Accounts Payable

Financial business partner groups

Financial business partner groups are used to establish the link between the accounts payable and accounts receivable. These groups are also used to establish a link to the General Ledger. For each business partner group, you must define a set of ledger accounts and dimensions to which transactions are posted.

Control accounts

Business practices in Japan, Spain, Italy, and other countries require that different types of receivables and payables are posted to different control accounts. You can use multiple control accounts for financial business partner groups to post real trade transactions and other purchase or sales-related transactions to different control accounts.

Receipts against shipments

You can use the receipts against shipments functionality to generate or enter payment transactions and receipt transactions in Cash Management based on shipment or order information and to maintain the balances by shipment or order.

Trade notes

Trade notes are legally accepted forms of payment such as bank drafts, checks, promissory notes, and bills of exchange. Trade notes can be used instead of cash payments. As trade notes are negotiable they can also be used as a credit instrument, for example, for discounting and endorsing. Trade notes can exist on paper and on magnetic supports, according to local business practices and banking standards.

Factoring

LN supports factoring of your outstanding receivables and payment of purchase invoices to factors used by your suppliers.

Purchase invoice matching

Automatic matching functionality allows users to match purchase invoices to purchase orders or freight orders. Additionally, users can manually match to purchase order, receipt, landed costs, freight orders, or consumption. Multicompany invoice matching is also possible, whereby one company processes purchase invoices for the group company.

Self billing

For each purchase order header, you can define whether to use self billing.

Payment schedules

A payment schedule defines agreements about the amounts to be paid by payment period. You can link a payment schedule to the payment terms. Each line of the payment schedule defines a part of the invoice amount that must be paid within a specific period, the payment method used for the payment, and the discount conditions that apply to the payment.

Payment authorization

In Accounts Payable, in addition to approving the invoices for processing, you can separately approve purchase invoices and costs invoices for payment. Audit information regarding approval of invoices is stored.

Authorization of price differences and additional costs

Price differences occur if the invoice amount differs from the order amount or the receipt amount. LN detects the price differences when the invoice is matched to the purchase orders or to the receipts.

Accounts Payable 360

A single point of access from which you can perform almost all AP-related tasks:

Aging Analysis
View or print the invoice-from business partner's aging analysis for the total outstanding balance.
Process Purchase Invoices
Match the invoice lines with purchase orders or purchase receipts and to approve the invoices.
Open Entries
View a list of the open purchase invoices for the selected business partner.
Factor Relations
Assign a factor to a pay-to business partner if you factor invoices and no default factor exists for the associated partner.
Authorize Purchase Invoices

You can perform the following:
- Approve price differences that exceed the defined tolerances.
- Create additional costs transactions.
- Approve invoices for payment.
Business Partner Balances
View the various business partner balances and aging analysis, and your current credit situation with the selected business partner.
Procurement Card Statements
If a purchase was paid via a procurement card, view and maintain the procurement card statement details.
Payment Schedules
If a payment schedule is linked to the invoice, view the generated payment schedule lines. You can also manually link a payment schedule to an invoice.
Invoice Information on Purchase Order Lines
Show the purchase orders for the selected business partner with the linked invoices.
Payment-related Documents
Show the payment-related information of the selected business partner.
Business Partner Payments - Order Information
Show the payment information regarding the purchase order for the selected business partner.

Write off currency differences

To improve the write off currency difference functionality, the print currency analysis session is extended to print the report by business partner group. Two reports are now created, one Detailed Currency Difference for business partner groups and one without the grouping the business partners. This results in a better currency difference analysis by which balances of invoices can be reevaluated at end of the period.

Intercompany Trade

You can now generate intercompany trade invoices for the selected range of purchase invoices.

Payment Advices and EBS Matching

In the Czech and Slovak Republic, the companies need to create payment files which can be processed by banks. In these bank files, it is required to report the regular information such as business partner, bank number, currency and amount. Also the following information needs to be reported:

Variable Symbol: The 10 digit numeric code that indicate payment reference information, which is used to match the payment to credit, contract or payer.
Specific Symbol: The 10 digit numeric code that indicate classification of incoming payments.
Constant Symbol: The 4 digit numeric code that indicate payment purpose information.

Accounting According to type of Purchase (Czech and Slovak)

According to the accounting principles in the Czech and Slovak Republic, companies are required to keep the books of accounts using a predefined chart of accounts. In this predefined chart of accounts some ranges of ledger accounts are distinguished based on ‘Type of Purchase’, such as Raw Material, Goods, and Services. It is therefore required to enable the customers in the Czech- and Slovak Republic to map the invoices receipt account to the appropriate ledger accounts according to the type of purchase.

Editable Matched Amount and Quantity

To improve the usability of the process to match data in Accounts Payable, the Matched Amount and Quantity fields have been added to the Match Receipt Lines sessions.

Additional VAT Information

In several companies, a tax date must be reported. This is the date when the goods or services were supplied or when the payment was received, if this date can be determined; and if the date differs from the invoice issue date. This field has been added to the Purchase Invoice Entry (tfacp2600m000) session.

Aging Summary without VAT

The ability to run the Print Invoice-to Business Partner Aging Summary (tfacr2411m000) and the Print Invoice-from Business Partner Aging Summary (tfacp3425m000) sessions without VAT to meet, amongst others, the ‘French law on transparency’, is supported. The reports contain aging buckets with a corresponding number of invoices, total amounts without VAT and a percentage of total invoices without VAT.

Currency Difference Control

Ability to allow currency differences to be posted if Non-Finalized Transactions exist via a company parameter.

Additional checks are added to help prevent users from making mistakes:

The system does not allow the user to calculate currency differences for a future period
The Rate Date is defaulted based on the period selection
The Document Date and Fiscal Period is determined based on the Rate Date
Note: These changes apply to the Calculate Currency Differences sessions for Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable and General Ledger.

New reports are added to the ACP and ACR calculate currency difference sessions:

Currency Differences by Business Partner and Currency
Currency Differences by Ledger Account and Currency

Reuse Supplier Invoice Number

Unfortunately, users can make mistakes when they register purchase invoices. If this happens, corrections are made which requires to re-use the purchase invoice supplier number. Normally it is important that the system blocks the registration of duplicate supplier invoice numbers, but in case of corrections, this check prevents the user to register the correction. Which is a problem, as the correct supplier invoice cannot be inserted and thus not reported.

New functionality has been added to allow a user to insert a request to reuse a supplier invoice number. After approval via workflow, the user can key in a correction invoice using the same supplier invoice number. LN will keep track on the number of times the supplier invoice number has been used.

Link Credit Notes to Invoices Based on WHT Code

The ability to link a credit note with withholding tax to the original invoice to prevent overpayment to the supplier and tax authority.

At the moment of registering the credit note, the user will be able to link a supplier credit note with withholding tax to the original invoice, with two remarks:

The withholding tax codes and tax rates of the credit note and the original invoice must be the same in order to be able to link the credit note with the invoice.
This with one exception: if the country parameter for Israel is selected, there is not restriction, because withholding tax is calculated and posted upon paying the invoice, which happens after linking.

Debit Notes for Accounts Payable

In several countries, it is common practice to send vendors debit notes rather than waiting for the vendor to send a credit note. Sending debit notes speeds up the process of getting a refund for incorrect purchase invoices from the vendor. If debit notes are used, the company can make sure that the correct amounts are paid to the vendors.

Changes have been made to the Transaction Type (tfgld0511m000) session. A new sub-category Debit Note can be selected within transaction category Purchase Credit Note. Transactions created in this transaction type are treated as Debit Notes.

The created Debit Notes can be viewed and printed from the new Debit Notes (tfacp2507m100) session. This session is added to the Accounts Payable \ Open Entry Control-menu and to the Accounts Payable Dashboard 360 (tfacp2560m000) session. These view options are available:

By Document Number (Default)
By Business Partner by Document Number

The new Print Debit Note (tfacp2407m000) session can be started by clicking the Print Debit Notes command in the Debit Notes (tfacp2507m000) session and in the Purchase Invoice Entry (tfacp2600m000) session (for transaction types with the new sub-category Debit Note).

Non-finalized transactions are always printed as Draft Debit Notes.
Only finalized transactions with invoice status Approved or Transactions Entered can be printed as original Debit Notes.
It is always possible to print a copy of the original version of the Debit Notes. The status of Debit Notes is changed to Copy.

Note: If an Original debit note is printed for an approved document, it is not possible to un-approve it.

The Purchase Invoice Inquiry (tfacp2600m100) session has been changed. It is now possible to start the new Debit Notes session from the Reference-menu.

Workflow on received invoices

Received Invoices can now work with ION Workflow.

A received invoice with the Validated or Draft status can be submitted to start the ION Workflow process. After approval from Workflow, the received invoice can be registered as a Cost Invoice or a Registered Purchase Invoice.

Buy-from business partner for received purchase invoices to handle correct tax number

The Buy-from Business Partner field has been added to the Received Purchase Invoice (tfacp1610m000) session to determine the correct tax number for the business partner. If the invoice is imported, the buy-from business partner is retrieved during the import process.

To retrieve a default buy-from business partner:

If the business partner tax ID is specified, the buy-from business partner linked to this ID is used.
If the logistic company and order number or packing slip information is available, the buy-from business partner from the order is used.

Payment discounts for selected purchase invoice lines

To comply with legal requirements and best business practices in Germany, functionality has been added to exclude purchase invoice lines from payment discount calculation. A tax correction is made with the correct amount and reported to the correct tax codes if payment discounts must be subtracted upon payment of the invoice.

The Exclude from Payment Discount check box has been added to these sessions:

Received Tax Lines (tfacp1610m000)
Received Invoice Tax Lines (tfacp1112m100)
Invoice Tax Lines (tfacp1112m000)
Transactions (tfacp1102m300), for cost invoices

The field is initially hidden and only applicable if payment discount is set up in the terms of payment selected on the invoice. This payment term must have the Discount Including Tax check box selected in the Payment Terms (tcmcs0513m000) session. Excluded lines are not considered for the payment discount calculation, nor for tax corrections if the payment discount is subtracted in the payment.