Accounts Receivable

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Accounts Receivable System

The three parts to the Accounts Receivable System (A/R) are sales invoicing, cash receipts processing, and reporting.

Sales invoicing can be done in batch whether you choose to enter the invoices after-the-fact or have them printed and mailed to the customers as notice of payment due. After-the-fact means that a manually written invoice is used as the entry document and the computer is being used to keep track of the invoice after it has been generated. Printing the invoices in batch is not to be confused with point of sales invoicing which is printing the invoices, usually at a counter, with the customer waiting to take the invoice with the merchandise. After-the-fact sales invoices are usually entered as a batch on a daily basis, perhaps from the previous day's sales.

The A/R entry program provides time-saving features. For example, if the Sales Order Module has been used to generate a sales order, the operator supplies the number of the sales order and the program retrieves the information to automatically fills out the entire invoice. Another time-saving feature is called the look-up feature. If the customer number is not known, it may be left blank and the first few characters of the company name are used to search through the file. The invoice program also looks at information in the customer record to see if there is a tax exemption number for the customer. If an exemption number is present, the program asks if this is a taxable sale. If no exemption is present or if it is a taxable sale, the program automatically calculates the sales tax based on the ship to address or operator selected rate code, since different rates exist depending upon the taxing authorities involved. In addition, multiple ship to addresses are kept in a file by customer number to avoid entering ship to addresses each time you sell to a customer. Customer and ship to addresses can be added to the system files without leaving the Sales Invoice Entry program. The invoicing program includes an optional credit card processing system. It can then accept credit card payments and can show them separated by card type on the posting register (and general ledger detail). You have control over which credit cards you accept, such as VISA, MASTERCARD, AMERICAN EXPRESS, etc. When the card's account number is entered, our program automatically determines the type of card it is based on the first digit of the account number. The program immediately informs the operator if your company does not accept one or more of the above cards. Finally, a unique text feature allows free format entry of notes or messages to print on the invoice for clarification purposes. Once the invoices have been entered, they are printed and posted by the computer.

Invoices are posted to the A/R Open Item File. This file, as its name implies, contains records of any invoices that customers have not yet paid. The Cash Receipts Entry program then allows you to apply cash receipts to outstanding invoices. If the check amount is equal to the customer's outstanding balance, the program automatically selects all open items for the customer without any operator entry. When the computer posts cash receipts, each invoice record in the A/R Ledger Card File is updated with the check number. Therefore, when you examine the customer's account, you can see not only all of the invoices and payments, but also which payments were applied to which invoices, thus saving countless hours of account research over disputes.

The reporting system is comprised of many reports for management purposes:

	The age report allows you to select the age of each column to be by week, month, or quarter.
	A summary, showing only the aged balances for each customer, is a useful report for upper management. The detailed age report shows all open items in their proper column and subtotalled by customer. A range of customers can be selected to limit the report if the collection person wants to segment calls to a certain number of customers per day.
	Another useful report pulls information from the A/R Ledger Card File and shows every invoice, adjustment, and cash receipt for an operator-selected date range. In its summary form, the report provides a way to check the account balance in the general ledger as of a particular date.

The reports provide information on:

	Sales by salesman.
	Aging by invoice number.
	Credit limits exceeded.
	Sales by noninventory code.
	Ship to addresses by customer.
	Customer statements

In addition, you have a program that passes fields of customer account information to the word processor, if available, to merge into marketing or collection letters.

FAS Accounts Receivable also includes a comprehensive point of sale invoicing program. The primary purpose of the point of sale program is to produce invoices for the customer to take along with the merchandise. It effectively combines the functions of the sales invoice entry and sales invoice printing programs into one. Usually, one or more workstations, running this program exclusively, are located on a counter in a checkout environment. The program allows you to select the printer device name each time the program is started to accommodate switching to an alternate printer when the counter printer is down. Invoice numbers are assigned sequentially as the invoices are printed. Messages that you want printed automatically on each invoice can be defined when the program is started. These messages are useful for informing the customer of advertising promotions or payment terms.

Summary of Features:

	Very quick input.
	Tightly linked to the Sales Order program.
	Small ticket printers available.
	Does not matter if product or customer comes first.