ACCOUNTS PAYABLE PROCEDURE NOTES

The following is a list of step-by-step procedures for processing your accounts payable – from posting invoices to paying them.

•Run an adding machine tape on the invoices you are posting. Make sure this total agrees with the invoices you have posted. If there is a discrepancy, scroll back through your posted invoices until you find the error. Click on the erroneous invoice, then click EDIT and make your changes. If you’re changing the invoice amount, remember to change your distribution information as well to keep things in balance.

•Click on the AP Pay button on the Main Screen. Click on the LOAD button to load in your unpaid invoices. Select the method by which you want to load the invoices (usually "Net Date"). Enter the proposed Check Date and the proposed Starting Check Number and click OK.

•After the load process, select the invoices you want to pay. If you want to pay all unpaid invoices, click the blue down-arrow button.

•To remove an invoice from "Invoices to Pay" window, either highlight it and click the red up-arrow button or locate the invoice using the scroll bar and double-click the line item.

•After selecting which invoices to pay, if you have invoices you want to short pay, find the invoice by scrolling up and down in the "Invoices to Pay" window and highlight or click on that invoice. At the bottom of the screen, double-click in the "Amount to Pay" field and enter the partial amount you want to pay on the invoice.

•If you want to modify a discount on an invoice, find the invoice by scrolling up and down in the "Invoices to Pay" window and highlight or click on that invoice. At the bottom of the screen, double-click in the "Discount to Take" field and enter the amount of the discount you want to take.

•After you have modified the invoices to your satisfaction, click the PREPAY button and enter a name for the prepayment file you’re going to create (see NOTE below). We suggest you use "BOARD: xx/xx/xx" where the "xx/xx/xx" is equal to the date of the board meeting at which the proposed payment list will be submitted for approval.

•You may use an existing PREPAY name if one exists. If you Select to do this, you will receive a warning message stating the file already exists and be asked if you want to overwrite the existing file. Click the YES button to accept the overwrite suggestion. If you want to name the file something different, click the NO button and enter a different name for the PREPAY file.

•After the PREPAY file has been successfully created, you’ll see another box pop up on your screen. This box contains the Prepay Name, the Prepay Invoice Total, the Prepay Discount Total, the Prepay Check Date and the Prepay Starting Check Number.

•The above procedure will automatically save your selected invoices to the invoices to pay file (PREPAY FILE) and unload the unpaid invoices file. Click the DONE button.

•Back on the Main Screen, click the REPORTS menu bar. You are going to print a Proposed Payment report. Click the "+" next to Accounts Payable and double-click the AP Prepay Report (or AP Prepay with Acct Distributions) and the report will be displayed on your screen. Click the printer icon to print the report.

•After printing the Prepay report, if you need to modify any of the listed invoices or the beginning check number or check date, run AP PAY again. Your PREPAY file will automatically be selected when you click LOAD. If you need to modify the check date or beginning check number, you may do so on the Load Unpaid Invoices screen. Click OK, and modify the invoices as necessary, click PREPAY, save the changed PREPAY file and reprint your proposed payment list as instructed in the previous step.

•After board approval, click the AP Pay button on the Main Screen, load in your final PREPAY file, and click the PAY button. Enter the date you want the payment transactions to be posted under. This creates the PAY file. After the PAY file has been successfully created, you’ll see another box pop up on your screen. This box contains the Pay Invoice Total, the Pay Discount Total, the Pay Check Date, and the Pay Starting Check Number. It also shows the AP Payment Journal number. Write this number down on your Prepay report! Click OK, then exit the program.

•On the Main Screen, click the REPORTS menu bar. Locate and double-click the AP check program you wish to use. You will be asked to enter the Check Date and, if you’re paying invoices for a specific fund, the Fund Number. (If you’re paying checks for all funds, you do not need to enter anything for the fund number parameter field.) Click RUN when you’re ready to print the checks.

•The checks will be displayed on your screen. It’s a good habit to print the checks on blank paper first to make a copy for your files and to insure the checks look right. If anything looks wrong (wrong vendor, wrong amounts, etc.), you’ll need to delete your AP Payment Journal, modify the invoice(s) in error and rerun AP Pay (see Correcting Errors). Insert your checks into the printer. When you’re ready to print the checks, click the printer icon to enter the print setup screen. If you want to print checks for all the invoices listed on the proposed payment report, simply click OK.

•If you want to print selected checks, scroll through the pages displayed on your screen until you find one of the selected checks you want to print. Make note of their page numbers (NOT their check numbers!). When you have located all the individual checks you want to print and have written down their page numbers, click the printer icon. In the "Pages: From...To" boxes, enter the page number of the check you want to print. If you’re printing sequential individual checks, you can enter the beginning page number for the first individual check and the last page number for the last individual check. If the checks you want to print are not sequential, you’ll need to print each check’s page number separately.

Printing Check Registers

•After the checks have printed, click the "X" in the upper right-hand corner of the Crystal Reports screen to close the checks, then select either AP Check Register (summarized report), AP Check Register with Invoice Line Items (detail report), or AP Check Register with Account Distributions (general ledger account numbers report) from the report list. Remember to unload your check stock before printing this report!

•If you want to print a check register for an entire month, enter a low date equal to the beginning of the month and a high date equal to the end of the month. For a check register covering just this check run, enter the date on your checks in both the low and high effective date boxes. Finally, click OK to process the report.

•When the report has been processed and is displayed on your screen, click the printer icon to print the check register.

This ends the cycle of entering, examining, and paying accounts payable invoices.