Payment Methods

Payment methods are your organization’s list of the ways that money moves. A method can be cash, a bank transfer, a client’s cheque, a bill of exchange, a CIB or EDAHABIA card, or a CCP payment. CIB is the card that Algerian banks issue, and EDAHABIA is the card of Algérie Poste. CCP is a postal account at Algérie Poste. Every receipt and payment names one method, and the method decides what Confirm does with the money.

The Treasurer and the owner of your organization add and change methods, and the Cashier can read the list. You usually set it up once, when you start with Beelocity, and you rarely change it afterwards.

Opening Payment Methods

Open Treasury → Setup in the sidebar, and then its Payment Methods tab. Each row is one method, with these columns:

• Code: your short name for the method, such as CHQ-CLIENT or VIR-BNA. Click it to open the method.
• Name: the words that the picker shows when someone records a receipt or a payment.
• Instrument type: what the money is, such as cash, a cheque or a bank transfer.
• Direction: whether the method takes money in, money out, or both.
• Instrument tracking: whether Beelocity follows the paper of each payment, for a cheque, a bill of exchange or a promissory note.
• Requires clearing: whether a confirmed payment waits at Confirmed until somebody marks it cleared.
• Default account: the treasury account that Beelocity fills in when you pick this method.
• Active: whether the pickers still offer the method.

Press the filter button beside the search box to narrow the list. You can filter on Instrument type, Direction, Instrument tracking, Requires clearing, Default account and Active (Working with lists).

Creating a payment method

Press New, and fill in the form:

• Code opens on the next code, such as PMT-000004 after PMT-000003. Keep it, or type your own, such as CHQ-CLIENT. If you clear it, Beelocity gives the next code when you save.
• Name is the wording shown in the picker, such as Client cheque for collection.
• Instrument type is what the money is. When you pick it, Beelocity fills in a matching SCF code below.
• Direction support is Incoming for money that you receive, Outgoing for money that you pay, or Both. A receipt or a payment offers only the methods for its direction.
• Instrument tracking appears only for a Cheque, a Bill of exchange or a Promissory note, the paper that carries a number and a due date. When it is on, Confirm records the payment’s paper, and Beelocity follows it to the bank and back (Cheques & Bills of Exchange). The money reaches the cash ledger only when the paper clears. A bill of exchange or a promissory note is paid on a later date, so it is always tracked. Its switch is on, and you cannot turn it off. A cheque’s switch can stay off. Confirm then writes the cheque’s money into the cash ledger at once, as it does for a transfer.
• Requires clearing decides the status that Confirm leaves. When it is on, a confirmed payment stays Confirmed, and can still be cancelled, until the Treasurer or the owner marks it cleared. When it is off, the payment becomes Cleared at once, and nobody can cancel it. For a method that tracks no paper, the money reaches the cash ledger at Confirm either way. Tracked paper always requires clearing, so Beelocity turns this switch on, and you cannot turn it off. Cash never requires clearing, so a cash method shows no such switch.
• Default treasury account is the account that Beelocity fills in when you pick this method on a receipt or a payment. You can pick another one there. The list offers only the accounts that take this instrument. A card, a transfer or a direct debit never goes to a cash account, and paper goes only to a bank or CCP account. A point-of-sale register needs this account for every method except cash.
• Default SCF account code is a code from your chart of accounts, and SCF is the Algerian chart of accounts. Beelocity fills it in from the instrument type, such as 512 for a bank transfer. Nothing in Beelocity reads it today.

Press Save. You can change a method later on its page.

A typical Algerian SME catalog

Most organizations start with a small list like this one. Here the business typed its own codes. If it had kept the codes that Beelocity offers, they would read PMT-000001 onwards.

Say that a client pays a 250,000.00 DA invoice in cash. You pick Cash, and after the Treasurer confirms the receipt, the money is in your cash account’s balance. If the same client pays by cheque, you pick Client cheque for collection. At Confirm, Beelocity records the cheque, and the 250,000.00 DA reaches your bank balance only when the cheque clears.

Retiring a method

If payments already use a method, Beelocity refuses to delete it, because those payments keep it. Choose Deactivate in More actions on the method’s page instead. The method keeps its history, and the pickers stop offering it, so no new payment can use it. A point-of-sale register refuses it too. You can choose Activate later to bring it back.

If no payment uses a method, you can delete it with Delete in More actions on its page.