Understanding the Payments work area
The Payments work area contains the following subsections:
Payment Process Requests
Payment Files Requiring Attention
Stop Payment Requests
Supplier Sites on Payment Hold
Schedule Requests
Each subsection is accompanied by an icon that allows you to expand or collapse the section.
The Tasks pane on the right side of the Payments work area provides links to specific tasks related to creating and submitting payments.
Payment Process Requests section
A payment process request is a selection of Payables documents chosen for payment processing. The Payment work area’s Payment Process Requests section contains a pane with these three tabs:
Requiring Attention: A list of payment process requests that require additional steps to complete
Recently Completed: Completed requests, including the completion date, the number of payments recorded, and the Payment date
Recently Terminated: A list of terminated requests, including the termination date, status, and payment date of the request
Payment Files Requiring Attention section
The Payment Files Requiring Attention section contains a list of payment files requiring action.
A payment file is a collection of payments that have the same payment type—accompanied by other payment information. Payment files are further processed and paid after transmission to banks, or they are printed for check runs.
Stop Payment Requests section
The Stop Payment Requests section of the Payments work area allows you to select a stop payment request and either void that payment or cancel a payment stop request. Stop payment requests can:
Record the date a stop payment order was placed with a financial institution
Record the date a stop payment order was released from a financial institution
You may encounter a situation where your supplier tells you that they did not receive a sent payment, so you contact the bank to request they stop the payment. You then record a stop payment request through the Manage Payments task. If the bank informs you that the payment stopped successfully, you void the payment. Your bank then informs when the payment clears, so then you would cancel your request to stop payment.
Supplier Sites on Payment Hold section
The Supplier Sites on Payment Hold section of the Payments work area lists supplier sites that currently have holds applied at the site level, preventing payments.
You can apply holds to a supplier site through the Edit Site page for the supplier.
Schedule Requests section
The Schedule Requests section of the Payments work area provides a process monitor that lets you view the status of processes you have submitted.
The process monitor lists the processes that you have recently submitted in chronological order, provides an update on the status of the process, and allows you to view the output for processes that produce reports. You can also view this information by clicking the Scheduled Processes link in the Navigator menu.
Selecting payment process criteria from the Submit Payment Process Request page
The Submit Payment Process Request page includes a Selection Criteria tab. This tab allows you to select parameters to identify which invoices you want to include as part of the payment process. A broad set of criteria minimizes the number of payment process requests. Processing a payment process request will create a payment reference number that goes with each payment. The system transmits payment reference numbers to your bank or payment system.
Selection criteria determine the what installments are chosen for a payment. Examples of selection criteria include pay group, payment business units, or payment priority.
The following list shows the fields on the Selection Criteria tab within the Submit Payment Process Request page (and also the Create or Edit Payment Process Request Template pages):
Pay through Date: Most recent due date for an installment
Pay from Date: Earliest due date for an installment
From Payment Priority: Lowest payment priority assigned to an installment
To Payment Priority: Highest payment priority assigned to an installment
Date Basis: Basis for the date that impacts installment selection and whether to take a discount
Include Zero Amount Invoices: Include invoices that have a zero amount due
Pay Groups: Invoice categorization for payment; the default setting includes all pay groups, but you can indicate one or more pay groups
Currencies: Currencies for payments and invoices; the default setting contains all currencies, but you can indicate one or more payment currencies, or you can indicate one or more invoice currencies
Business Units: Business units for payments and invoices; the default setting contains all business units
Choosing an invoice business unit will lead to the process of searching for installments for that invoice business unit.
Choosing a payment business unit will lead to the process of searching for installments for the invoice business unit serviced by that payment business unit.
Legal Entities: This refers to any legal entity that is associated with an invoice; the default setting contains all legal entities, but you can indicate one or more legal entities
Supplier Type: Supplier classification, such as contractor or tax authority
Payment Method: Method of payment for an installment
Invoice Conversion Rate Type: Type of rate that converts the invoice currency to the ledger currency
Supplier or Party: Supplier or party on an invoice
Invoice Group: User-defined name assigned to one or more invoices
The service provider setup and your business unit access impact the list of values in the Invoice Group field if you implement centralized payment processing. The system pulls the invoice groups from invoice business units serviced by payment business units. This is limited to the payment business units that you have the ability to access.
Payment process requests consist of at least one document payable to be paid and can contain instructions for payment processing. You can make selections for payment attributes, processing options, and validation failure handling for payment process requests using the Payment and Processing Options tab.
Payment process requests can streamline payment processing. They will confirm that the installment’s business unit, payment method, and currency all match the payment process profile rules. The matching process during the installment selection process helps prevent installment rejections that often happen during the build payment process if the attributes of the payment process file or internal bank account don’t match the installment’s attributes.
Creating payment files
You can set up a payment process request to immediately create payment files. You can also submit a scheduled process to create payment files on a scheduled date.
Payment file generation: immediate
To generate payment files immediately, choose the Create payment files immediately option on the payment process request template or the payment process request submission pages. This enables spontaneous payment runs. The whole process can complete without additional setup and without waiting for later processes.
Be aware of the following points:
More payment files than necessary might be created. With immediate payment file generation, the system will avoid grouping similar payments from other payment process requests into a single payment file.
You need to specify a payment process profile when you submit the payment process request.
Payment file generation: scheduled
If you want to generate payment files via a scheduled process, you need to accept the Create payment files immediately option’s default setting. This will defer payment file generation. Afterwards, you can use the Scheduled Processes page to schedule the following processes:
Create Printed Payment Files
Create Electronic Payment Files
You can also submit these processes as Payments tasks.
You can schedule payment file generation as a part of a business process with the following criteria:
Payment selection is decentralized or local.
Processing of payments is centralized.
The system will build payments into the fewest possible number of payment files. This is regardless of these payments’ payment process requests.
If you do not select a payment process profile for the request, a default profile applies for each document payable, depending on the attributes of that document. Deciding the invoices to pay will depend on factors like discounts and cash flow (business needs) instead of payment method and other processing needs.
Payment file transmission failure
Transmission failures happen when:
A transmission terminates prematurely.
A payment file transmission from your organization to the payment system wasn’t properly set up or tested.
The transmission actually succeeded, but there was an occurrence of a false transmission failure.
