Manual Cash Disbursements

The Manual Payment Option is used to record handwritten or manual checks that are issued against accounts payable invoices.  When a manual payment is processed, the operator specifies or tags the specific invoices and amounts paid with the check.  The Pay Date field in the invoices is not used during processing.     A manual payment can be used to record either a partial or a complete payment against an invoice. 

If the amount of the payment applied to the invoice completely closes the invoice, then the check number and check date will be recorded in the accounts payable invoice record.  If the manual payment is a partial payment and the invoice is not completely paid with the check, then the invoice open balance will be updated based on the payment amount, but the check date and check number will not be recorded in the accounts payable invoice record (the partial payment against the invoice including the check information will still be available on-line, the check information is just not written to the invoice record itself until the invoice is completely paid off).  The following steps should be followed when processing a manual payment(s).

1.  Determine the AP invoices and amounts that were paid with the handwritten check.  Make sure that all of the invoices paid with the check have been entered into the system.  (If any of the invoices have not already been entered into the system, the invoice and payment information can be entered using the prepaid invoice procedure described in the last section or they may be processed using the invoice entry procedure and then paid using the procedure described here.

2.  Verify all accounts payable invoices paid with the handwritten check have been processed and that they are open and not on hold.  You can do this using the AP Invoice Lookup, the Vendor Invoice Lookup or other programs such as the Paydate Management program.

3.  Select the Vendor Manager program from the menu and load the vendor that the handwritten check was issued to into the program.

4.  Select the Invoices Button.  This will cause the system to activate the Vendor Invoice Lookup program.  The Vendor Invoice Lookup program displays all invoices for the selected vendor (open or closed).  The Vendor Invoice Lookup program also allows you to specify the amount of the next payment and discount for each open invoice displayed in the program and to select the invoices to be manually paid.

5.  Select or tag the invoices that were paid with the check.  If the check amount differs from the amount of tagged invoices, you should verify or change the next payment (amt to be paid with the check), next discount (amt of discount to be taken on the next payment), and the discount date fields (date on which invoice must be paid in order to qualify for the discount) as required.  Please note that the total of the next payment and next discount fields for each invoice may not exceed the open invoice amount.

6.  Select the Pay Invoice(s) Option in the Vendor Invoice Lookup program.  When you press the Pay Invoice(s) button, the system activates the Payment Panel and it loads the panel with the default cash account, post date and check date to be used for the payment.  The total amount of the check and any discounts being taken is also displayed in the panel.  If these amounts are not correct, you should escape from the panel and correct the invoice detail (next payment, next discount fields) as required until the correct amounts are shown in the panel.

7.  Once you have changed or confirmed the cash account, the check and the post date to be used for the check, and have verified that the correct check amount and discount are displayed in the panel, you may enter an optional batch number into the program.  At this point, you must also specify the check number for the transaction, and this check number must be unique for the bank account being used (only one instance of each check number can exist in the same bank account).  This rule also means that each manual payment must be entered as a complete transaction (all invoices paid with the check must be in the system and the payment must be processed against all invoices included in the check). 

8.  Save the transaction.  As the manual payment is saved, the system

•      Creates a Bank record for the handwritten check (no documents are printed since the check was already issued by hand).  The Manual check record is given a source of MD in the bank file and it is saved with the printed flag set to Y (due to the check being handwritten).  If necessary, you can print a manual check by setting the print flag to N.  This will allow you to select and output the check using the Accounts Payable Check printing program.

•      Updates the accounts payable invoices.  If the check completely pays off the invoice, the check number and check date in the invoice record are updated.

•      Posts the transaction to the general ledger.

9.  Once you have posted the check to all of the invoices paid with it, you may use the AP check register report to ensure that the check amount in the system agrees with the physical check itself.  Once you confirm that the check amounts agree, you should attach the check copy to the invoice or invoice(s) it paid and temporarily file the invoices and check copies until the daily balancing procedures have been completed.

10. Once all manual payments have been processed, print an Accounts Payable Check register for the entire date and or number range which was processed.  Compare the total to the total of the physical checks.  The amounts should agree.  If they do not, the discrepancy should be researched and corrected.

More:

Void or Remove an AP Check