Although we have implemented some major enhancements to Accounts Payable (A/P) processing over the last few years (pay vendors via ACH, re-vamp of payment processing, allow for invoice approvals, etc.), we continue to make improvements based on credit union suggestions. Below is a highlight of additional Accounts Payable projects we are currently cooking up!
2021 Top Accounting Projects
Revamping the Invoice Creation Process
The current awkward method of creating A/P invoices will be completely re-vamped to be much more user friendly. You will first select a vendor, then view a list of pending invoices for that vendor (created but not yet selected for payment) then proceed to a new “create” screen to enter all the invoice details.
We will also be adding some optional controls to specify which fields are required at invoice creation. For example, some CUs do not require that a new invoice has a due date. Other CUs do not enter the branch or G/L account until the invoice is selected for payment.
And lastly we will allow for invoice templates to be created so that the same invoice details do not have to be entered multiple times. This will work similar to the G/L journal entry templates.
Status as of February 2023: Project#55799 is targeted for the 23.05 release.
Use the A/P Payment Processing Date for the Check Date and G/L Entries
Because there are some credit unions that do not process payments (cut checks) the same day that the invoices are selected for payment, we are proposing to change the A/P system to use the actual payment date instead of the check/voucher date on the check itself and for the G/L entries. This will ensure that the date that prints on the check is the date that the payment was actually processed via Tool #1961 “Process Accounts Payable Payments”.
Project#56958 was implemented in the 22.10 release!
View the project specifications here
Pay A/P Vendor via Credit Card
This project creates a new tool for expensing credit card payments to Accounts Payable vendors. This is for payments to an online credit card loan account that have already posted and the credit union would like to expense the payments to the appropriate A/P vendor. In order to use this processing, the A/P vendor must already be set up in Tool # 990 “Work with Accounts Payable Vendors”.
Status as of February 2023: Project#55597 is targeted for the 23.05 release.
Enhance A/P Invoice Approvals
We have received many enhancement ideas from credit unions using the approval process for Accounts Payable invoices. We are actively researching the following improvements:
- Ability to approve multiple invoices at the same time
- Allow approver to make change to invoice details
- Automatic approvals based on dollar amount within specified variance
- Ability to assign more than one approver to an invoice
- Ability to un-approve an invoice not yet selected for payment
- Allow small dollar amounts to skip the approval process
- Update generic email content to provide instructions
Status as of February 2023: Specifications are in process.
Your chefs for this recipe are Keegan Daniel and Karen Sorensen. If you have thoughts or ideas you would like to share, please leave a comment. We’d love to hear from you!
When using tool #667 ‘Print Misc Checks’ I would like there to be a comment or note field for the purpose of the check or other relevant information.
Instead of “Use the A/P Payment Processing Date for the Check Date and G/L Entries”, a real improvement would be to use the invoice date as the GL posting date (better yet the invoice date as the default posting date, with an option to override with a date of one’s choosing). As is, we have to manually accrue for all of the invoices we receive on/after the first of the month (a substantial amount of invoices). The A/P system as written, is truly cash-based, not accrual based – it’s in complete violation of GAAP.
Thank you for the comment, Cheryl! To save space here, I published an AnswerBook item that explains our thinking on this subject. We appreciate the feedback.
It would be helpful to have an option when entering and invoice as to what day we want the invoice to post to the general ledger instead of only posting invoices at the time of payment, the offset of the posting would be Account Payable GL and then when it is paid it would pay out of this GL.. When following GAAP accounting this would be the correct method, we are aware that Finance can post accruals but this is ineffiicient as we are entering invoices into AP, then accruing them and reversing them. While some invoices do not change substantially month to month, other invoices do and the Finance departments goal is to produce the most accurate Financial statement efficiently as possible. By making a change to the processing you could help eliminate work for the Finance and make it more efficient by not having us duplicate work.
As I replied to Cheryl earlier, CU*BASE is not set up to do the accrual accounting to time invoices by month incurred. Supporting this would require a major overhaul of all of our accounting processes. Review this AnswerBook item for more details and some history. Just changing the date on this entry would not meet this requirement as the check (offset of the expense) should not be posted until the check (or ACH) is actually processed.