Managing receivables includes checking whether amounts due are paid on time. If customers have overdue payments, you can begin by sending the Customer Statement report as a reminder. Alternatively, you can issue reminders.
You can use reminders to remind customers about overdue amounts. You can also use reminders to calculate finance charges, such as interest or fees and include them on the reminder. Use finance charge memos if you want to debit customers for interest or fees without reminding them of overdue amounts.
From the customer card, you can create a statement with that customer's transactions with you. Then, you send the customer the generated PDF file. Alternatively, use the Customer Statement report to send your customers an overview of their business with you. The customer statement can be sent to Excel for further processing.
Note
If you are using multiple currencies, the Customer Statement report is always printed in the customer's currency. The last date in a statement period is also used as the statement date and the aging date, if aging is included.
You can use reminders to remind customers about overdue amounts. You can also use reminders to calculate finance charges such as interest or fees and include them on the reminder.
Before you can create reminders, you must set up reminder terms and assign them to your customers. For more information, see Set Up Reminder Terms and Levels. You can set up an unlimited number of reminder terms. Each set of terms is identified by a code. Each reminder term has predefined reminder levels. Each reminder level includes rules about when the reminder will be issued, for example, how many days after the invoice due date or the date of the previous reminder. The contents of the Finance Charge Terms page determines whether interest is calculated on the reminder.
You can periodically run the Create Reminders batch job to create reminders for all customers with overdue balances, or you can manually create a reminder for a specific customer and have the lines calculated and filled in automatically.
After you create the reminders, you can modify them. The text that appears at the beginning and end of a reminder is determined by the reminder level terms, and can be seen in the Description column. If a calculated amount has been inserted automatically in the beginning or ending text, the text will not be adjusted if you delete lines. Then you must use the Update Reminder Text function.
A customer ledger entry with the On Hold field filled in will not prompt the creation of a reminder. However, if a reminder is created on the basis of another entry, an overdue entry marked on hold will also be included on the reminder. Interest is not calculated on lines with these entries.
After you have created reminders and made any needed modifications, you can either print test reports or issue the reminders, typically as email.
A reminder is similar to an invoice. When you create a reminder, a reminder header as well as one or more reminder lines must be filled in. You can use a function to create reminders for all customers automatically.
On the Reminder page, you can fill in the General FastTab manually and then have the lines filled in automatically.
Choose the icon, enter Reminders, and then choose the related link.
Choose the New action.
On the General FastTab, fill in the fields as necessary.
Choose the Suggest Reminder Lines action.
In the Suggest Reminder Lines batch job, fill in the fields to define how and to whom the reminders are created.
Select the Include Entries On Hold check box if you want the reminders to contain overdue open entries that are on hold.
Select the Only Entries with Overdue Amounts check box if you want the reminders to contain only overdue open entries. Only invoices and payments will be shown as these are the entries for which your customers' payments may be overdue.
Important
Open entries that are on hold will be inserted, irrespective of the setting in the Only Entries with Overdue Amounts check box.
Choose the OK button.
There are several ways you can determine the text that appears on the printed reminder. In some cases, you may want to replace the beginning and ending texts that have been defined for the current level with those from a different level.
After you have created reminders and made any needed modifications, you can either print test reports or issue the reminders.
When you issue a reminder, the data is transferred to a separate page for issued reminders. At the same time, reminder entries are posted. If interest or an additional fee has been calculated, entries are posted to the customer ledger and the general ledger.
When a reminder is issued, the entries are posted according to your specifications on the Reminder Terms page. This specification determines whether interest and/or additional fees are posted to the customer's account and the general ledger. Setup on the Customer Posting Groups page determines which accounts are posted to.
For each customer ledger entry on the finance charge memo, an entry is created on the Reminder/Fin. Charge Entries page.
If the Post Interest or the Post Additional Fee check boxes are selected on the Reminder Terms page, then the following entries are also created:
In addition, issuing the reminder may result in VAT entries.
The reminder is either printed for sent to an specified email as a PDF attachment.
If reminders were issued in error, you can cancel them before they are sent out. You can do this either one by one or as a batch.
When a customer does not pay by the due date, you can have finance charges calculated automatically and add them to the overdue amounts on the customer's account. You can inform customers of the added charges by sending finance charge memos.
Note
You use finance charge memos to calculate interest and finance charges and to inform your customers about interest and finance charges without reminding them of overdue payments. Alternatively, you can calculate interest on overdue payments when you create reminders.
Before you can create finance charge memos, you must set up terms. For more information, see Set Up Finance Charge Terms.
You can manually create a finance charge memo for an individual customer, and fill in the lines automatically. Alternatively, you can use the Create Finance Charge Memos function job to create finance charge memos for all or selected customers with overdue balances.
After you create the finance charge memos, you can modify them. The text that appears at the beginning and end of the finance charge memo is determined by the finance charge terms, and can be seen in the Description column on the lines. If a calculated amount has been inserted automatically in the beginning or ending text, the text will not be adjusted if you delete lines. Then you must use the Update Finance Charge Text function.
After you have created finance charge memos and made any needed modifications, you can either print test reports or issue the finance charge memos, typically as email.
A finance charge memo is similar to an invoice. You can fill in a header manually and have the lines filled in for you, or you can create finance charge memos for all customers automatically.
Choose the icon, enter Finance Charge Memos, and then choose the related link.
Choose the New action, and then fill in the fields as necessary.
Choose Suggest Fin. Charge Memo Lines action.
On the Suggest Finance Charge Memo Lines page, set a filter on the Cust. Ledger Entry FastTab if you want to create finance charge memos only for specific entries.
Note
Although they are listed, selecting Payment and Credit Memo as Document Type filters will not have any effect because the Suggest Finance Charge Memo Lines function only handles positive amounts.
Choose the OK button to start the batch job.
In some cases, you may want to modify the beginning and ending text that you have set up for the finance charge terms. If you do this at a time when you have created, but not yet issued, finance charge memos, you can update the memos with the modified text.
After you have created finance charge memos and made any needed modifications, you can either print test reports or issue the finance charge memos.
When a reminder is issued, the entries are posted according to your specifications on the Finance Charge Terms page. This specification determines whether interest and/or additional fees are posted to the customer's account and the general ledger. Setup on the Customer Posting Groups page determines which accounts are posted to.
For each customer ledger entry on the finance charge memo, an entry is created on the Reminder/Fin. Charge Entries page.
If the Post Interest or the Post Additional Fee check boxes are selected on the Finance Charge Terms page, then the following entries are also created:
In addition, issuing the finance charge memo may result in VAT entries.
The finance charge memo is either printed for sent to an specified email as a PDF attachment.
If finance charge memos were issued in error, you can cancel them before they are sent out. You can do this either one by one or as a batch.
When you issue a reminder, a reminder entry is created on the Reminder/Fin. Charge Entries page for each reminder line that contains a customer ledger entry. You can then get an overview of the created reminder entries for a specific customer.
For each finance charge term code, you can specify multiple interest rates so that you can calculate finance charges with multiple interest rates for a specific period. This is helpful if you charge different interest on payments that are late. The interest calculation is the same for each financial charge, with variation only in the rate of interest for a specific period. If multiple interest rates are not set up, then the interest rate and period that is defined in the Finance Charge Terms and Reminder Terms pages for the whole period of calculation will be used. For more information, see Set Up Multiple Interest Rates.
Set Up Reminder Terms and Levels
Set Up Finance Charge Terms
Managing Receivables
Sales