Accounts payable - credit notes

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Posted on by Daarchie

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We have been on dynamics GP for a year, using it primarily as a backend accounting package for financials and processing Accounts Payable invoices. One of our biggest frustrations is the requirement in AP of having to apply AP credit notes to invoices. We often get credit notes from suppliers that have no correlation to any invoice we are paying. Why does GP force this? Are there addons to resolve this issue?

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Richard Wheeler 75,848 Moderator on at

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I assume when you say credit notes you mean credit memos. When you go the Select Checks screen there is a box to automatically apply credit memos. You want to uncheck that box prior to clicking the Build Batch button. This will leave the credit memos unapplied.

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Daarchie 165 on at

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Thanks Richard. Will the credit memos still be included as separate amounts on the check, as reductions in the amount of the payment?

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Bill Campbell 12 on at

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When you unclick that box as suggested by Richard you will then be able to apply the Credit Memos as you want to what ever cheque and in what ever amount you desire.

With that box selected the system simply applies the Credit Memos to the oldest invoice first and does not really care if it matches dollar amounts.

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Daarchie 165 on at

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What I am looking for is a way to take credit memos on a check without having to manually or automatically apply them to an existing invoice. Is this possible? Apply them to invoices they have nothing to do with is confusing to the supplier receiving the check

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Bill Campbell 12 on at

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Daarchie, if the credit memos are not related to the invoice and you do not apply them to 'some' invoice, how do you want the system to calculate the amount to pay?

While I get that the credit memo is likely for something that you already paid and therefore can not be taken back - surely the suppliers know this and have some degree of expectation that the credit memo will be applied to some current invoice.

In most cases the least resistance we have found in the accounting world we work with is to allow the users to pick and choose the invoices that they want to apply the credit towards. We have very few clients that allow the system to simply apply to oldest first - that is the most confusing to the vendors and to the accounting staff.

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Daarchie 165 on at

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We will often get credit memos from suppliers for the following reasons:

Credits that are for special events we hold that they are sponsoring

Credits for warranty claims for customers ( cannot correlate to one in once)

Credits for monthly, quarterly, annual rebate programs that cover invoices from prior periods

So while have been applying these credits manually to oldest invoices, this appears confusing on our checks.

Am looking for a way to have the credit memo appear as a stand alone credit netting against other invoices on a payment

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Heather Roggeveen 9,146 on at

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Hi

So in GP for an invoice to be fully completed and move to history a credit based document (payment or credit) must be applied to it to make it go to history - end of story on that one.

There are two methods to do it - manually apply a credit or have it auto apply at payment time - sounds like auto-apply is fine from your end (I have a gotcha on that that I will explain shortly).

So, then that leaves the information going to the supplier. Can you modify the remittance area on the check layout to simply list the documents rather than the apply? I haven't modified a remittance for a while so haven't tried this particular method but I would say you probably can. Then you leave it to the supplier to decide what they do with it.

The gotcha with applying at the time of payment (i.e. leaving the boxes ticked) is that the credit documents will pick up regardless of date. So e.g. if you are paying your February invoices, leaving the box ticked would have any credits received in March picked up and applied also.

I have a number of clients who use the auto apply as they integrate all transactions so manually applying credits is not going to happen. To get around the date issue, we use the Navigation Lists feature to find all credits for the current month (March) and put these on hold before doing the payment run. That leaves them off.

At the end of the day, how you apply your credit in your system should not in any way be confusing for suppliers - they have a balance you owe them - if you pay the balance, this should not be an issue at all. Whether you take up a credit or physically pay an invoice, the end result is the same - you owe the supplier less.

Cheers

Heather

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Bill Campbell 12 on at

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Daarchie, Heather gives good advice and has a great comment on the processing of the Credit Memos.

Bottom line is that for the credit memo to be on the cheque, it has to be applied to an invoice.

I agree that it can look confusing, but in reality it is how things have to happen in this system. The supplier has billed you for something, given you credit memos for others and expects at the end of the day to get a payment.

If they have any idea of what they are doing, they will have the same matching going on on their side of the cheque.

Short of spending a bunch of money on a customization - not saying I know it can be done - I think that leaving it to the person issuing the cheque to decide where to apply the credit memo at the time of writing the cheques is going to be your best solution.

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Daarchie 165 on at

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Was hoping for a way to keep the credit memos as stand alone transactions in some cases. As history of asking GP to allow this in their program? This is the first accounting package I have used that has this limitation

Appreciate feedback... Short of a future GP change will have to look at the remittance advice modification option.

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Suggested answer

babubaskaran@outloo... 12 on at

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Hi Daarchie,

Just to add valuable suggestion made by Bill and Heather. Please have a look at the Customer/Vendor Consolidations whether its suits your need. So you can book all your credit through customer(which is your vendor) and apply the same against each of your payable invoices. I thought this idea so sharing the same. Please see the following link for the same.

Customer/Vendor

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