EFT Payments

An EFT (Electronic Funds Transfer) payment is any disbursement of money from a bank account that is processed electronically. This is typically through either a debit card, direct deposit to employees, or online payments. They are similar to deposits in that one side of the transaction will always include the bank account from which the payment is written, but, a payment will cause the bank account to decrease, meaning a credit is applied to the ledger for this bank account.

In turn, the offset accounts you use will all be debits. Typically, the accounts that are used on the debit side of an EFT payment are expense, dedicated and sometimes liability. A debit will increase, decrease and decrease these accounts respectively.

EFT Payments will have one of the following statuses:

» Paid — The EFT Payment has been written, but has not yet been cleared through the bank account reconciliation utility. Paid EFT Payments may be edited within the fiscal year they were written in.

» Cleared — The EFT Payment has been cleared through the bank account reconciliation utility. An EFT Payment in this status cannot be edited, voided or stopped.

» Void — The EFT Payment has been voided, and all of its line items have been reversed, setting the EFT to $0.00. EFT Payments from a prior fiscal year cannot be voided; they must be stopped.

» Stop payment — Stopping an EFT Payment saves the details of the EFT Payment, and creates a reversing journal entry to provide an audit trail. The reversing journal entry that is created is dated with the current date.

• EFT payments can be added, edited, copied and voided within the Payments window. You can filter to see just your EFT payments by going to the "Filter" box and selecting "By EFT"
• This grid will show your EFT Payments, with their Document number, date, amount, description, status, vendor, which bank account it was paid from, if there is a note on the check, and its internal transaction ID.
• You can select which book's EFT Payments you're viewing in the "Book" drop list, and you can select which bank account's EFT Payments you're viewing in the "Account" drop list.
• By default, this view will show the last 24 months of EFT payments. If you wish to see beyond that, uncheck the "Last 24 months" checkbox.
• Click the "Add" button to add a new payment. Choose the "EFT" option to create a new EFT payment.

1. At the next window that appears, select which bank account you want to write the EFT Payment from. This will be sorted by account number, but if you wish to sort by name, check the "Sort by name" checkbox. Click select once you've clicked on the bank account you wish to use.
2. In the window that appears, you can change the bank account selected by clicking the pencil icon next to it in the top left corner.  The current balance, pending/held balance, and total available balance are along the top of the window. In the top right corner, you'll see the total for this payment.
3. The "Pay by" drop list will let you switch between payment types. 
4. In the "Payee" field, you'll select which payee this EFT payment is for. If you need to add a new Payee, click the green plus button to be taken to the payee window to add a new payee.
5. After selecting the payee, if you need to repeat the last payment you created for them, click the "Get last payment" button. Note, that if the last payment to this vendor was coming from a different bank account or charge account, you will receive a warning, in case this payment is supposed to go against that bank or charge account instead.
6. Next, set the EFT Payment's status. If you want this payment to affect your balances immediately, set the status to "Paid". If you're writing this payment in advance, but it hasn't been processed yet, set the status to "Pending"
7. Enter any description you want to appear in the memo field of the payment in the "Description" field.
8. In the dark gray area of the window, you can enter the line items for your EFT Payment. In the account drop box, you can select which account you'd like to use as an offset account. By default, only liability, expense and dedicated accounts can be selected, but if you click the filter button to the left of this drop list, you can choose additional account types to use. The accounts will be sorted in name order if the "Enter by name" box is checked.
9. Enter any description you want for the line item in the "Description" field, then fill in the amount for this line item in the amount field. If there is an invoice number you want to use for this line item, fill it in on the "Invoice" field. If this invoice number should be used for multiple lines, click the padlock icon, and this will repeat on the next line item as well. If this invoice number was used on another payment, you will receive a warning if the payment is for the same vendor to help you avoid paying the same payment twice.
10. Click the add button to add this line item to the EFT payment. Repeat steps 8-10 until you have added each line item you need to the EFT payment.
11. If you need to change a line item you've added, click on it, and click the "Edit" button at the bottom of the window. If you need to delete a line item, click on the line item and click the "Delete" button at the bottom of the window.
12. If you have any attachments, such as an image of an invoice for this EFT payment, you can click the Paperclip icon on the right side of the window to bring up the attachments window. There are three slots to enter attachments, click the green plus sign next to one of the slots to search your computer for a file to attach to the check payment. To remove an attachment click the paperclip with the red x in that slot.  Click OK when finished.
13. Click the thumbtack icon to add a note to this EFT payment.
14. If you need to add multiple EFT payments at once, make sure the "Add multiple?" box is checked.
15. Click Save to save your EFT payment.

If you need to make changes to an EFT payment after it's been written, you can edit your payment, as long as it has not been cleared, voided or is from a prior Fiscal Year.

1. On the Payments window, search for the EFT Payment that you want to edit.
2. Once you have found the payment, click on it to select it, and then click the "Edit" button at the bottom of the window.
3. The EFT Payment window will appear. To edit a line item, click on the line item in question and click "Edit" at the bottom of the window.
4. If you need to delete a line item, click on it and click "Delete"
5. You can also add any line items through the dark gray area of the window.
6. Click "Save" when finished.

If you need to void or stop an EFT Payment use the following procedure:

1. On the Payments window, search for the EFT Payment you want to void or stop.
2. Once you have found the payment, click on it to select it, and then click the "Edit" button at the bottom of the window.
3. At the bottom right-hand corner of the payment window, if this payment has not been cleared and it is from your current fiscal year or later, you will see the void option. Click this option to void the payment. A window will appear to confirm you want to void the payment. Click "Yes" to mark the payment as "Void"
4. If this payment is not cleared, you will also see the "Stop" option. Click this option to stop the payment. A window will appear to confirm you want to stop the payment, and create the corresponding reversing journal entry. Click "Yes" to stop the payment and create the corresponding reversing journal entry.