Accounts Payable (AP) Cheque Preparation

Accounts Payable (AP) Cheque Preparation


AP Cheque Prep is used to reconcile and pay Suppliers by EFT, Credit Card or Cheque. This process will produce remittance advices that can optionally be automatically emailed to suppliers paid via EFT (contact the Support Desk to set this up). If no bank account details exist on the suppliers account the system will pay the suppliers by Cheque and assign the cheque numbers. If all the bank account details are completed on the suppliers account the system will pay the supplier by EFT.

Note: if multiple suppliers are paid via EFT in the one payment run, the system assumes that they are paid out of your bank account as a 'multi transfer' and one total comes out of your bank account to be distributed to the multiple suppliers.

To Reconcile Suppliers

The first step in paying suppliers is to reconcile to the statements received from the suppliers to the balances you have in your Costar system. This ensures that your processing is correct, will pick up on any mistakes your supplier may have made and ensure that your stock is as accurate as it can be. 

  1. From the Suppliers menu.
  2. Click on AP Cheque Prep.
  3. If you already have an icon set up, highlight it and click Properties . If you need to create a new icon click on New.
  4. Set the Cheque Run Date. This is the date you will be paying the suppliers. If you are unsure of when you will be paying simply set a date and it can be changed at a later time. I.e. If you write a cheque, what date would you write on it?
  5. Set the Pay documents due on or before date to indicate which documents to consider in this payment run. For example, if you are paying documents that are due to be paid by the end of March set the Pay documents due on or before to the end of March. I.e. 31 March
  6. Tick Preview Run as you simply want to reconcile at this point.
  7. Select the Bank Account the suppliers will be paid out of.
  8. Tick Show details on cheque register.
  9. Optionally, in Selections (bottom LHS) you can select certain Suppliers only for this Payment Run.

 


 10. Click on Pay Status. This displays each supplier in this payment run.

            


 11. Reconcile the balance displayed on the screen to the Suppliers statement. If it matches, nothing else needs to be done in the reconciliation process. if a total doesn't match click on the + next to the supplier to expand that supplier to show the transactions that make up the Amount.

           

At this stage you may need to process extra documents that have been missed, put accounts on hold or change due dates. You can come out of and go back into the Pay Status screen as many times as you need to.

If there are too many transactions on a Supplier to reconcile on the screen, ensure Preview Run is ticked back on the properties screen, Ok and then Prepare. You will be shown a Pay Status screen as a report . This can be printed for you to reconcile against.

Once the supplier accounts are reconciled and you want to finalise the payment run:

  1. From the Suppliers menu
  2. Click on AP Cheque Prep
  3. Highlight and click Properties on the appropriate AP Cheque Prep icon
  4. Ensure the Cheque Run Date is set to the correct date that the payment will be made
  5. Untick Preview Run
  6. Click Assign Next on the Cheque Number (if you actually are paying by Cheque type in the next cheque number from your cheque book)
  7. Click Pay Status and double check the amounts to be paid one last time
  8. Click Back
  9. Click Ok
  10. Click Prepare
  11. Select the Accounting Period that you are making the payments in, not the month of the invoices that you are paying. (For example, if you are paying the suppliers in February select February regardless of the dates of the transactions you are paying)
  12. Click Ok

 

COSTAR will:

  • Pay each supplier selected moving the paid transactions to history in AP Inquiry.
  • Update the Bank Reconciliation with the payment amount/s.
  • Email any remittance advices to suppliers paid by EFT if your eCommerce Centre is set to do this (contact the Support Desk for more details).
  • If you are configured to use electronic files with your online banking software the EFT Transfer file will be created in Financials>>EFT Batches is ready to be exported. To export them, from Financials>>EFT Batches, select the file to export and then click Export on the top toolbar.

Payee Supplier

A supplier can be flagged as a Payee Supplier meaning that you pay this supplier for several suppliers. This feature is used in the case of a buying cooperative, such as Capricorn.

On the Payee suppliers account, tick the Can be payee for multiple suppliers tick box.




Now set this supplier as the A/P Cheque Prep will pay this supplier field on any of the suppliers you pay through the payee supplier




If you have any queries regarding Accounts Payable (AP) Cheque Preparation in COSTAR, please contact the Support Desk.

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