CenterPoint^® Fund Accounting - Enter a Vendor Invoice

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Vendor Invoices (A/P) increase an Accounts Payable or Credit Card Liability account for purchases of goods or services paid at a later date. Creating a vendor invoice (A/P) transaction records the expense even though no cash has left the business at the time you enter the vendor invoices (A/P) transaction. The expense will display on an Income Statement report or other accrual report, but will not affect a cash report such as the Cash Flow report. When the vendor invoice is paid, the accounts payable and cash account balances will decrease.

A credit card charge creates an expense that is treated the same as an accounts payable transaction except on user defined government reports. Credit card charges are treated as cash for tax purposes. Tax reports include credit card charges in the period of the charge.

The Vendor Invoices (A/P) screen consists of two parts, the header and the detail information. The top portion of the screen (header information) defines information about the company/fund the accounts payable is for, the vendor who is owed the accounts payable, the date, amount to increase the accounts payable or charge account for, and the date the invoice is due. If a global Accounts Payable account is set in File > Preferences > Vendor Invoices > Default Accounts and if it is the only Accounts Payable account in your database, that account will automatically be used on all invoices entered into this screen. If you assign default Accounts Payable accounts by vendor, and if the default account is different than the global account, the default Accounts Payable account for the vendor will be used on all subsequent invoices entered.

Invoices can be placed on hold if you do not want the invoice selected for payment in the Payments or Pay Invoices Due screens (for example, the quantity has been received, but was at a higher cost than was originally quoted and you don't want the accounts payable department to accidentally pay this invoice until your dispute has been resolved or you only received partial shipment and your policy is not to pay invoices until an entire shipment is received). Held invoices are not added to the vendor balance and display on the Vendor Ledger, Accounts Payable Open Invoices, and Accounts Payable Aging reports. The On Hold Status of a held invoice must be changed (using the Processes > Purchases > Place Invoices On Hold button) to reactivate it.

The bottom portion of the screen (detail information) can be customized for your specific data entry situation. You can change the order of the columns and add or remove columns. The bottom portion of the screen defines the specific detail about the amount that increases the accounts payable. The +/- column will display the affect the detail line will have on the accounts payable account.

If this vendor invoices is for a recurring charge (for example, a recurring utility bill), you may want to create the transaction as a recurring transaction instead of a normal a/p invoice. Please refer to the Recurring Transaction document for more information.

CenterPoint offers multiple ways to customize the transaction entry screens. This customization will enable you to enter transactions more efficiently. Click here to view a document that describes the customization you can perform. Click here for an overview of transaction entry.

Enter a Vendor Invoice:

On the Processes menu, point to Purchases,and then select Vendor Invoices (A/P).

In the Company/Fund box, enter the company/fund name that this accounts payable is for.
In the Vendor box, enter the vendor name that this accounts payable is due to. The name and default address for this name will display. If you enter a name into the Vendor box and it does not exist, the Lookup screen automatically displays, from this screen you can either Create a New Name or Create a One-Time Use Name.

Create a New Name - If you enter a name into the Vendor box and it does not exist, the Lookup screen automatically displays. Click New . The Names Setup screen displays with the name that you entered automatically displaying in the Company/Fund box. Complete the additional details to create the name and then click Save. When creating a new name through the Name Setup screen, you can identify a name as a customer, vendor, employee, or salesperson. Doing so determines which data entry screen that name will be visible on. If a name is not marked as a vendor, it will not appear on the Payments screen. Likewise, if a name is not marked as a customer, it will not appear on the Receipts screen.

Create a One-Time Use Name - If you enter a name into the Vendor box and it does not exist, the Lookup screen automatically displays. Click New One Time Use. The New One Time Use screen displays with the name that you entered automatically displaying in the Name box. Complete the additional details to create the one time use name and then click Save (the one time use name will be automatically marked as a vendor and customer). When creating a new name through the New One Time Use screen, the name is automatically saved as an inactive name in all companies/funds so it does not appear in Name lookups (unless you chose to lookup inactive names).

This box also contains a Recurring Transaction icon . The Recurring button will display with a yellow background if a name has an applicable recurring transaction. The button also allows you to determine the action that will be taken when this name is used on any one of our four main transaction screens; Payments, Receipts, Customer Invoices, and Vendor Invoices.

The actions that can be set for the selected name are:

Leave Transaction Empty – Basically, when this is set on a name and the name is selected in a transaction, no special action will take place. The user simply enters in the details of the transaction.

Recall the Last Transaction for this Name – When this option is set and the name is selected in a transaction, the details of the last previously entered transaction for this name will be filled into the screen. This allows you to use the same setup for this new transaction without having to re-enter all of the details.

Load the Default Recurring Transaction for this Name – When a transaction is entered for a name, it can be saved as a recurring transaction. This means that there might be future transactions to the same name that are likely to have the same details filled in each time. Multiple recurring transactions can be setup for one name, but only one can be loaded by default and that is the one marked as the default recurring transaction. If there is only one recurring transaction for a name, it is the default.

If your File > Preferences > Defaults > > Lookup Field Settings are set to Use Auto-Complete, and you change a name after detail is entered on the lines of a transaction, the transaction is cleared and any transaction action (leave the transaction empty, recall the last transaction, or load the default recurring transaction) for the new name will occur.

If your File > Preferences > Defaults > > Lookup Field Settings are set to Allow To Query for Items On Multiple Fields, and If you change a name after detail is entered on the lines of a transaction, you will be asked if you would like to clear the information for the current transaction. If you select Yes, the transaction will be cleared and any transaction action (leave the transaction empty, recall the last transaction, or load the default recurring transaction) for the new name will occur. If you select No, the detail lines from the transaction will remain and if the new name was assigned a transaction action (leave the transaction empty, recall the last transaction, or load the default recurring transaction), the transaction action will not occur.

To review transactions in a Transaction Search screen for the selected name, entry screen, and current year, right-click in the Vendor box, and select Review Transactions.

To select a different address for this name, click the Lookup icon in the Vendor Address box, select the address, and then click OK.To create a new address, right-click in the Vendor Address box, select New, enter the address details, and then click Save. To edit an existing address, right-click in the Vendor Address box, select Edit,enter your changes, and then click Save.

The AP Account box displays the default Accounts Payable account for the Vendor. This AP Account can be changed. If this vendor does not have a default Accounts Payable account assigned, the default in File > Preferences > Vendor Invoices > Default Accounts will be used.

Note: If you are entering a credit card purchase, change the AP Account to a Credit Card Liability account.

Select the On Hold check box if you do not want this invoice available to be selected for payment. Invoices can be placed on hold if you do not want the invoice selected for payment in the Payments or Pay Invoices Due screens (for example, the quantity has been received, but was at a higher cost than was originally quoted and you don't want the accounts payable department to accidentally pay this invoice until your dispute has been resolved or you only received partial shipment and your policy is not to pay invoices until an entire shipment is received). Held invoices are not added to the vendor balance and display on the Open Invoice Report. The On Hold Status of a held invoice can be changed (using the Processes > Purchases > Place Invoices On Hold button) to reactivate it.
In the Current Batch box, leave the No Batch selection to update balances in real-time (immediately) or enter a batch name to update balances at a later time. For more information, see the Batch vs. Real-Time Transactions topic.
The Vendor Balance box displays the current balance in the AP Account if the AP Account is in the Accounts Payable account category and the Credit Card Balance box displays the credit card balance if the AP Account is in the Credit Card account category.
In the Reference #box, enter the vendor invoice number. If you want the value you enter in this box to automatically be copied to the Invoice/Ref # box each time an Account is entered in the Data Entry Grid, click the Options button and select Copy Reference # to Invoice/Ref #.
In the Date box, enter the invoice date.
In the Amount box, enter the amount of the entire invoice.
If applicable, select a payment term in the Terms box. The terms will calculate a due date for the invoice. Terms is optional.
The Date Due box will display the date calculated from the payment term selected. You can also manually overwrite the date due.

The Discount Date box will display the calculated discount date from the payment term selected. You can change the discount date.
Enter information into the Vendor Invoices (A/P) Entry grid.

Select the Account that the amount or a portion of the amount, should be charged to.

Specify the Department for this portion of the purchase.

Specify the Amount that should be assigned to that account.

A Notation can also be entered if you'd like to specify a description of what was purchased. The Notation field is optional.

Enter additional lines in the grid for each account that should charged for this transaction. If you want to repeat the previous line's Invoice/Ref# entry, right-click in the Invoice/Ref # column and select Repeat Previous Value.
Enter information into the Vendor Invoices (A/P) Entry grid. The Vendor Invoices (A/P) Entry grid can be customized for your specific data entry situation. If an account is entered with an amount that did not have a distribution previously set up, the Distribution column displays None in the color Gray.. If an account is entered with an amount that had a distribution previously set up, the Distribution column displays the name of the distribution in the color Orange. If you want to display the details of a distribution click the Orange column. If you decide that this entry should not be distributed, you can remove the check mark in the Use Distribution check box on the Account Distributions screen or select another distribution.Distributions allow you to assign transaction amounts to several profit centers, production centers, projects, production years, production series, or production center detail combinations by percentage. Distributions are assigned to one or many accounts. For example, electricity expense has a distribution that assigns 35% to profit center 1, 25% to profit center 2, and 40% to profit center 3. The same distribution could be assigned to all your different utility expenses..
If you click the Detail button in the data entry grid, you can enter additional details about the transaction, for example for some of the fields you chose not to display on the data entry grid such as associated account and department.You can also display an Account Balances screen by clicking in the Account box on the Detail screen. This screen will display the latest period balances for the account entered on the grid. If the account is not a balance sheet account, a balance will not display.
If you want to reorder the lines you entered on the transaction in a particular order, include the Line Sequence column in your data entry grid. Each line will automatically be assigned a line sequence number. The first line is assigned 10, the second 20, and so on. To reorder the lines, change the sequence number to the order in which you want the lines to print or display. For example, if you want the second line to print before the first line, change the line sequence to be 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9. To view the reordered lines, click Options, and then select Refresh.

Note: It is not necessary to view the lines, if you click Save after the transaction is complete your lines will be reordered. When you assign a line sequence number, it will automatically be renumbered after the lines are reordered back to 10, 20, and so on to make it easy for future reordering.

Note: If you want to attach a document to this transaction, see the Attach Documents to Transactions topic for detailed information.

In the Memo Line 1 box, enter a memo line that you want to print immediately after the date when the check is printed for this invoice.
In the Memo Line 2 box, enter a memo line that you want to print immediately after Memo Line 1 on the check.

Note: If you'd prefer to display Freight and Sales Tax fields in place of the Memo fields, click the Options button and select Show Other Charges Fields. These fields will work with the Freight Expense and Sales Tax Expense accounts you enter as defaults in File > Preferences > Vendor Invoices > Default Accounts preference so you do not have to enter the Freight Expense and Sales Tax Expense accounts as a line item on the invoice, you will just need to enter the amounts in the Freight and Sales Tax fields. To redisplay the Memo fields, click Options and select Show Memo Fields.

The Total Amount box displays the total of all of the lines in the Vendor Invoices (A/P) Entry grid. If this amount is different than the Amount box, click Adjust Amount.
The Available Terms Discount box displays the discount amount calculated by adding all of the invoice detail lines together and then multiplying the result by the payment term discount percentage. If you want to change the available term discount amount, enter the new amount. The Override check box will automatically be selected when the available terms discount amount is changed. If you clear the Override check box, the available terms discount amount will be recalculated. If you subsequently edit the invoice and make changes to the detail lines, the discount will not be recalculated if you previously overrode the available terms discount amount.
When the transaction is complete, click Save.

Document: 3088

CenterPoint® Fund Accounting - Enter a Vendor Invoice

Enter a Vendor Invoice:

CenterPoint^® Fund Accounting - Enter a Vendor Invoice