Cash Management Accounting Entries

161 2. Automatic payment dates. 3. Separating payment preparation and payment approval in your company. 4. Preparing an order during the week containing several payments, then creating a payment file at the end of the week. 5. Creating a file for electronic payment which can be sent to a bank for execution. 6. Splitting payments depending on the balances available in your various bank accounts. 13.4.1 How to Manage your Payment Orders? To use the tool for managing payments you must first install the module account_payment, or install Supplier Payments from the Configuration Wizard. It is part of the core OpenERP system. The system lets you enter a series of payments to be carried out from your various bank accounts. Once the different payments have been registered you can validate the payment orders. During validation you can modify and approve the payment orders, sending the order to the bank for electronic funds transfer. For example if you have to pay a supplier’s invoice for a large amount you can split the payments amongst several bank accounts according to their available balance. To do this you can prepare several Draft orders and validate them once you are satisfied that the split is correct. This process can also be regularly scheduled. In some companies, a payment order is kept in Draft state and payments are added to the draft list each day. At the end of the week the accountant reviews and confirms all the waiting payment orders. Once the payment order is confirmed there is still a validation step for an accountant to carry out. You could imagine that these orders would be prepared by an accounts clerk, and then approved by a manager to go ahead with payment. Tip: Payment Workflow An OpenERP workflow is associated with each payment order. Select a payment order and if you are in the GTK client click Plugins → Print workflow from the top menu. You can integrate more complex workflow rules to manage payment orders by adapting the workflow. For example, in some companies payments must be approved by a manager under certain cash flow or value limit conditions. Figure 13.8: Payments Workflow In small businesses it is usually the same person who enters the payment orders and who validates them. In this case you should just click the two buttons, one after the other, to confirm the payment.

13.4.2 Prepare and Transfer Orders

To enter a payment order, use the menu Accounting → Payment → Payment Orders.