This article covers the process for making creditor payments, reporting options, sending of Remittance Advice and uploading data via the EFT Manager, canceling payments, part payment of invoices, and other useful tips.
The processing of payments can be completed for a single building, multiple buildings or all buildings (globally) for one or more creditors. StrataMax can also differentiate between Cheques, EFTs and BPay payments without the need to do a separate process for each. Remittance Advices for EFT and BPay payments can be emailed directly to the creditor when uploading the payment file.
BPay payments utilise the StrataPay Payables service that have associated fees and charges, including a 0.55 cent transaction fee unless otherwise agreed. Please see the StrataPay Payables article for more info.
1. Add Invoice to DocMax Work Queues
It is while adding the invoice to DocMax that most of the invoice details would be entered. After which, the invoice will then be present in Creditor Invoices where it is saved.
The method of adding the invoice to DocMax will vary; drag-and-drop, Outlook add-in, Drop Box - it all depends on your own preferences and DocMax setup (see the DocMax Add Documents article for more info). More often than not though, a Profile for invoices would already be created and used (see DocMax Profiles for more info) to populate at least the Status and Category.
When adding an invoice in DocMax, the basic required and recommended fields and details are:
- Document Profile: Click this drop-down to select the Profile that has been associated with invoices.
- Status: Usually determined by the Profile and will most likely change to "Received" once the Profile has been selected.
- Property Document: Needs to selected - either manually, or if the "Auto prefill building" box has been ticked in the DocMax settings, it will be selected automatically.
- Building: Can either be selected manually, or if the "Auto prefill building" box has been ticked in the DocMax settings, it will be selected automatically.
- Category: Generally this would be something named like "Invoices" or "Invoices Received" and is usually determined by the Profile used when the invoice was added.
- Title: This is automatically populated with the file's name when the invoice is added.
- Include Inactive Creditors: Click this to also include inactive creditors when selecting the creditor for the invoice in the field below (see Inactive Creditors).
- Creditor: The creditor must be selected manually.
- Invoice Date: The date on the invoice (entered manually).
- Invoice Number: The number on the invoice (entered manually).
- Invoice Items: Expense Account, Details, and Amount, DR/CR, No GST (entered manually).
The work flow of invoices and how they are processed in DocMax will depend on a how many Work Queues have been set up to accommodate your office's requirements around invoice approvals. See Work Queues for Invoices for more info.
If your office does not use DocMax or its Work Queues, you can still proceed with entering the invoice details and saving it in Creditor Invoices. However, the invoice won't be attached to the transaction in the general ledger, which can be viewed in Interactive Reports, for example. Nor will you be able to upload the invoice to the Invoice Hub for approval.
2. Save Creditor Invoices
After the invoice has been added to the DocMax Work Queue, you can open Creditor Invoices to check over the invoice details and save it. The steps for this part of the payment process has been detailed in Processing Invoices from DocMax Work Queues.
3. Search Creditor Invoice Items
Between payment runs, Search Creditor Invoice Items menu can be used to mark invoices as on hold or to produce reports. This is an optional step as the Payments menu allows invoices to be marked as on hold, be excluded or setup for part payment.
4. Processing Payments
The Payments menu provides a detailed overview of unpaid invoices and the tools to manage the payment of invoices, part payments, on or off hold from one screen. Please refer to Payments for the steps to review and create payments in Payments. If there are any Cheque payments included in the payment batch the Cheques can be printed from the Cheques Printing icon.
5. Payments Management Review
After the payments have been created during the Payments stage, each payment can be reviewed with a copy of the creditor invoice displayed on the right in Payments Management. There is the option to report on each property and for a certain date range to allow a check of all payments against the invoices prior to uploading the ABA file in the EFT Manager stage.
6. EFT Manager
Once the Payments process has completed, the ABA file needs to be created and uploaded to the bank's website for authorisation, which is the final step in StrataMax before proceeding to send the Remittance Advice emails. Please follow the steps in EFT Manager | Preparing Payments article. Ensuring to click the button to Send Remittance Advice Emails.
7. StrataCash Authorisation
Please refer to Authorise StrataCash Payments for steps to authorise (or reject) payments on the StrataCash website.
