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Are you utilizing ACH payments in Dynamics NAV?

Published Date
Author Tony Castellano

Every year in roughly the late October/November time frame, Microsoft releases a new Microsoft Dynamics NAV version. Each year partners and customers ooh and ahh over the new changes which could range from technical changes to additional functionality.

One thing not to lose sight of is all the changes that have been made to the NAV product since it changed to a purely three-tier architecture with the release of version NAV 2013. There is a great online tool from Microsoft to see all the differences in the NAV versions called the Microsoft Dynamics NAV Comparison Tool, you can find it here.  

 

Many of our existing customers find value in sending electronic payments to vendors and electronic refunds to customers using the electronic payments function.   Electronic payments are exported in one of the standard Automated Clearing House (ACH) file formats and transmitted to the bank for processing. Electronic payment processing is considered to be more secure and less costly than printing and handling paper checks and has already been widely adopted throughout Europe.

 

Recently, a customer was looking to replace check printing with ACH processing to save the time spent printing and processing checks as well as the material cost of the check stock, envelopes, and postage.  They wanted to be sure the vendor would still receive the remittance info so they know which invoices and credits are being applied to payments sent. Since NAV offers a remittance advice report (report 10083) along with electronic payments functionality, they might only need some customization time if they wanted it sent via email, automatically. In NAV 2017, an Approval Workflow for Payment Journals was added which would allow an approval process out of the box!

How can you get started with this functionality today? Check out MSDN and their How To Series.

To set up an electronic payment for a vendor bank account, follow these instructions:

  1. In the Search box, enter Vendors, and then choose the related link in Payables.
  2. Select the vendor for which you want to set up electronic payments.
  3. On the Navigate tab, in the Vendor group, choose Bank Accounts.
  4. Select the vendor bank account.
  5. On the Home tab, in the Manage group, choose Edit. The Vendor Bank Account Card opens.
  6. On the General FastTab, select the Use for Electronic Payments check box.
  7. Choose the OK button.

I remember 15 years ago when my Swiss wife asked me what I was doing one day at the grocery store. I said, “I am writing a check, why?” She said, “In Switzerland, we haven’t had checks for years, everything is done by ACH.” Just because an idea/feature is older, doesn’t mean it cannot deliver business value today.