CREATE EFT FILE

Use this screen to create the ACH file of EFT payments to vendors. This file will be used to transmit payment data to your company's bank. Your bank will debit your company's bank account for the total amount of the payments; credit the accounts of any vendors who use the same bank; and transmit payment data for the remaining vendors to each vendor's individual bank. You can send the ACH file (EFT file) to your bank via modem or diskette. You can include only one bank/bank account combination in an ACH file. When creating files for many bank/bank account combinations, make sure you give each ACH file a unique name, or the system will overwrite the existing file with the new one.

The system collects EFT payment information for each Entry Detail record based on the bank account abbreviation you enter in this screen. When you select the Create EFT File button on the toolbar, the system first goes to the Cash Accounts table to find the cash account/organization combination mapped to the bank account abbreviation entered in this screen. The system uses the cash account/organization to identify which vouchers in the Open A/P table can potentially be paid by EFT. It searches only those vouchers that have "PAY" status, and are thus eligible to be paid by either check or EFT. (Select vouchers for payment in the Select Vouchers screen.)

After the system has found vouchers with "PAY" status written to the cash account/organization that is mapped to the bank account abbreviation, it eliminates vouchers using the following criteria:

The remaining vouchers will be paid by EFT. To create the Entry Detail record for each vendor, the system uses the following information from the Vendor table (this information is entered in the Maintain Vendors screen): ACH Code, Bank Account Abbreviation, Pay Vendor ID, Vendor Name, and Address Code. To calculate the Amount of Transfer for each vendor, the system totals the payment amounts for all vouchers to the vendor. (For all prenote vendors, the system sets the Amount of Transfer to "0.00" and adds the text "Prenotification" to the record. Prenote vendors will be paid by check.) The invoice date, invoice amount, and discount amount for each voucher are also included in the Entry Detail record.

After the creation process is finished, the ACH file will include:

Before you can create an ACH file using this screen, you must have already entered EFT information in the Maintain Banks screen in the Costpoint General Ledger, the Company EFT Bank Info subtask of the Maintain Company Bank Accounts screen, the Cash Accounts screen, and the Maintain Vendors screen. After creating the file, print the EFT Edit Report to review the file's contents. If the file contains inaccurate bank abbreviation information for either your company or for vendors, of if the vendor's address code or ACH code is incorrect, edit this information in the Company EFT Bank Info screen and/or the Maintain Vendors screen and recreate the ACH file.

Note: Do not change the vendor ID before paying posted vouchers. Posted vouchers are not updated with changes to the vendor ID; if you change the vendor ID in the Maintain Vendors screen, the system will not be able to find vouchers for the new vendor ID, and the vendor will not be paid the correct amount.

WARNING:  Do NOT use the following characters for data stored in the VEND (Vendor) or the VEND_ADDR (Vendor Address) tables since doing so might disrupt the structure of the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) file, thus compromising the bank submission process:
(Data Element Separator) = *
(Data Segment Separator) = \
(Component Element Separator) = ~

Each time you recreate the ACH file using the same file name, the system overwrites the old file with new information.

You must post vouchers, select them for payment, and approve them before they are eligible to be paid by EFT.

Select Bank Abbreviation

Bank Abbr

Enter, or use Lookup to select, the bank account abbreviation for the bank from which EFT payments will be made. This field is required. The system validates that the bank account abbreviation was entered in the Maintain Company Bank Accounts screen in Costpoint General Ledger. If this validation fails, the system will return an error message and you will not be able to save your settings or create the EFT file.

You can create the EFT file for only one bank/bank account combination at a time.

Once you have entered a bank account abbreviation, a description of the bank account abbreviation is displayed in the next field.

Currency

This non-editable field displays the bank account currency that was linked to the Bank Abbr in the Maintain Bank Accounts screen in Accounting/Cash Management/Bank Account Management.

Taxable Entity

Enter, or use Lookup to select, a valid taxable entity number.

Company Tax ID Qualifier (ICD)

Enter your company's tax ID qualifier in this field. The Identification Code Designator (ICD) is the first character of the company identification field. The default value for this field is "1."

File Information

Effective Date

Enter the date (MM/DD/YYYY) on which the bank should credit the vendors' accounts. This is the date the payment becomes effective. The system date automatically defaults into this required field.

ACH File Name

Enter the name of the file the system will create, and the path, if necessary, in this required field. Each time you create an EFT file with this name, the old file will be overwritten. To keep previous copies of the EFT file, we recommend that you develop a system of naming that produces unique names for each file. For example, you could use a month/date system, which would identify a file created on July 1 as BANK0701.DAT, a file created on July 31 as BANK0731, and so on. There is no system default for this field, because all ACH file names are dependent on the instructions from your bank.

EDI Control No

Enter the control number for the Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) output file. The EDI is the electronic exchange of business transaction information in machine readable format. This number will be used to build the control numbers within the file.

EFT Transfer Type

Use this group box to select the EFT transfer type that your bank has specified. The valid choices are: CTX - Corporate Trade Exchange, CCD - Cash Concentration or Disbursement, or PPD - Prearranged Payment and Deposit Entry.

Include Addenda Records

Select this checkbox to include addenda records with the EFT.

Note: The "CCD" and "PPD" transfer types cannot have more than one addenda record for each vendor; otherwise, the bank will reject the record. Review the Print EFT Edit Report to see if the file contains too many addenda records.

EDI

820 Transaction Set

Select this radio button for the system to create the EFT file using only the 820 Transaction Set. That means that the ISA/IEA and GS/GE envelopes will not be created around the 820 detail transaction set.

Create EFT File

Use this button on the toolbar to create the EFT file.

Table Information

Default Cash Accounts (DFLT_CASH_ACCTS): The system uses this table to identify which cash account/organization combinations are mapped to the bank account abbreviation and account entered in this screen. Because all vouchers are assigned to a specific cash account/ organization, the system can use this information to identify which vouchers in the Open A/P table can potentially be paid by EFT.

Open A/P (OPEN_AP): This table contains outstanding vouchers. The system uses the voucher approval and pay status contained in this table to eliminate certain vouchers from inclusion in the EFT file. The payment amounts contained in this table are summed for all vouchers belonging to a vendor to arrive at the Amount of Transfer.

Vendor (VEND): This table contains the vendor's EFT bank and bank account information, address code, ACH code, active flag, ID, and name. (All except the Active flag are inserted in the vendor's Entry Detail Record in the ACH file.) The system uses the Active flag and the presence or absence of bank information in combination with the address code to include or exclude the vendor from the EFT file. The ACH code contained in this table determines whether the vendor is a live EFT vendor or a prenote vendor.

Voucher Header History (VCHR_HDR_HS): This table contains all the information entered in the headers of posted vouchers (e.g., voucher number, invoice date, invoice amount, etc.). The system retrieves the invoice date, invoice amount, and discount amount from this table for each voucher and inserts this information into the Entry Detail Record for the vendor to whom the voucher belongs.