New Direct Debits Add-On Module

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1 New Direct Debits Add-On Module The Direct Debit Module is a new (optional) feature that you can choose as an Add-on. It is designed to allow a Direct Debit export file to be generated from the system containing the bank details of customers that have agreed to pay their outstanding balances by Direct debit. This file can then be imported into EasyEFT which is a separately purchased and installed desktop software program that enables the generation of a SEPA format Direct Debits file. This can then be sent to your bank to facilitate the collection of the outstanding monies from customers. Why Implement Direct Debit Collection? Improve control over debt collection across your business Introduce a greater level of certainty around cash collection Automate the allocation of customer receipts against outstanding invoices in one go Main Features: Set up customers as paying by direct debit via the Customer Master screen using the new payment method added For each bank, you can generate a list of customers paying by direct debit that have an outstanding balance payable Choose which customer accounts should be included in a particular direct debit collection batch Drill down into outstanding invoices and view any credits on these customer accounts Export a soft copy of the selected direct debits into Excel for future reference Generate an extract of pending Direct Debit collections and import into EasyEFT to generate a Direct Debits file in SEPA format to be uploaded to your bank After the payments have cleared, you can complete the process by automatically allocating all collected receipts against their respective invoices and credits A sample screenshot is provided below. 1 P a g e

2 New Direct Debit Batch file generation screen For a full description of this feature and how to set it up please download our How To Guide. If you wish to obtain access to this add-on for your company or client please contact your local support team. An add-on charge will apply to this module. 2 P a g e

3 EU Trade VAT Reporting Several changes have been made to the Tax Codes Maintenance and VAT Reporting functions to better handle EU Trade VAT reporting for those organisations trading in the EU. The previous ECP and ECS flags have been re-labelled and amalgamated into one flag called EU Trade and this can now be used by those companies that trade with other EU nations. A separate option group is provided to allow the user to flag a tax code as related to the sale or purchase of goods or services for correct vat reporting purposes. This facilitates the splitting of EU Sales and Purchases of Goods from EU Sales and Purchases of Services in the VAT Summary reports and VAT Reporting tab in the VAT Return screen. Another additional flag will soon be introduced to facilitate automated Partial Exemption for those companies that can only claim a percentage of the Vat shown in the Purchase Invoices. This functionality will be released in the coming months. Selected Screenshots: New Tax Code Set Up to allow the flagging of an EU trade tax code for goods or services. 3 P a g e

4 New boxes added to VAT reporting tab (and VAT reports) for EU Trade reporting. Again, please contact your local support representative to discuss how to implement this feature in your company(ies). 4 P a g e

5 Improved Accessibility of Foreign Exchange Fluctuation Transactions We ve made several important changes to the management of Foreign Exchange Fluctuation transactions ( SX, PX transaction types). These transactions account for realised foreign exchange gains/losses on foreign currency accounts and are generated when receipts and payments are allocated to their related invoices/credit and there is a foreign exchange rate difference between the payment/receipt and the allocated invoice or credit. Changes to Transaction Details (accessed from Transactions Browser) Within the Transaction Details screen when viewing the invoice or payment transaction, we now display the FXs related to the transaction on the Allocations tab. This provides visibility of the FXs generated by the specific payment to invoice/credit allocation. On the Allocations tab, the transaction type field is now a link which when clicked, will open the details of the transaction. When the details of an FX transaction itself is being viewed, the Allocations tab is not displayed but instead a Generated From tab is displayed. This contains a list of the transactions which, when allocated, caused the FX to be generated. This provides full traceability of how the FX and underlying transactions are related to one another. This short video demonstrates this feature in action. Changes to Discounts Handling on Sales Receipts, Payments and Batch Payments When you process a discount now, the discount s date is set to the latest receipt/payment being allocated to the invoice which is being discounted. Previously it was set to the allocation date entered on screen. The discount is created with the invoice s exchange rate, that avoids the creation of an FX transaction for the fluctuation in rate between the invoice date and payment date. Previously it used the receipt/payment exchange rate. 5 P a g e

6 Easier to Find the Right Analysis Codes During Transactions Input AccountsIQ has a powerful Business Intelligence capability whereby you can cross reference your data in up to six different analysis groups, which allows you to report on these items by location, cost centre, department or by whatever view is important to you. Your analysis codes and analysis groups can be labelled using your own unique naming convention (e.g. BI tag, analysis code, department, project etc). Our users have asked us to provide an easier way for users entering transactions to pick business analysis codes to assign to transactions, particularly when they have implemented more advanced business analysis structures across several groups. To help reduce the time spent in terms of looking for and choosing the right analysis code for a transaction, we ve implemented a new set of filters within the analysis code (department) drop down on all main input screens. These filters are positioned under each analysis group and allow you to enter a search term to filter the associated list of analysis code elements. Matching results will appear automatically, you can choose one of these which will then filter the list of available analysis codes to assign to the transaction. This is more easily explained with this short video which shows a quick way of finding all projects based in London assigned to a manager Frank : 6 P a g e

7 Ability to Cancel (Un-posted) Invoices Many of our users have asked for the facility to cancel or remove item invoice records that have never been posted from the main invoice listing grids. This can be useful if you have created an invoice either through manual input or via integration from another system and you now wish to remove this invoice if it is no longer valid or was created in error. To facilitate this, we ve added a new Cancel invoices feature that will enable you to cancel an invoice which will then remove it from the active listing of invoices. A new Cancel button at the bottom of the invoice screen is now shown (also accessible from Actions on the Invoices Listing screens). A number of conditions must be met before an invoice can be cancelled: 1. Invoice has 'Processed' but not yet Posted status no posted invoices can be cancelled a credit note should be raised instead 2. Invoice has not come from an order cancelling an invoice and reverting the related order back to an un-invoiced status is not supported 3. Invoice has no stock (inventory) item codes on it - as cancelling an invoice would have stock (inventory) implications 4. For invoices subject to approval, the invoice must be in the Rejected state before it can be cancelled. Pending or approved invoices cannot be cancelled If it can be cancelled, the status of the invoice will be set to 'cancelled' and it will disappear off the main invoice listing thus removing unwanted entries from the listing. This short video shows how to use this function, and demonstrates that not all invoices can be cancelled: 7 P a g e

8 Access Control Permissions We re frequently asked how to provide greater levels of access permissions to control how certain functions are accessed within the system. The granting of access permissions is managed via the Administration layer of the system. There are now additional options to control user access to maintenance screens ( Add/Edit Customers, Add/Edit Suppliers, Add/Edit GL Accounts and Transactions Editing ). This means that certain users can be granted access to say view a list of customers or GL accounts but not go in and edit any specific records and change them. This is useful in a group deployment scenario where you want to provide users with visibility of the GL Listing Chart of Accounts but don t want them to edit the categories and sub categories against a given GL account record. Similarly, it is now possible to grant read-only access to the GL explorer and the drill down, but not enable such users to edit transactions. 8 P a g e

9 It is now also easier to administer access to the Item Listings for both Product (i.e. Stock) and Service/Non-Stock Items and access to the related editing screens. 9 P a g e

10 Reporting Enhancements We continuously receive new custom report requests and feedback on existing reports available in the system. We ve been working on improving some of the most popular reports in the system, in terms of making them easier to use and improving their functionality. The following enhancements to reports are now available to use: Extended Business Analysis >> Extended Business Analysis by Group We ve added a parameter drop down to select Analysis Codes or Analysis Groups to drive the report. In terms of presentation, the report now has Category, SubCategory and GL Account in one column, it is more presentable and takes less space. We ve also added a Level of Detail option to show just Categories, Categories and SubCategories or Categories, SubCategories and GL Accounts. Tax Reports >> Sales and Purchases Tax Detail Combined We ve completely redesigned the Sales and Purchases Tax reports available in the Report Manager>>Tax Reports section. There is now only one report entitled "Sales and Purchases Tax Detail Combined" with the options: Summary or detail level of information Base/Foreign Currency Sales, Purchases or both Accountancy Method: A. Invoice Based B. Ireland Cash basis C. UK Cash basis This change involved removal of the old versions of the Purchase Tax Details, Purchase Tax Summary, Sales Tax Details and Sales Tax Summary reports which are now replaced by the new one. Management Report Packs >> Management Accounts Pack We ve added a new Management Accounts Pack report in the Management Report Packs section of the Reports Manager. This report contains 4 tabs: A. Profit and Loss versus Budget B. Profit and Loss versus Last Year C. Balance Sheet versus Last Month and Last Year D. Profit and Loss Forecast - shows a 12 Period break down from Period 1 up to the Period selected as Actual figures and the rest up to 12 as Budgets We ve also added a Level of Detail parameter option to show SubCategories or GL Accounts to suit the level of detail required in the presentation. These reports have been tailored to present well in Excel when exported. 10 P a g e

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12 Consolidated Custom GL Reports > Profit and Loss by Entity Within Consolidation Group companies we ve added an Analysis Group parameter option on the Profit and Loss by Entity report to allow it to be run by Analysis Group. 12 P a g e

13 Purchase Commitment We ve changed the design of this report so that it firstly shows an overall summary of committed, budgeted and available spend. It then breaks this down by Analysis Code in vertical presentation mode. Trial Balance Detailed We ve added a department selection to the Trial Balance Detailed report, which will enable us to remove the separate Trial Balance Detailed by Department report. Customer/Supplier Invoices Due Total by currency box has been added at the end of this report. Sales by Customer A filter for Sales Representative has been added to this report. All reports in general have a better look, are faster and the export to Excel is improved 13 P a g e

14 Banking Enhancements New Bank Payment Files & Import File Formats Supported We ve recently added a set of new Bank Payment formats for Citibank (available for generation within the Supplier Batch Payments function): A. Citibank format for UK based account in EUR and transfer them within the Euro Payments Area (labelled Citibank SEPA Credit Transfer - Individual Debit`) B. Citibank format for UK based debut account in USD currency to make cross border funds transfers (labelled Citibank Cross Border Funds Transfer ) C. Citibank UK ACH Credit/BACs D. Citibank Faster Payments Single Immediate E. Citibank US ACH Credit F. Citibank US Funds Transfer We also now support the import of Citibank s MT940 bank statement file format. Finally, we ve also created a new payment extract file for Barclays.NET (labelled Barclays.NET ). New Indicator for Unprocessed Imported Bank Transactions We ve added a visual cue to notify users if there are unprocessed imported transactions associated with a particular bank account. This helps ensure that you are reminded of any unprocessed imported transactions for your various bank accounts. Clicking this link will load the Bank Transactions Import screen for the selected bank. This video demonstrates this feature. 14 P a g e

15 Layout Improvements to Admin Layer User Assignment Screens We ve made some layout improvements to the screens used within the Admin Layer to assign/reassign users to companies. We ve added the user s address and user type to the entries shown in the list of available users and have re-sized the screen to ensure its contents are more readable. 15 P a g e

16 Product Roadmap Autumn 2017 into 2018 Our Development teams will be delivering on an exciting Product Roadmap over the next 18 months full of features focussed on productivity enhancements to day-to-day finance functions, enhancing AccountsIQ s integration capabilities, extending core functions to mobile devices and providing world-class reporting capabilities. Some of the key deliverables from our Product Roadmap for the rest of are: Partial Reclaim VAT Reporting: Enhancements to provide support for those companies that can partially reclaim VAT Mobile Workflow App: Our first mobile app for Android and ios phones and tablets will enable Purchase Order & Invoice approval to take place on a mobile device. The app will allow you to connect to your company and download orders and invoices to approve or reject, plus view a full history of your previous approvals. In the future, we ll be adding support for the capturing of employee expense claims and Purchase Orders via the same mobile app, thus enabling your employees to capture this information themselves in their own time. Fixed Asset Register: One of our most requested functions. This will enable the maintenance of an integrated Fixed Asset Register within the system, including the automation of depreciation journals and integration with purchasing functions Major Upgrade to Consolidation: Several improvements to our Consolidation and Group Management functions with features to allow GLs/Chart of Accounts to be maintained across a group from the admin layer and improvements to the validation of data within the consolidation process. We ll also be introducing a new look and feel to group management and centralising the management of FX rates with a live FX feed integration as an option Major Upgrade to Journals Management: A full Journals Upgrade (AP/AR/GL/Bank) with auto accrual and prepayment spreading capability across periods including journal management with support for recurring journal entries. This will make a major difference to finance function month ends both in terms of time and reduction in errors and requirement for edits Concur Integration: We ll be launching a connector to facilitate the transfer of expenses data into AccountsIQ s AP ledger For more information on AccountsIQ cloud accounting software, please contact sales@accountsiq.com and we d be happy to arrange a demo. 16 P a g e