should I set them up in AP as a repeating item that is a manual check. Then release them when paid and add a reference of EFT plus a number in the check field to keep items in order. I have used this in Fund Accounting and change my reference number based on the month. So an example of a number in December would be 120015 and that would be the 15 transaction of the month. A January number would be 010015 for the 15 transaction of the month.
Trying to keep up with the ever changing times Thanks for your knowledge!
I am wondering the best way to book electronic payments as more and more companies are starting to lean towards not wanting physical checks. We still have over 500 paper checks to work through and we have been able to put off most by stating we want to be good stewards of the products we have on hand first.
Should I set them up in AP as a repeating item that is a manual check. Then release them when paid and add a reference of EFT plus a number in the check field to keep items in order. I have used this in Fund Accounting and change my reference number based on the month. So an example of a number in December would be 120015 and that would be the 15 transaction of the month. A January number would be 010015 for the 15 transaction of the month.
Trying to keep up with the ever changing times Thanks for your knowledge!
Christy
If these are recurring payments this is the way to do them. EFT payments are always going to be a 'manual check', however I would not use a number alone. In my opinion, these numbers can cause issues as the number you're using could be duplicated in the next year. I suggest using characters and then a consecutive number scheme ... starting out with EFT00001, then increasing the number from there.
Frankly, I advise people to do everything you can in AP, and only create transactions in Funds Accounting if necessary for transferring funds between accounts, and stuff like that.
EDIT .. I just reread the last line, and needed to change it .
Thank you for your response back and I am sorry I never said that sooner. Year end, Christmas, first time being sick with covid and the new year payroll changes got the best of me.
Do you set up your regular EFT payments as "Repeating Items" to speed up the manual check process with all of the line descriptions, etc.? I'm thinking of things like monthly contributions for 403b and monthly invoices with multiple transactions and expense accounts. The previous bookkeeper taught me to use Fund Accounting but I really want to update that for the new year and utilize Accounts Payable for manual checks/EFT transactions. The dates change though so what do you put as a pattern for releasing? No pattern and then just release whichever item you need?
Thank you for your response back and I am sorry I never said that sooner. Year end, Christmas, first time being sick with covid and the new year payroll changes got the best of me.
Do you set up your regular EFT payments as "Repeating Items" to speed up the manual check process with all of the line descriptions, etc.? I'm thinking of things like monthly contributions for 403b and monthly invoices with multiple transactions and expense accounts. The previous bookkeeper taught me to use Fund Accounting but I really want to update that for the new year and utilize Accounts Payable for manual checks/EFT transactions. The dates change though so what do you put as a pattern for releasing? No pattern and then just release whichever item you need?
Thanks again!
Yes ... I setup repeating payments, so the transactions would be ready to go. Say all the EFT transactions to pay taxes, all ready to go on the 2nd day of the month. I just update the amounts. As far as pattern, it depends on the number of these you use. I had less than 10 to start, and I just checked the ones I wanted to release, the rest remained waiting.
Thanks for your knowledge!