Parent Company payment processing is used to handle situations where you invoice a company and receive payment for the invoice from another company which is related to the invoice company. Parent Company payment processing is ideal for handling situations where you invoice branch or store locations, but receive the payment for the invoices from a headquarters company.
Parent Company processing should only be used when there is a defined legal relationship between the company being invoiced and the company making the payment for the invoice.
Parent Company payment processing is handled by pointing the child companies (stores, branches) to the appropriate Parent Company using the Parent field in the Customer file. The Parent field allows you to define one parent company for each child company in the system.. Both the parent and the child company must already exist in the Customer file.
Once each child company is assigned to the correct parent company, the system will allow you to apply a check from the parent company to any of the invoices for any of the child companies.
As each check or other payment is processed in the Cash Application program, the system checks the invoices that the check is being applied against. If the company name on the check being applied is different from the company whose invoice is being loaded into the payment program, the system checks to see if the company specified in the check or other payment being processed is assigned as the parent company of the invoice being processed. If so, the system allows you to apply the check to the invoice. If the check company is not equal to or a Parent of the invoice or child company, the system will display an error message and it will not allow you to select the invoice for payment.
As each check or payment is applied to open invoices, the system creates a check record that stores the company that the payment was actually received from. An Inquiry program also allows you to locate a specific check record and to list the invoices that the payment was applied to. This option allows you to view the invoice detail paid with each check regardless of whom the check was received from.