The Payment Reference is included in Bank Transfer ‘aba’ files that are uploaded to your bank and the reference flows through to your Supplier’s bank statement.
It may be referred to on bank documentation as the ‘Lodgement Reference’.
Payments can be created in two ways in Online Advantage:
- Via a Payment Run
- Via Manual Payments
Payment Run
When initiating a payment run, if only one invoice is found to be due for a Supplier, then the invoice number is defaulted as the Payment Reference for that supplier payment on the payment run.
The Payment Reference can be entered/changed at various steps of the Payment Run process.
Manual Payment
When entering a manual payment, the Payment Reference is manually entered.
Bank Transfer
When payments are entered/created and the payment method is ‘bank transfer’ then the details of the payment are summarised under a Bank Transfer ‘Reference’ (think of it is as a batch or group of payments).
The Payment Reference can be adjusted (or entered) for each individual payment (item) within the Bank Transfer Reference (or batch).
A Payment Reference can be entered for the Bank Transfer batch as a whole.
When the Bank Transfer details are finalised and an ‘aba’ file is created for export, the ‘Lodgement Reference’ for each payment in the aba file is derived as follows:
If there is a Payment Reference entered against an individual payment, that will be used.
If there is no Payment Reference at the item level, then the Payment Reference for the group (batch) level is used.
If there is no Payment Reference for the item or the group, the Remittance Advice number for the payment is used.
If there is no Payment Reference for the item, or group, and no Remittance Advice number (an unlikely occurrence), the Bank Transfer Reference number is used.