Entry Types and Reasons

Items are individual receivables that make up a customer's balance. Organizations may refer to items in a variety of ways, such as invoices, obligations, open items, receivables, and documents.

PeopleSoft Receivables distinguishes between items (the receivables that comprise a customer's balance) and pending items (information in the system but not yet updated in the customer's balance). During the Receivable Update process, the system uses pending items to update customer balances, either by creating new items or by adding item activity lines to existing items.

An entry type categorizes the pending items that create or update posted items within the system. The Receivable Update process uses the pending items to create or update items and to maintain customer balances. Examples of entry types are invoices, debit memos, credit memos, payments, prepayments, on account payments, deductions, adjustments, and write-offs.

When a pending item enters the system, the Entry Type field defines the type of pending item that it is. An entry type can be qualified by an entry reason, which is a method of further categorizing pending items.

Some pending items, such as invoices and credit memos, enter the system from a billing system. You create others (for example, on-account payments and deductions) behind the scenes as the result of commands performed during online processing. When you apply a payment, for example, the system generates several different kinds of pending items each with its own entry type.

Some organizations can manage their receivables adequately with simple entry types and entry reasons; other companies require a more elaborate coding structure. The complexity of setup depends on how you run your business and the level of detail with which you track items.