This chapter contains the following topic:
Features for Accounts Receivable
The Passport Business Solutions Accounts Receivable module provides the following features:
| • | Open item customers, as well as balance forward customers. |
| • | Maintenance of the sales representatives, customers, tax codes, and other similar items. Lists of these items are also provided. |
| • | Miscellaneous charges entered, edited and posted using edit list and journal. |
| • | Recurring bills entered, edited and selected to later turn into invoices. |
| • | Invoices entered, edited and posted with edit list and journal. |
| • | Quick pasting of standard bills (lists of standard services and/or goods) into invoices. |
| • | Cash receipts entered, edited and posted with edit list and journal. |
| • | Payment terms based on days or day of the next month (proximo). |
| • | Account aging based on days or day of the next month (proximo). |
| • | Aging reports and collection reports printed in two different formats. |
| • | Cash projection reports. |
| • | On line customer account inquiry. |
| • | Fully paid item viewing and reporting. An optional Customer History enables viewing or reporting of items purged from Open Items. |
| • | Storage of reports on disk for printing later at your convenience. |
| • | Multiple printer selection. |
| • | Automatic calculation and posting of finance charges, with edit list and journal. |
| • | Unlimited number of A/R accounts and cash accounts. |
| • | Control of sales commissions due and commissions due report printing. |
| • | Commissions due calculation by either booked invoices or fully paid invoices. |
| • | Commission percentage based on either customer or sales data. |
| • | A/R distributions to the G/L printed reports. |
| • | Deposit preparation. |
| • | Deposit slips and deposit summary printing. |
| • | Cash history report printing |
| • | Optional interface to the Passport Business Solutions General Ledger (G/L), Job Cost (J/C), Order Entry (O/E), Inventory Control (I/C), Point of Sale (P/S), Customer Orders (C/O), Sales Analysis (S/A) and Time and Billing (T/B) systems. |
| • | Optional interface to the Passport Business Solutions Check Reconciliation (C/R), which reconciles the checkbook into customer payments deposit categories. |
| • | Password protection and data restore/export facilities. |
| • | A Miscellaneous Charges Edit List which helps in the editing process available upon request. |
| • | User designed invoice formats. Up to 99 formats may be used for different billing situations. |
| • | Displays up to 10 description lines per services line item, plus an unlimited notes display for invoices. |
| • | On demand invoice printing (in the point-of-sale mode). |
| • | Invoice history. |
| • | Cash receipts created simultaneously with invoices. |
| • | Customer credit checking on invoices. |
| • | Three optional user defined fields which also print on invoices. |
| • | Item drop shipping directly from supplier to customer. |
| • | User defined statement formats. Up to 99 statement formats may be created and stored. |
| • | Additional information maintained for each customer record including current balance, past due amount, first sale date, last invoice number, and last returned check amount and date. |
| • | Activity trend history for each customer for up to thirteen prior periods, including average days to pay, highest balance, total charges, total payments received. |
| • | Calculate sales taxes using the tax-on-tax method, including Canadian GST and PST. |
| • | Sales tax processing, up to five tax rates per jurisdiction. |
| • | Automatic check handling for checks returned for reasons such as non-sufficient funds (NSF). |
| • | Batch processing for cash receipts, finance charges, invoices, miscellaneous charges, recurring bills and returned checks. |
| • | An added on-credit-hold flag for individual customers with overdue accounts. |
| • | Added shipping zone, sales territory and Standard Industry Code (SIC) features which supports third party products, and freight calculations. |
| • | Enhanced Collections Report and View Customer Account which shows current and past due balance, first and last sale date, and last payment date and amount. |
| • | Three new users defined fields for each customer. These fields appear when entering an invoice or order. |
| • | Sales tax entry for individual line items. |
| • | Reprinting of invoices, which have already been printed and posted. |
| • | Invoice printed as a hard document, PDF file or both. PDF file may be emailed to customer. |
| • | Forward and backward scrolling when displaying reports. |
| • | Include an unlimited number of contacts for each customer. |
| • | From many graphical mode screen you may access and search through invoice history, O/E orders screens and much more. |
| • | From the character mode and graphical mode customer lookup, you may search through individual invoices in invoice history. |
Interfaces to other Passport Business Solutions Modules
You can interface Accounts Receivable (A/R) to other Passport Business Solutions modules, either at the time of installation or later. The list below summarizes the possible connections and the advantages of each. All of these interfaces are optional.
| • | Maintains stocking and pricing information on every item in your inventory. |
| • | Handles contract and sale prices. |
| • | Invoicing automatically updates inventory. |
| • | Sophisticated pricing mechanisms. |
| • | Supports alternate items and units. |
| • | Supports multiple warehouses. |
| • | Distributes costs to G/L. |
| • | Inventory control is only suitable for very light manufacturing. If you need to track manufacturing items and components, see the PBS Inventory Management module. |
| • | Handles back orders, quotations, and picking tickets. |
| • | Quotations can be converted to orders. |
| • | Orders can be converted to invoices. |
| • | RMAs can be converted to credit memos. |
| • | Handles the primary accounting functions of your business. |
| • | Sales and cash received automatically distributed to correct account. |
| • | Stores multiple years of financial data. |
| • | Data from A/R, I/C and other modules pulled into G/L for financial reporting. |
| • | Produces printed and exported financial reporting. |
| • | Maintain bank account information from several modules including A/R deposits |
| • | Reconciles the checkbook for deposit information. |
| • | Posting from A/R deposits may be immediate or done in batch with the C/R Transfer checks/deposits function. |
| • | Maintains records on work in process. |
| • | Assure that credit is recorded on jobs for billings. |
| • | Enter tickets and print receipts from registers with multiple payment types per transaction including credit card processing. |
| • | Handles order processing, including back orders, quotations, picking tickets and allows on account tracking with A/R open items. |
| • | Quotations can be converted to orders or invoices, customer number may be changed and may be retained for use as an order template. |
| • | Orders can be converted to invoices through a full order or line by line selection process. |
| • | Provides layaway processing including posting payments. |
| • | May apply a payment to an A/R open item or open. |
| • | Returns are validated against invoice history item quantities, prices and payment types. |
Sales Analysis
| • | Provides management reports showing sales performance in various categories. |
| • | Detect trends for goods and services by: |
Customer and customer type
Sales representative
Zip code
Sales volume
Item and item categories if I/C is also interfaced
| • | Sales order entry, including printing of customer order packing/picking lists for the orders you enter. The entry process includes automatic pricing and sales commission calculation, and customer credit checking. |
| • | Quotations entry and printing for standard products. Quotes may be subsequently converted to orders. |
| • | Order billing to include invoice printing and automatic posting of invoice data to Accounts Receivable, Inventory Management and Customer Order sales history. Optional printing of shipping labels and product certifications is also provided. |
| • | Detail backlog and customer order history reporting, to include a variety of inquiry display and printed report sequences. |
| • | Summary and detail sales analysis reports by customer, item, and sales rep. |
| • | Management summary reporting of current order backlog, new order bookings, shipment dollars, and on-time delivery performance. |
In addition to the above A/R also interfaces to Time and Billing.
A/R does not interface with the manufacturing module Inventory Management.
The above is not a complete list of the Passport Business Solutions products, only of those which may be linked to A/R.
You may also run several Passport Business Solutions modules without interfacing them to one another. For instance, some users use I/C primarily to control kit assembly, and A/R to handle their invoicing without linking them together. They forego the advantage of driving their inventory control from their invoices, but they also avoid the need to run O/E. However you can interface the I/C to the A/R invoicing as well.
This chapter provides the background to understanding this Passport Business Solutions module. Basic terms are defined, and the interface to other optional Passport Business Solutions modules are described.
Accounting is the methodical collection, systematic categorization, and organized presentation of financial records.
An inquiry function enables you to view all items for a selected customer.
Accounts Receivable (A/R) records customer sales and anticipated revenue. It tracks all customers, purchases, payments and outstanding balances.
Aging is the time elapsed after the billing date or due date. You may select to age either by Due date or by Invoice date.
Four aging periods are available in A/R, normally structured as:
Current
31-60 days
61-90 days
Over 90 days
You may use these aging periods, or define your own.
When aging is done by invoice date, a document becomes one day old on the first day after the invoice is posted. An invoice written and posted on January 1 would be 30 days old on January 31, regardless of the due date.
When aging is done by due date, a document becomes one day old on the first day after the due date. An invoice due for payment on January 1 would be 30 days old on January 31, regardless of the invoice date.
The Load open items function (selection) enables you to set up the A/R Open Items to match your records when you begin using this module.
The A/R Open Items is a permanent file/table into which transactions (sales and cash receipts) are posted. This data contains every sale, debit memo, credit memo, cash receipt, and finance charge that has not been purged. It holds the complete, itemized, current record for all customer accounts.
You can purge fully paid A/R open items and their matching payments from the file. This would typically be performed after statement printing.
Prior to purging, you may print the A/R Purge Report to show all items that will be purged.
Maintainable control file that allows you to define various parameters which control many of the characteristics of the Accounts Receivable module.
If you use sales representatives, a master table of all sales representatives can also be maintained. Maintainable data enable you to define the specific terms, taxes, shipping methods, cash accounts, A/R accounts, and valid G/L accounts.
This module contains functions which allow the entering, editing and posting of cash receipts. To help you apply payments to open items, you can print a Cash Application Worksheet. This lists all open items for specified customers, showing current balances due and the valid discount amounts.
You can automatically apply cash for an open item customer. This enables you to pay the oldest outstanding invoice first. You can also apply such payments to a specific invoice.
A Cash Receipts Edit List is available to help you in the editing procedure. On request, the module posts cash receipts to A/R Open Items.
You may also prepare deposits, print deposit slips, and deposit summaries.
The system tracks commissions due to sales representatives, and can print a Commissions Due Report on request. Commissions may be based on either booked invoices or fully paid invoices.
A cost center is a segment of a company (for instance, a department or a regional office) for which sales and/or expenses (and sometimes costs) can be calculated separately from the total sales and expenses of the entire company.
A typical use for tracking sales by cost center is for a company which has several sales offices. By making each sales office a cost center, you can separately track the sales performance of each office.
Refer to the Reformat Account Number chapter in the System Manager User documentation.
The open item and balance forward methods are two generally accepted methods of tracking customer accounts. Passport A/R enables you to use both of these methods:
The open item method enables you to apply each cash receipt (payment you receive) or credit memo to one or more specific sales (invoices), debit memos, or finance charges. You can partially pay or skip specific items, applying payments to later items.
With the open item method, every transaction made against a customer’s account is kept on disk until you decide to remove the matching debits and credits.
The total balance due is calculated for an open item customer. The ability to look at older, partially paid invoices from previous months can be helpful, especially for highly active customers who pay by specific invoice number.
Balance forward accounting provides for the summarizing of items into a single balance brought forward amount. When a payment is received from a balance forward customer, that payment is always applied to the oldest unpaid item(s).
This method is useful for customers who only buy occasionally and whose accounts usually contain only a few transactions.
A type of data format in which each piece of data is separated by a comma. This is a popular format for transferring data from one application to another because most database systems are able to import comma-delimited data. These files can also be opened by Excel and other spreadsheet type programs.
Data pulled from a database and represented in comma-delimited format looks something like the following:
Adams, Jane, 42, Chicago, Illinois
Doe, James, 32, San Francisco, California
Jones, Samuel, 18, Dallas, Texas
Smith, Marlene, 64, Trenton, New Jersey
In the example above the columns are Last name, First name, Age, City and State. Each column value is separated by a comma from the next column’s value and each row starts a new line.
Fields may or may not be enclosed with double quotes depending on whether the field itself contains special characters (including spaces and commas).
When data is represented in comma-delimited format it is also referred to as comma-separated values, abbreviated CSV.
See Comma-delimited
Text file
A file that holds text. The term text file is often used as a synonym for ASCII file, a file in which characters are represented by their ASCII codes.
The Passport Business Solutions Accounts Receivable contains options for interactive maintenance of Customers, including entering, changing, and deleting. In addition to the name and address, the Customers menu selection contains information on a customer’s last payment, account balance and sales volume. Several codes are provided which enable you to tailor the handling of customers individually.
Customers can be set up as a miscellaneous type so that you can enter sales or cash receipts for one time customers without first having to put the customer’s full name and address on file.
Customer lists and labels can be printed either numerically or alphabetically.
You can view or print a report showing fully paid A/R open items and their matching payments, after they have been purged from A/R Open Items.
Most of the information you enter into your computer is stored on disk. In order for computer programs to locate specific pieces of data (within large masses of data), data must be organized in some predictable way. The Passport Business Solutions accounting software organizes your data for you automatically as it stores it on your disk.
The following are terms that are associated with the structure of data:
A character is any letter, number or other symbol you can type on your keyboard.
A data file is a group of one or more related records. A data file is often referred to simply as a file. A data file is refered to as a table in SQL.
The Customer file in Accounts Receivable is an example of a data file. Such a file is made up of several records, each of which contains the name, address, etc. for each customer.
Each file is kept separate from other files on the disk.
There are other types of files in addition to data files. Programs are stored on the disk as program files. However, references to files in this user documentation mean data files unless specifically stated otherwise.
Table
It is the equivalent to a data file when using SQL. See Data File
A record in a data file is often referred to as an entry.
A field is a group of one or more contiguous characters representing a single piece of data. For example, a name, a date and a dollar amount are all fields.
Alphanumeric fields may contain any characters: letters of the alphabet, numerals (numbers), special symbols (*, &, $, etc.), or any combination of all three.
Numeric fields may contain only the digits from 0 through 9 and, in some cases, the minus sign and the decimal.
Date fields contain calendar dates, entered as MMDDYY (or MDDYY for the first nine months of the year). Dates may also be entered with the date lookup. See Date Lookup
A Drop-down list is a user interface control graphical mode element, similar to a list box, which allows the user to choose one value from a list.
Radio button or option button is a type of graphical user interface element that allows the user to choose only one of a predefined set of options.
When you print invoice or statement data you have the option of merging this data with a graphical image file. This file must be designed to match the specifications and the data that prints. The file must be placed in the top-level PBS directory called "images". This feature is only available if you are using Windows or Thin-client. See the General Appearance section of the Invoice Formats chapter and General Appearance selection of the Statement Formats chapter for more information.
A record is a group of one or more related fields. For example, the fields representing a customer’s name, address and account balance might be grouped together into a record called the customer record.
The terms debit and credit refer to the types of transactions which must be recorded in G/L accounts to accurately reflect the activity occurring in all accounting areas. Refer to the Glossary in the System User documentation for definitions of debit and credit.
In A/R, a debit memo issued by you to a customer increases what that customer owes you, and a credit memo decreases what is owed. Debit does not always mean an increase in an account and credit does not always mean a decrease in an account. In some accounting areas, a debit increases a G/L account and a credit decreases a G/L account. In other areas, a debit decreases, and a credit increases, a G/L account.
The system will automatically calculate finance charges based on parameters which you define in A/R Control information. You can then edit and post them as you wish. A Finance Charges Edit List assists in this process. You can also manually enter finance charges through the Miscellaneous charges function.
Control information parameters include the following:
| • | Two different percentages and associated dollar amount levels |
| • | Invoice aging method (by invoice date or due date) |
| • | Number of days an invoice must be past due before finance charges apply |
| • | Minimum finance charge amount |
| • | Whether finance charges are calculated on previous finance charges. |
A Finance Charges Journal is automatically printed when finance charges are posted.
When a company makes sales and receives payments, this activity affects not only Accounts Receivable (A/R), but also the area of accounting called General Ledger (G/L).
General ledger is the area of accounting where all accounting records are brought together to be classified and summarized. Financial statements are printed based on this data. Also see General Ledger
A General Ledger (G/L) account is a specific category under which all financial activity of a certain kind is classified. For example, you might have a General Ledger account called telephone expenses, under which you categorized your telephone bills.
Typically, an independent business has a hundred or more G/L accounts. In the Passport Business Solutions accounting system, each time any financial activity occurs in any area, the dollar amount is recorded under the appropriate G/L account.
Refer to the Reformat Account Number chapter in the PBS Administration documentation for complete information on General Ledger Account Numbers.
Help refers to descriptions of functions which appear on the screen by pressing a designated key.The Help text gives you a quick reference to the highlights of functions while you are running the application. In Graphical mode the help is accessed using <Ctrl+F1> and in character mode using <F8>.
Look-ups refer to a list of available entries for a particular field. There are two kinds of lookups: Data Lookup and Date Lookup.
Data Lookup
Many fields allow you to press a designated key <F8> to show all available data on file. For instance, when entering an invoice you may press this key at the Account number field to bring up a list of all G/L accounts on file. Selecting an entry from this list is often easier and faster than remembering the account number or stepping through all possible entries until the right one is reached.
The date lookup provides a point and click window for finding and entering date fields.
In Graphical mode the date lookup is available via the <F4> key or by clicking on the calendar button. In Character mode (Windows only) you may access the date lookup via the <F7> key.
|
Note |
In Character Mode, depending on where you press <F8>, this function will return a Look-up window or context sensitive Help. If a Look-up window is returned, pressing <F8> a second time will display Help for the field if available. |
Miscellaneous charges is a selection that enables you to interactively enter, edit, and post miscellaneous charges (sales, finance charges, credit/debit memos). When you enter miscellaneous charges, you may distribute miscellaneous charges and freight charges to various G/L accounts.
Multi-company refers to the capability to do accounting functions for multiple companies with the same set of software.
Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) provides a standard software method for using database management systems. It is independent of programming languages, database systems, and operating systems.
XDBC will access PBS data files via the ODBC standard so that users can generate their own reports and spreadsheets. Contact your PBS provider for instructions on obtaining XDBC.
In Accounts Receivable, this term is used in two senses:
| • | An open item is any invoice, finance charge, or debit memo which has not been fully paid; or any cash receipt (payment) or credit memo which has not been fully applied to pay invoices, finance charges, or debit memos. |
| • | An open item customer is a customer whose payments apply to particular invoices, finance charges, or debit memos. Statements for open item customers may show all open invoices, finance charges, and debit memos, regardless of the accounting period in which they originated. |
Passwords are required to access PBS. A password is a unique code you assign to each individual using your Passport Business Solutions software. In order to use a protected function, the menu that controls the function must be turned on per your login.
Short for Portable Document Format, a file format developed by Adobe Systems. PDF captures formatting information from a variety of desktop publishing applications, making it possible to send formatted documents and have them appear on the recipient's monitor or printer as they were intended. To view a file in PDF format, you need Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat.
Accounts Receivable reports, invoices and statements may be written to the PDF file format.
Printer Command Language, more commonly referred to as PCL. It was developed by Hewlett-Packard Company as a printer protocol and has become a de facto industry standard. Originally developed for early inkjet printers in 1984, PCL has been released in varying levels for thermal, matrix printer, and page printers. The most recent version is PCL 6 which was introduced in 1995.
To post is to take transactions from a temporary file and move them to a permanent file (where other transactions probably already exist). For example, in A/R, invoices are initially entered into a temporary transaction file. After they have been entered and edited, they are posted to the more permanent A/R Open Item file.
Purging files removes unnecessary items. The A/R Open Item file is occasionally purged of paid transactions. Fully paid sales (or debit memos) and their matching cash receipts (and credit memos) are deleted from the file.
Any unpaid sales, debit memos, and finance charges, and any unallocated cash receipts and credit memos, are kept in the A/R Open Item file, even if the file is purged.
The purged items are transferred to the Customer History file if used. When the information on these items is no longer required, you may then purge them from the Customer History file.
Recurring bills are sales that recur at a regular time interval. Examples are rent collected from tenants, loan repayment amounts, and regular monthly service charges.
These sales need to be entered as sales only once. They can then be selected periodically to be turned into invoices.
A sale or sales transaction is a computer record of an invoice, finance charge, debit memo, or credit memo. Refer to the Data Organization section in this chapter for the definition of record.
This Accounts Receivable module generates sales history information which may be used by the Passport Sales Analysis module. Some of the reports available from the S/A module are:
Sales Analyses by:
| • | Customer |
| • | Customer comparatives |
| • | Zip Code |
| • | Customer Type |
| • | Customer Sales Volume |
| • | Responsible Sales rep |
| • | Other reports which use Inventory Control and A/R and POS Invoice history files. |
| • | Item comparatives |
| • | Actual Salesman |
| • | State |
SPOOL
SPOOL is an acronym meaning send printer output off-line. Spooling is a process that generates a report to be printed at a later time. Instead of reports going directly to a printer, they are saved as a file. Systems line up print jobs in a queue (first come, first serve). When directed, saved reports can be printed in one long run (for example, overnight).
You assign a statement cycle to each customer in the customer record. Statement cycles are used in one of the following ways:
| • | To designate the statement frequency, such as weekly, semi-monthly, monthly, quarterly, etc. |
| • | To designate the statement processing batch, such as the 10th, 20th, or 30th of the month. |
You can print statements for designated cycles on request.
As used in accounting, a transaction is a business occurrence involving money and goods or services. For example, a transaction occurs each time you gas up your car. You pay money in exchange for goods (gasoline).
In the Passport Business Solutions software, transaction is the record of a completed business occurrence involving money and goods or services.
The records of sales made and payments received are examples of transactions from the area of accounting called Accounts Receivable. The records of purchases and the payments you make for such purchases are transactions from the accounting area called Accounts Payable. The records of quantities of goods received or sold are transactions from the area of accounting called Inventory Control.
XDBC
See ODBC
We have included the necessary functions and instructions to enable you to upgrade from an earlier version of this same Classic RealWorld, RW32 or PBS module. Please refer to the PBS Vision Installation, SQL Installation and EZ Convert documentation for more information.
You may upgrade to the SQL version of PBS. See your PBS provider for instructions.