Table of Contents
Batch Payments & Deposit Slips: Overview
Updated
by Morgan Wynnes
Read Time: 5 mins
Typically, customer payment methods are added in Sonar and set to auto-pay, so that a payment will be made automatically by the customer's added credit card or bank account and therefore no manual intervention is required. However, if your customers are allowed to pay via check, cash, or wire transfer, then you will need to manually enter and track these payments back to your bank account. Through the use of Sonar's Batch Payment Entry and Deposit Slips tools, this process becomes significantly easier and more efficient to manage.
Using Batch Payment Entry
The Batch Payment Entry tool can be accessed by:
- Clicking into the Billing tab from the left-hand panel
- Selecting "Batch Payment Entry"
Once you've navigated into the Batch Payment Entry tool, you can follow the steps outlined below to enter in a payment for the batch:
- Find the account. Before you can add a payment to the batch, you will need to first select the account that this payment is originating from - this can be done two different ways:
- Account Selector: Clicking into the Account field, you will be presented with a drop down list of all accounts within the instance. From here you can either select the account from the list or use the search box at the top of the list to find the specific account. Once you've made your account selection, the account details will appear below.
- Account ID: If you know the specific ID of the account, you can opt to simply enter in the ID to the Account field - upon hitting ENTER from your keyboard, the account will be selected and it's details will be displayed below.
- Select the payment type. From the Type drop down, select the method of payment that was provided by the account - this can be cash, check, wire, or other.
- Enter the payment date/time. By default, the current date and time will be pre-populated, however, this can be changed by clicking into the field and using the selector to first set a new date and then a time.Payments can only be entered for the current date/time, or a date in the past - you cannot submit a payment for a future date. If the payment needs to be made at a future date, you can schedule the payment on the account via a scheduled event.
- Fill out the payment amount. The amount that the payment was made for can be entered here.
- Enter in additional reference information. This field is optional, but can be used to enter in additional information such as a reference number.
- Add a description. Optionally, you can also add in other details regarding the payment through the Description field here, such as "Re: Install" if the payment was for a job.
- Un/check "Apply to Open Invoices". If this box is checked, the payment that is entered will be used to pay down any open invoice(s) on the account, starting with the oldest invoice. If this box is not checked, the payment amount will be added as Available Credits for the account.
- Un/check "Email Payment Receipt". If this box is checked, the payment(s) entered will generate a receipt that will be emailed to the financial contact from the account making the payment.
- Click "Create". As you enter your payments and click create, each payment will appear on the right-hand side in a list format where you can see the payment details, such as the account (which clicking on will display more details through the sidebar panel), the type and amount of the payment, etc.
The Amount Remaining column will reflect the dollar amount leftover, after the initial payment was used to pay down any open invoice(s) on the account. This will almost always reflect $0, unless the customer made a payment that was more than the amount due on the account. For example, in the screenshot below we can see that Matt O'Connell paid $35 in cash for his $34.95 bill, therefore the Amount Remaining reflects the $.05 overpayment, which will now be placed onto his account as Available Credits.
Now that we have our payments entered and our batch created, we can quickly and easily get our deposit slip ready to take to the bank through the use of Sonar's Deposit Slips tool.
Using Deposit Slips
The Deposit Slips tool can be accessed by:
- Clicking into the Billing tab from the left-hand panel
- Selecting "Deposit Slips"
Once you've navigated into the Deposit Slips screen, click "Create Deposit Slip" from the top-right corner. You will be presented with the Create Deposit Slip window, where you can follow the steps outlined below:
- Select the date. Use the date selector to input the date you intend to make the deposit on.
- Enter in the bank account line. This is where you can enter in the bank account number that the payments should be deposited into.
- Add in a memo. Optionally, you can also include additional information regarding the deposit through this field.
- Select the payments to include. All of the batched payments that have not yet been included in a deposit slip will appear for selection here and have a few key details displayed. Clicking the "Select All" button will automatically select all payments listed, or you can use the slider toggle beside each payment to individually select specific payments to be included.A best practice for selecting payments is to select each payment individually, as you physically pick up each check or cash payment and place it in the deposit envelope. This method ensures that when you are done, either all of the line items will already be physically within the envelope ready for deposit, or you will have a clear understanding of any payments that are physically missing.
- Click "Create". The deposit slip will now be created and appear in the Deposit Slips screen, available to download or delete. Clicking on the file name under the Files column will display additional details through the sidebar panel.
If a deposit slip is deleted, all of the payments that were included in it will then become available to be selected when creating a new deposit slip. - Download the deposit slip. Clicking the button under the Download column will download a PDF of the deposit slip. This slip will provide the exact values that need to be entered in order to deposit the slip at the bank, including the account number, memo, the cash and check totals, as well as a grand total.
Considerations when using Deposit Slips
Deposit slips are a fantastic tool for quickly processing cash and check payments with your financial institution, however, their nature as an immutable record does have some drawbacks.
If a mistake is made during the initial payment, such as the cash or check payment being applied to the wrong account, you can expect the following to happen:
If the deposit slip hasn't been generated yet:
If you've received a customer payment that was placed on the wrong account and you've applied it to the wrong account, reversing the transaction (as detailed in the Manual Transactions article) will allow your deposit slip to show the correct transaction information as long as the accounting period is still open. If you're correcting the payment after the accounting period has closed, the transaction date and time will no longer match the actual transaction details, but the deposit slip will show the right name and account.
If the deposit slip has already been generated:
If you've received a customer payment and it was applied to an account, then a deposit slip was immediately generated, any changes made to correct the transaction details will not be reflected in the deposit slip. However, if the deposit slip was generated but not yet submitted to the financial institution, you're able to delete the deposit slip and create a new one with only the accurate transactions. As in the previous example, if the accounting period has already closed, the transaction date and time won't match, as the corrected transaction cannot be made for a time belonging to a closed accounting period.
