Commonly Asked Questions
When applying a receipt to an invoice through Autolockbox, will the Post QuickCash program automatically take the discount?
Autolockbox does not realize discounts. This is an operation of the Post QuickCash program.
If the customer's credit profile and payment terms are set to 'Allow Discounts', Post QuickCash will automatically take the discount. The discount taken will also depend on the system options Allow Unearned Discounts and Discount on Partial Payment. The discount can be manually overridden in the Receipts window.
Can you process non-invoice related receipts through Autolockbox?
No. AutoLockbox is specifically for invoice related receipts. Non-invoice related receipts, such as investment income, must be processed through the Receipts window using a receipt type of Miscellaneous. See: Entering Miscellaneous Transactions.
Can one customer pay for another customer's invoices through Autolockbox?
Yes, if you have set up a relationship between these customers or the system option Allow Payment of Unrelated Invoices is Yes for this Lockbox submission. The paying customer should be identified by a customer or MICR number on the receipt record. Otherwise, if you are using AutoAssociate when applying Customer A's receipt to Customer B's invoice, the receipt will be identifed as paid by Customer B. Additionally, all invoices listed to be paid by one receipt must belong to the same customer; otherwise, Lockbox imports the receipts as 'Unapplied'.
If the Allow Payment of Unrelated Invoices option is No in the System Options window or for this Lockbox submission, you need to set up a relationship between the customers before you can make applications in this way. See: Creating Customer Relationships.
How could trimming cause my receipts to display as unidentified?
Receipts are identified by a customer number or MICR number being passed as part of the bank record. They can also be identified by the invoice number when AutoAssociate is used. If this information is supplied, and most of the receipts still show as unidentified, it is usually a problem with how the customer number, MICR number, or invoice number is being trimmed during validation. Trimming is done to remove blanks or zeros used to pad data fields from the bank's data file. Your Transmission Format determines how a field will be trimmed. You must specify whether the field is right or left justified, and then identify the trim character to be a zero or blank. If the field is right justified, the validation process trims the fill characters from the left until it reaches a non-fill character. If the field is left justified, the validation process trims the fill characters from the right until it reaches a non-fill character.
Here are some examples:
Character Field, 10 characters long, Right Justified, Zero Filled
Character Field, 10 characters long, Left Justified, Zero Filled
Incorrect trimming can cause a receipt to be unidentified because an incorrectly trimmed field will not match the corresponding database field during validation. For example, if the customer number should appear as 00842 after validation, but it appears as 842, it will not match customer number 00842 in Receivables. The trim specifications in the above example are "right justified and zero filled", because the leading zeros are being trimmed until a non-fill character (8) is encountered. To have the customer number appear as 00842 after validation you can modify the fill character to be "blank" and the leading zeros will not be trimmed.
When does Autolockbox consider a receipt to be a duplicate?
Duplicate receipts have the same receipt number, amount, currency, and customer number. Autolockbox does not allow duplicate receipts within the same batch source for the same customer. This is the same validation Receivables performs when you manually enter receipts using the Receipts window.
When does Autolockbox consider an invoice to be a duplicate?
Invoice numbers are only required to be unique within a batch source. A customer can have duplicate invoice numbers as long as they belong to different batch sources; however, Lockbox cannot automatically apply a payment to these invoices.
If a customer has more than one invoice with the same number within a Lockbox transmission, Autolockbox will reject the application (i.e. the record will remain in the interface table) because it cannot determine to which invoice to apply the payment. In this case, the receipt will either be left as Unapplied (if the customer number or MICR number is provided) or Unidentified (if the customer number/MICR number is not provided).
However, you can manually apply a receipt(s) to these invoices in:
- the Applications window, if you have already submitted Post QuickCash
- the QuickCash window, if you have not yet submitted Post QuickCash
What causes an application to be invalid?
Sometimes the Autolockbox Execution Report will show receipts rejected with error code 43281: Receipt has invalid applications. Your application is invalid if:
1) The receivable item is not in the same currency as the receipt.
2) The receivable item belongs to a customer that is not related to the customer who remitted the receipt and Allow Payment of Unrelated Invoices is set to No.
3) The receivable item is not an invoice, a debit memo, a deposit, a credit memo, a chargeback, or an on-account credit.
4) The receivable item is a duplicate or invalid for the customer.
5) The receivable item has been selected for automatic receipt.
6) The installment number or the receivable item is invalid.
AutoLockbox uses the same reasons to invalidate an application as the standard receipt entry windows.
How does Autolockbox divide receipts into batches?
AutoLockbox uses 4 criteria for dividing receipts into batches. They are listed in order of precedence as follows:
1) A batch can only have one deposit date or GL date. So, if Autolockbox encounters a change in the deposit date or the GL date, it will create a new receipt batch.
2) A batch can have only one batch name. So, if a new batch name is encountered, Autolockbox will create a new receipt batch.
3) You can specify the maximum size of a batch in the Lockboxes window. If the number of receipts exceeds this maximum, Autolockbox will create a new receipt batch.
4) The bank can provide batch records as part of the data file, which divide the receipts into batches.
A group of receipts will be processed as one batch if the group:
- has one deposit date, GL date and batch name
- is less than the maximum size of a batch
- there are no batch records in the data file
See Also
AutoLockbox
Running AutoLockbox
