Payments record liquidity movements received from or sent to a customer or vendor. Follow-ups organise actions for customers whose invoices are overdue. Use Payments to record and confirm a payment, and use the Follow-Ups destinations to define collection actions, review overdue customers, send letters or emails, and analyse follow-up activity.
| If you need to… | Go to |
|---|---|
| Record or review a payment | Record a payment and work overdue follow-ups |
| Define overdue-payment actions | Record a payment and work overdue follow-ups |
| Review customers with overdue amounts | Record a payment and work overdue follow-ups |
| Send follow-up letters or emails | Handle payment and follow-up variations |
| Continue with customer and invoice records | Customers, products, and invoices |
| Continue with journal and bank activity | Accounting journals and bank activity |
| Review wider accounting reports | Reports and audit work |
Before you start
Prerequisites
| Have this ready | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| The customer or vendor connected to the payment | The payment form displays Customer for customer payments and Vendor for vendor payments. |
| The journal and payment method | Journal and Payment Method are part of the payment details. |
| The follow-up plan and its actions | The plan supplies the actions used for overdue invoices. |
| Access to the required accounting group | Some payment and follow-up controls are restricted to accounting groups. |
| A draft payment when confirming a payment | Confirm appears while the payment is in draft. |
| An overdue amount when working a customer follow-up | Print Overdue Payments and Send Overdue Email appear when the amount due is greater than zero. |
Find and open a payment or follow-up destination
Payments and follow-ups are the accounting destinations for recording receipts and payments, organising overdue-payment work, and reviewing follow-up activity.
-
Open Accounting.
-
Choose the destination that matches your task.
If you need to… Choose Record customer payments Customers > Payments Review follow-up activity Follow-Ups > Follow-ups Analysis Define follow-up levels Follow-up Levels Work customers with overdue amounts Follow-Ups > Do Manual Follow-Ups Send follow-up letters and emails Follow-Ups > Send Letters and Emails
Result: The selected Accounting destination is the surface for the task you chose.
Understand the payment and follow-up screens
A follow-up level is a set of actions triggered after an invoice passes its due date; when a customer has several overdue invoices, the actions for the most overdue invoice are used.
Payment details
| Field label | Area |
|---|---|
| Date | Payment list |
| Name | Payment list |
| Journal | Payment list and payment form |
| Payment Method | Payment list and payment form |
| Customer | Payment list and customer payment form |
| Amount in Currency | Payment list |
| Payment Currency | Payment list |
| Amount | Payment list and payment form |
| Status | Payment list |
| Vendor | Vendor payment form |
| Date | Payment form |
| Memo | Payment form |
| Bank details | Customer Bank Account, Vendor Bank Account, Company Bank Account, and Destination Journal when their conditions apply. |
| Form actions | Confirm, Reset To Draft, Cancel, Request Cancel, Mark as Sent, Unmark as Sent, and Refund. |
The payment list is read-only. Its header provides Confirm. The payment form uses the payment state to decide which actions appear: Confirm is for draft payments, while the other actions depend on the payment state, cancellation settings, and payment method.
Follow-up levels and actions
Use the level's delay and actions to match the response to how severely a customer's invoice is overdue.
| Area | Fields and controls |
|---|---|
| Level | The level name, Company, and Follow-up Steps. |
| Step timing | The number of Days overdue before the step runs. |
| Manual action | Manual Action, Assign a Responsible, and Manual action note. |
| Email action | Send an Email and Email Template. |
| Letter or email action | Send a Letter or Email and the letter or email introduction. |
The Manual Action group appears when Manual Action is selected. The Send an Email group appears when Send an Email is selected. The Send a Letter or Email group appears when either email or letter sending is selected.
Manual follow-ups
The manual follow-up list is read-only for creation and deletion. It shows the customer, next-action information, responsibility, due dates, follow-up level, and amounts due.
| Area | Fields and controls |
|---|---|
| Customer row | Customer, Earliest due date, Latest follow-up level, Amount overdue, and Amount due. |
| Next action | Responsible, the next-action date, and Next action. |
| Notes and history | Payment note and the transaction history. |
| Actions | Print Overdue Payments, Send Overdue Email, and ⇾ Mark as Done. |
Follow-up analysis and sending
Follow-ups Analysis uses Follow-up Level, Latest Follow-up Month, and Balance for its analysis. Send Letters and Emails has a send date and a follow-up level where those fields are available, plus Send emails and generate letters and Cancel.
Record a payment and work overdue follow-ups
Confirm a draft payment
Prerequisites
- You have a draft payment open.
- The customer or vendor, amount, date, journal, payment method, and memo are correct.
Steps
- Review Customer or Vendor.
- Review Amount.
- Review Date.
- Review Memo.
- Review Journal.
- Review Payment Method.
- Select Confirm.
Result: The payment leaves the draft path and the payment form shows the actions available for its resulting state.
Maintain a follow-up level
Prerequisites
- You have opened Follow-up Levels.
- You know the number of overdue days and the action the level must assign.
Steps
-
Open a follow-up level.
-
Review the level name.
-
Review Company when working in a multi-company setup.
-
Set the follow-up step's Days overdue value.
-
Select the action that matches the follow-up situation.
Situation Select A person must act Manual Action The step must send an email Send an Email The step must prepare a letter or email introduction Send a Letter or Email -
Complete the fields that appear for the selected action.
Result: The selected follow-up actions and their conditional fields appear in the follow-up level form.
Record the next action for an overdue customer
Prerequisites
- You have opened Do Manual Follow-Ups.
- The customer has an amount due greater than zero.
Steps
- Open the customer row.
- Review Earliest due date, Latest follow-up level, Amount overdue, and Amount due.
- Select a Responsible person.
- Enter the next-action date.
- Enter the action in Next action.
- Enter context in Payment note.
- Select ⇾ Mark as Done after the action is complete.
Result: The action is complete.
Handle payment and follow-up variations
Use the branch that matches the record and the action you need to perform.
| Your situation | What to use |
|---|---|
| The payment is from a customer | Use Customer and the customer bank-account conditions. |
| The payment is for a vendor | Use Vendor and the vendor bank-account conditions. |
| The payment moves money between journals | Select the internal-transfer option and complete Destination Journal. |
| A bank account is required | Complete the applicable bank-account field before confirming. |
| You need to assign a person | Select Manual Action, then complete Assign a Responsible and Manual action note. |
| You need to send an email | Select Send an Email, then choose Email Template. |
| You need to prepare a letter or email | Select Send a Letter or Email, then complete the introduction. |
| The customer's email address is missing | The system displays Email not sent because of email address of partner not filled in. |
- Open Send Letters and Emails when the follow-up level actions are ready.
- Review the follow-up level and date fields shown in the dialog.
- Select Send emails and generate letters.
Result: Follow-up emails are sent, letters are generated, and manual actions are set per customer according to the defined follow-up levels.
Resolve payment and follow-up errors
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
Your description is invalid, use the right legend or %% if you want to use the percent character. | The follow-up description contains an invalid legend or percent character. | Correct the description's legends or use %% for a percent character. |
The partner does not have any accounting entries to print in the overdue report for the current company. | The customer has no accounting entries eligible for the overdue report in the current company. | Review the customer's accounting entries and current-company context. |
There is no followup plan defined for the current company. | No follow-up plan exists for the current company. | Define a follow-up level and its actions before printing the overdue report. |
The followup plan defined for the current company does not have any followup action. | The current company's follow-up plan has no follow-up action. | Add a follow-up action to the plan. |
Email not sent because of email address of partner not filled in | The customer's email address is missing. | Complete the customer's email address, then use Send Overdue Email again. |
Printed overdue payments report | The overdue payments report was printed. | Continue with the follow-up work for the customer. |
Out of scope
These messages belong to the Send Letters and Emails flow:
| Message | Owning page |
|---|---|
Follow-up letter of | Send Letters and Emails |
will be sent | Send Letters and Emails |
email(s) sent | Send Letters and Emails |
letter(s) in report | Send Letters and Emails |
Know what happens next
After you select Confirm, the payment leaves draft state. The form then exposes the actions that apply to the resulting payment state, including Reset To Draft, Cancel, Request Cancel, Mark as Sent, Unmark as Sent, and Refund when their conditions apply.
After you select Send emails and generate letters, the follow-up process sends emails, generates letters, and sets manual actions according to the follow-up levels.
Use Customers, products, and invoices for the customer and invoice records that supply overdue-payment work. Use Accounting journals and bank activity for the journal and bank continuation. Use Reports and audit work for broader accounting reporting.
Was this page helpful?