Understanding Payments and Deposits

This topic provides an overview of payments and deposits and discusses:

• Bilateral netting

• Payment status

In PeopleSoft Receivables, a deposit consists of all payments that you are processing or that the bank processes. You can apply a payment to multiple items for a single customer or to multiple items for different customers, even across business units.

You can enter payments into PeopleSoft Receivables using these methods:

Method	Description
Regular deposit	This is the standard method for online payment entry. Use regular deposit when you have customer information but lack item IDs.
Express deposit	If you have an item ID, use express deposit so that you can enter deposits and apply payments at the same time. You do not need customer information to use express deposit.
Excel Spreadsheet	Cash and remittance information can be entered into a preformatted Microsoft Excel spreadsheet and loaded into PeopleSoft Receivables.
Lockbox	Electronic payments that are deposited automatically in the background from a bank file.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)	A process that receives payments in both the European and U.S. EDI formats.
Cash drawer receipts	Payments and deposits that you enter as cash drawer receipts for counter sales in PeopleSoft Order Management.
Bank statement	Bank statement deposits are a source of payments through the entry of reconciled deposits to the receivables system.
Bilateral netting	Netting deposits are the result of a net of payables and receivables transactions.
Credit card	The PeopleSoft system provides a tool to obtain credit card authorization and to process credit card payments.
(JPN) Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT)	A process receives payments in an EFT file.

Depending on your business, you can use one or more of these methods. The method of payment entry that you use does not limit your cash application options. After you enter payments, you can apply them to items by using either a payment worksheet or the Payment Predictor Application Engine process (ARPREDCT), which automatically applies payments. After you apply the payments, run the Receivables Update Application Engine process (ARUPDATE) to post the payments, create accounting entries, and update the customers' balances.

You journal cash to the general ledger by using direct journaling or the cash control accounting method.

• Direct journaling bypasses payment application and sends cash directly to the general ledger—a method suited to payments that do not pay accounts receivable items.

• The cash control accounting method journals cash to a control account upon receipt or when reconciled on a bank statement, depending on the cash control methods used.

  If you do not use cash control, the system updates the cash account after you apply the payment.