Paying multiple bills (Consolidated payments)

Use this procedure to pay multiple bills with a single payment. This is known as making a "consolidated payment". The process of paying multiple bills is similar to paying single bills. The difference is that multiple bills are selected and payments allocated automatically using payment rules. Bill payment rules are pre-defined in Accounts Configuration. See Setting accounts configuration options.

To pay multiple bills:

1. Open the desired posting slip (e.g. BPB) and on the Summary tab, select the outstanding bills. Bills can be selected by matter or invoicee. However, BPT and BPUC payments can only be made for bills against the same matter, so the Invoicee option is not available for these postings.

• To find a bill by matter, select Matter. Type a matter number or use the lookup to find one. If there is only one bill outstanding on a matter, the Bill number field defaults to that of the outstanding bill.

• To find a bill by invoicee, select Invoicee. Type an invoicee number or use the lookup to find one. This lookup opens the standard Contact lookup, which enables you to search for an invoicee. However, the results are automatically filtered to show only those invoicees with outstanding bills. If there is only one bill outstanding on an invoicee, the Bill number field defaults to that of the outstanding bill. Also, if a bill number is entered then the invoicee code and name are pre-populated.

2. Tick Multiple bills. This specifies that you want to pay more than one bill and tells the software to trigger the payment rule once a payment amount has been entered. The OS amount and Payable amount fields are removed as these are no longer valid, and the Payment amount field is cleared.

3. In Payment amount, type the total amount to be paid and complete the remaining posting slip details. Once a payment amount is entered the payment rule is automatically applied. If the payment amount is changed then you will be prompted to re-apply the payment rule.

4. Click Next or the Apportionment tab. The selected bills are displayed with payments allocated accordingly. These are the outstanding bills which have been automatically selected and apportioned using the payment rule settings. However, you can select/deselect any bill and amend its apportionment.

5. (Optional) Manually select/deselect bills. Bills can be manually selected/deselected by double-clicking them – when selected, a "Yes" appears in the Selected column and when not, this changes to a "No". You can manually select/deselect bills until the sum of the payment for the selected bills equals the payment amount.

• You can select multiple bills by using CTRL and click to select non-consecutive entries and SHIFT and click to select consecutive entries, then clicking Select.

• You can also select a different bill from the list of all outstanding bills on the selected matter or invoicee. Untick the Show selected bills only option to see the full list.

6. (Optional) Manually amend a bill's automatically assigned apportionment and click Save. However, the amount cannot be greater than the outstanding amount, but can be greater than the payable amount. Where this is the case, the overpayment is automatically posted to unallocated credits for the selected matter (BPB, BPC or BPN only). Overpayments cannot be posted for BPTs or BPUCs.

7. (Optional) You can re-apply the payment rule to the selected bills by clicking Re-apply Rule.

8. Click OK to post the payment. A single entry appears on the Office tab of the Accounts Ledger with the transaction text prefixed with each bill number that has been paid, e.g. 600123: 600456: 600789: <text>. If you chose to over pay then the overpayment is credited to unallocated credits for the associated matter (providing the payment rule is configured to do so) and appears on the Unallocated Credits tab of the Accounts Ledger.

• Where a BPT is used, the Client Overview tab is updated with a debit and the client and office banks are updated with pending transfers awaiting completion.

• Double-clicking a bill opens the Bill Viewer. This displays details of the bill such as; the amount, the transaction text, the date it was paid out, credited, etc.

Notes

• On the Apportionment tab, over allocation of the payment total is permitted so that all the parts of a consolidated bill can be selected and then individual parts can be removed until the sum of the payment for the selected bills equals the payment amount.

• The payment rule will not be applied until a payment amount has been entered.

• The payer is pre-populated if all the selected bills have the same invoicee.

• If an invoicee with only one bill number is selected then the Bill number field/lookup is pre-populated. Also, if a bill number is entered then the invoicee code and name are pre-populated.

• Paying NYP elements to unallocated credits only applies to BPB, BPC and BPN postings.

• The Ledger analysis section of the posting slips is only applicable when a matter is chosen, therefore "N/A" is displayed for each value when an invoicee is selected.

• Consolidated payments can also be reversed. However, all the associated payments that make up the consolidated payment are reversed as well.

• If a payment rule is being used which automatically posts NYP elements to unallocated credits and a bill payment is made to a bill for the full outstanding amount, the NYP posts to unallocated credits. However, it should be noted that it is possible to perform a further payment, select the same bill and post the NYP element to unallocated credits again.