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Multiple Payment Posting

Available from the main menu via the button only.

Used to post payments for multiple deals.

Initial Entry: How To Load

Before entering the multiple payment posting screen, please mark the locations that you wish to post payments against.

There are four methods in which to payment information to the screen:

All active leases
This will load payment information for all active deals in the marked locations. This is the most common usage.

Recurring payments for day "1" only 
If you have marked deals for recurring payments, then you may use this option to only load those active deals that have a recurring payment day on the day entered in the Day "1" field.

Payments due on day "1" through day "2"
This will load payment information for all active deals with payment due days in the day range provided in the Day fields.

Import from external file
ALMSys will accept external payment information in an ASCII, comma delimited, text (TXT) file format. Each payment line must be properly terminated with a carriage return, as is standard with text files. The fields that are required are:
  • Account number
  • Payment amount
  • Payment date
  • ALMSys deal number (optional)

    Samples of accepted data:

    21054,255.37,5/1/2000

    1632,350.54,05/01/00,1

    14A50,499,05/01/2000,1

    All payment data should also "find its way" to the "Lease Car Payments" ledger account. ALMSys provides manual payment disbursement information on a monthly basis to clear this account. (It is not necessary to clear this account more than once per month. History has shown that more frequent balancing can have disastrous results.)

    Fields
  • Account number. The account number must match the ALMSys account number exactly. It is an alphanumeric field and may be a maximum of fifteen (15) characters in length.
  • Payment amount. Payments may be entered without the decimal if there are no cents as part of the payment. For example, $499.00 may be entered as "499.00", "499.0", or "499". Please do not use a comma as a thousands separator as commas are used solely to separate the different fields. For example, "$1,002.55" would be entered as "1002.55". All payments received will be treated as "normal" payments. Pay-offs, negative payments, and interest-only payments will not be accepted.
  • Payment date. This is the date on which the payment was made. The format must be "month/day/year", where month may be single or double digit, day may be single or double digit, and year may be a double or quadruple digit number. If a two digit year is specified, "20" will be assumed as the century.
  • ALMSys deal number. ALMSys uses a different internal number to keep multiple deals for the same account separated. ALMSys simply numbers each deal 1, 2, 3, and so on. This field should be specified, but is not required. If this field is not provided, ALMSys will use the following logic to determine which deal to apply the payment (only active deals are reviewed):

    a. Payment match. The first deal for this account with a normal monthly payment amount that matches will be used.

    b. Owed match. The first deal for this account with a total owed amount that matches will be used.

    c. Oldest last payment match. The deal with the oldest last payment date will be used.

    d. Default match. If no match has been determined, then the first active deal for this account will be used.

    File Information

    A directory (folder) is required to which both systems have full (read/write) access. For network versions of ALMSys, a subfolder entitled "Payments" under the current "almsys" parent folder is recommended.

    Any file naming convention that is desired may be utilized, so long as the file extension is ".txt". It is suggested that a naming convention that incorporates a date be used so that file names are visually easy to recognize when they were created. An example of this might be "05012000.txt." Long file names will be accepted.

    Errors
  • Duplicate payments (same amount on same date) will be rejected.
  • Negative payments will be rejected.
  • Zero dollar payments are meaningless and will be rejected.
  • Account mismatches will be rejected.
  • Payments for terminated (closed) leases will be rejected.

    All active deals NOT active for recurring
    This is just like "All active payments," except that it will exclude any deal which is marked as active for recurring payments.

    Load Last Payment Information?
    Last payment made information may be added to the fields in the resulting grid. Doing so will slow the load process.

    Recurring payments for the Date Range 
    This will take any recurring payment schedule and load the screen with what is due in date range provided.

    Layout / How To
    The overall idea of this screen is to use the mouse to click on payments that need to be posted. This screen acts like a worksheet, meaning that payments are not actually posted until you press Post All Marked Payments.

    The grid may be sorted by any column presented; simply click on the desired column header. There are more columns than will fit on one screen. Scroll right for more column choices. Whenever you resort, the record on which you are currently positioned will remain on the screen and the other records will be resorted around this record. Use the Search field to look up specific values in the column that is currently sorted upon. (This does not work with numeric and date fields.)

    The left three columns are for recording your payment post requests. Again, payments are not permanently posted until the Post All Marked Payments button is pressed.

    Before marking a payment to be posted, set the payment date and post date fields at the top of the screen. You are allowed to post payments with different dates for different deals in the same posting session. Whatever the dates are set to when you mark a payment will be recorded in the left columns.

    The dates are changed by either direct edit or by pressing the corresponding spinner buttons on the right of each date. The payment date cannot be greater than the post date. When moving the dates back in time, move the payment date first. When moving forward in time, move the post date first.

    Mark a payment to be posted by simply clicking on any of the payment amount columns: Billed, Normal, Special, Input $. The Billed column represents the total amount that was last billed for the lease. The Normal column represents the current, normal monthly payment amount. The Special column is prefilled from the Special Amount for Multiple Payment Post field on the General Billing Information screen. Use this for those amounts that a customer usually pays based on past experience.

    If none of the first three payment amount columns match what the lessee paid, you may manually enter the amount in the Input $ field. To mark the newly typed amount, tab forward to the Ck. # field and then click on the amount that you typed.

    As you mark payments, a running tally will be calculated at the top of the screen.

    The screen is loaded with only one line per deal. If you need to post an additional payment for the same deal, then right-click on the customer's account number and select, "Add another payment line for this deal" from the pop-up menu. You may post as many payments for a deal as you want, but please make sure that you post them in chronological order.

    Erasing a marked payment may be accomplished by simply clicking on an empty payment amount field for the deal, or by clicking anywhere on the deal and then pressing the Erase Payment button.

    If you want a Deposit Slip Report for the payments marked, select Reports - Deposit Slip from the menu.

    If you entered Multiple Payment Posting via Pay By Account, then a "Pay by Account" box will appear at the bottom of the screen. Use this box to specify check number and "How Paid?" information. This information will be applied to all marked entries. (You will not see it on the individual lines; it will be applied when you click the Post All Marked Payments button.)

    If you did not enter this screen via Pay By Account, then a "For All Accounts" box will appear at the bottom of the screen. Use this box ONLY if you wish to specify "How Paid?" information for ALL payments posted in this session.

    Press the Post All Marked Payments button to post the payments. The payments will be posted, a report of the payments will be placed into the print queue, and the payment selections will be erased. You may then post more payments or exit back to the main menu.

    The multiple payment session may be saved and resumed at a later time. When you exit, you will be asked if you wish to save the session (if you have at least one payment marked). When you enter the screen at a later time, you will be asked if you wish to resume the session.

    Reports
    Payments Posted