The ‘Allocate Payments’ option within Purchase Ledger Processing is used to allocate matching entries. Due to the manner in which monies are posted to the Purchase Ledger via the Cashbook, this option is most commonly used to tidy outstanding invoices, credit notes that cancel each other out. The Cashbook process can be found in the Cashbook Processing section of this guide.
Access the ‘Allocate Payments’ routine via: Purchase Ledger > Processing > Allocate Payments.
The system opens up the right hand side of the screen with the normal account search fields.
Enter search criteria as required and then select the ‘Search’ option. The purchase ledger account is automatically displayed.
The account code, name and address are displayed, along with the current balance and the account status. Assuming that the correct account has been located by the system, select the ‘Confirm’ option to proceed to the allocate payments routine. If the correct account is not displayed, select the ‘Cancel’ option to return to the search page.
When the ‘Confirm’ button is clicked, the following screen is displayed and used for the allocations.
The transactions posted to the account are all displayed in the lower section of the screen. There are search fields available across the middle of the screen that can be used to narrow down the transactions displayed in the lower section:
To begin allocating the transactions, hover the mouse over the line of the transaction to be allocated. In the scenario shown below, there is an invoice and a payment that can be allocated against each another. When the mouse is hovered over the transaction line, a blue triangle appears on the left hand side of the line.
Click on the tick box to allocate the invoice. The ‘Payment’ column is populated and the payment value is displayed on the right hand side of the transaction line.
Select the transaction line for the payment in exactly the same way. The Payment field is populated with the value of the payment, displayed on the right hand side of the screen. If a transaction is selected in error, click on the blue triangle on the left hand side of the transaction line again and an option to cancel the allocation is presented.
If a number of transactions have been incorrectly allocated, select the ‘Reset’ option from the bottom of the screen to effectively undo the entire allocation exercise completed so far. In the event that an entire page or the entire account require allocation, the options at the bottom of the screen labelled ‘Pay Page’ and ‘Pay All’ can be used – although these options are more commonly used during the Sales Ledger Receipt routine from the Cashbook.
Once the transactions have been successfully allocated, the ‘Payment’ field within the Payment Details section of the screen should display a 0.00 balance.
Select the ‘Accept’ option to complete the process. The system returns to the search screen displayed at the beginning of the Allocate Cash process.
It is not possible to part allocate an item. If allocation of a credit note or payment against a larger invoice value is required, select the credit note/payment first and enter the credit note/payment value in the payments column against the invoice. This will show the difference in the discount column and will post it to the nominal code set against the Discount Taken field in the Accounting Group attached to the supplier record.
When allocating items if there is a requirement to temporarily exit out of the screen but do not wish to lose the allocations that have been done so far, click on the Exit option on the screen and this will return back to the Allocate Cash enquiry screen.
When this account is accessed again via the Allocate Cash option, the transactions previously flagged as Paid/Allocated will still be flagged to enable the continuation of allocations. This is particularly useful when allocating warranty SBI’s as they can all be matched off and then see the difference that needs to be posted to clear the warranties, exit out of the allocation routine to save the allocations so far, post an invoice or credit note to the account for the warranty difference and then go back in to the allocate cash routine to pick up the transaction just entered to complete the process.