About the preparation of deposits

When a business receives customer payments, employees often record them to a specific bank account as cash.
However, the payments appear in the bank account later, when they are physically deposited.
As a rule, businesses deposit customer checks and cash to the bank in bulk.
Thus, during reconciliation of cash accounts with bank statements, employees often have trouble matching up the individual payments going into a cash account with the summary amounts of the deposits on a bank statement, which have the dates of the deposits at the bank.
These conditions create difficulties in accurately tracking cash on hand and reconciling the balances of cash accounts.

In Visma Net, you use bank deposits to track customer payments that you deposit to the bank in bulk.
When you enter into the system payments intended for such deposits, the payments are temporarily recorded to special clearing cash accounts.
These accounts hold payments drawn from customers' customer ledger accounts.

Before you make a physical deposit to the bank, you create a deposit in Visma Net and list within it all the payments and cash that make up the physical deposit.
After you have made the deposit to the bank, you release the deposit in Visma Net.
As a result, the system generates a batch of transactions to move the payment amounts from clearing accounts to the bank account and to record the charges incurred as expenses.

In this topic, you will read about how to configure the processing of bank deposits, record a deposit in the system, and make any needed corrections.

Configuring deposit processing

You configure the bank deposit processing by performing the following steps:

Create entry types for all applicable bank charges on deposits by using the Entry types (CA203000) window.
For more information, see: About the registration of finance charges
By using the Entry types tab of the Cash accounts (CA202000) window, associate the created entry types with the bank cash account you use to deposit payments.
By using the Cash accounts (CA202000) window, create at least one clearing cash account to temporarily store the records of customer checks and cash you are going to deposit.
The clearing account should be linked to a general ledger account of the Asset type denominated in a specific currency.
You should create separate clearing cash accounts to store payments in different currencies.
For more information, see: About cash account types and Create a cash account
On the Clearing accounts tab of the Cash accounts (CA202000) window, associate the created clearing cash accounts with the bank cash account you use to deposit payments in a specific currency.
While associating these accounts, you should specify the entry types to be used to record bank charges and bank charge rates.
Optionally, for each charge rate, you can specify a payment method used to record a deposited payment.
The system will apply such a charge rate to only deposited payments recorded with this payment method.
If a payment method is not specified, a charge rate is applied to deposited payments regardless of their payment method.
For more information, see: Specify a charge rate for a clearing account
By using the Payment methods (CA204000) window, configure payment methods for customers with Cash as the means of payment.
On the Allowed cash accounts tab of the window, assign a clearing account in the customer's currency as the cash account allowed for each method.
If you are going to use this payment method mostly for recording payments to be deposited, mark it as the default by selecting the Customer ledger default check box.
For more information, see: About payment methods for customers
In most cases, these payment method for customers are already present in the system by default and you only need to associate a clearing account with the payment method.
Make sure that the payment methods described in the previous step are available to customers that will pay by cash.
That is, make sure that the payment method is listed for each of these customers on the Payment methods tab of the Customers (AR303000) window.

You can adjust the precise configuration or the number of clearing accounts for the same bank account, and the number of payment methods with the same clearing account to best fit your business and its customer base.

Processing deposits

Once bank deposit processing has been configured, you can use this functionality as follows:

Collecting customer payments on clearing accounts:
When a customer payment is received, you enter it into the system in the Customer payments (AR302000) window and specify the payment method.
Because the payment method is associated with a clearing account, you can select it in the Cash account field to record the payment to this clearing account.
(If the clearing cash account is marked as the default account for the selected payment method, the system will use it automatically.)
When the clearing cash account is selected, the system displays the Deposit after field in the window, where you should specify the starting date when the payment can be added to a deposit.
Also, once a cash sale is completed, you can record it to an appropriate clearing cash account.
Composing a deposit:
When a deposit is being prepared for a particular bank, by using the Bank deposits (CA305000) window, you can create a new deposit in the system.
To the deposit, you add payments from the clearing account associated with the bank account.
A deposit can include a consolidated cash amount to be deposited along with customer checks.
You specify the cash account from which you want to deposit cash in the Cash drop account field and the amount of cash to be deposited in the Cash drop amount field.
Printing the deposit slip:
If needed, you can run and print the Deposit slip (CA656500) report, which lists all the payments and the total amount of cash to be deposited.
Also, the slip contains such information as the deposit total with all bank charges deducted, the bank information (name, address, and account number), and the company name and address.
Releasing the deposit:
Once the payments listed on the deposit slip are physically deposited to the bank, you can make changes to the deposit by using the Bank deposits (CA305000) window to match the list of payments accepted by the bank and to reflect all the charges applied by the bank; you can then release the deposit.
The system by default calculates and adds the applicable bank charges associated with the clearing account.
The user can change the rate of the applicable charges for the deposit, remove any of the charges, and add other charges.
If the charges should not be deducted from the deposit amount, on the Financial details tab, select the Separate charges check box before you release the deposit.

Once the deposit is released, the system generates a batch of deposit-related transactions to transfer the payment amounts from clearing accounts to the bank account and to post the bank charges incurred for the deposit as expenses.
The bank charges will be specified as a separate transaction in the batch if the Separate charges option (for the deposit) has been selected; otherwise, their total amount will be deducted from the deposit amount.

Voiding deposits

If necessary, you can void a deposit by using the Void button in the window toolbar of the Bank deposits (CA305000) window.
The system creates a voided deposit with the same list of payments included and the same accounts and subaccounts involved.

You may need to void a payment included in a deposit.
The system doesn't allow you to void payments included in unreleased deposits, so you should either delete them from the deposit and void them separately or release the deposit and then void the payment.

You can use the Void on clearing account check box on the Settings for customer ledger tab of the Payment methods (CA204000) window as follows to control how exactly the payment from the released deposit will be voided:

If the Void on clearing account check box is cleared, for a payment you void, the system creates the transactions between the customer ledger account and the bank account to reflect the voided payment.
You can use this option for payment methods based on payments if the bank handles voided payments by adjusting the deposit amounts.
If the Void on clearing account check box is selected, for a payment you void, the system creates the transactions between the customer ledger account and the clearing account to reflect the voided payment.

Also, you can use this option for payment methods based on payments if the bank handles voided checks by creating separate transactions that do not affect the deposits.

Handling payments recorded by mistake

To ease the creation of deposits, you should assign to a clearing account only those payment methods whose payments should be deposited to the respective bank account.
If unrelated payments are recorded to the clearing account, users will spend extra time selecting the proper payments for the deposit from a list of related and unrelated payments.
If over time you detect that unrelated payments have been recorded to the clearing account by mistake (and thus cannot be included in any deposit), remove the payments from the clearing account by voiding them and creating new ones with the proper cash accounts specified.

If you realise that the payments (cash sales) to be deposited were recorded to a cash account that is not a clearing account, you should void them and create new ones with the proper cash accounts specified.