What is Instalment Checking?

SunSystems Instalment Checking is one of the optional facilities available and is particularly useful when you are using Financials as a broker ledger in a Pay As Paid environment. If a client is paying premiums in several instalments, the instalment checking facility is used by the matching processes to produce warnings if payment transactions are not matched to the outstanding instalments in the correct order.

Instalment checking can ensure the individual instalment transaction lines are matched in either instalment date or instalment number order. The date or instalment number must be included on the transaction lines which are loaded via Ledger Import or entered on Ledger Entry.

Instalment checking is enabled in Ledger Setup (LES) where you can choose to match the instalment transactions by either instalment date or instalment number.

If Instalment checking is enabled, the matching processes check either the instalment date or instalment number on transactions selected for matching. It generates a warning if there is an unmatched line with the same transaction currency code and a transaction reference with those same first 'n' characters (where n is set in Instalment Check Length field on Ledger Setup) or an earlier Instalment Date or Number.

This warning message does not prevent you from matching the selected transactions.

Note:  When using transaction reference, if an unmatched transaction exists with an earlier date or number than the transaction being matched, the program will complete the matching process and indicate on the report that an earlier instalment exists.

An Instalment Checking Example

The Instalment Check Length field is set to 4.

Account Tx Ref Instalment No. Amount
64001 AAAA12 1 GBP 100 DB
64001 AAAA13 2  GBP 60 DB
64001 AAAB14 1  GBP 50 CR

A payment is received for GBP 60 and you attempt to match this against the second transaction above (Tx Ref AAAA13/Instalment 2). This is rejected because there is an unmatched transaction with the same instalment matching reference (AAAA) and an earlier instalment number.