Batching Orders, Payments, and Scheduled Transactions

General Ledger (GL) Batches in Aptify transfer financial information from the Orders, Payments, and Scheduled Transactions services to the accounting system. The batch is designed to aggregate the individual entries in multiple orders, payments, or scheduled transactions by GL account number. Batches can aggregate any number of orders, payments, or scheduled transactions, but cannot include more than one type of record. For this reason, three batch types exist:

• Orders General Ledger Batch
• Payments General Ledger Batch
• Scheduled Transactions General Ledger Batch

The Batches service contains all three types of batches. All three of these batches are run independently through their own wizards. Neither validation nor restrictions are imposed as to when these batches can be executed, although it is recommended that the batches be run during off-peak time periods, so as to avoid any impact on system performance. Aptify does not enforce a strict methodology for the timing of these batches. However, Aptify recommends that batches be done on a monthly basis. This means the start date for the batch should be the first day of the month and the end date should be the last day of the given month. The actual date the batches are run is not as relevant, although it is a good practice to execute the batches on or near the same date each month. For example, run all batches on February 15th to consolidate the January transactions.

Note that Aptify does not support the concept of closing an accounting period. While batch transactions are locked down within Aptify, it is possible for users of the system to retroactively post transactions to earlier periods. For example, assume an organization batches all order transactions for the month of December 2005 and imports the consolidated information to the General Ledger from the batches run in Aptify. The organization subsequently closes the 2005 year and creates financial statements. Although Aptify has locked down all of the source transactions and protected the audit trail, the system does not prohibit an order from being posted retroactively. Aptify creates GL account entries for each payment, order, or scheduled transaction entered into the system. However, when a batch is run for export into an external accounting package, only a summary of the debits and credits for each account is extracted. In other words, a batch is the combined total within each section (Orders, Scheduled Transactions, or Payments), consolidating all GL Account entries for each GL Account for the time period selected.

The following sub-topics discuss the general rules for Aptify General Ledger Batches, describe the Aptify batch wizard process, and show how batch results can be exported to the organization's accounting system.

• Best Practices for GL Batching
• Creating General Ledger Batches in the Web Interface
• Creating General Ledger Batches in the Desktop Client
• Managing Accounting Periods
• Viewing GL Batch Results
• Exporting General Ledger Batch Information
• Understanding General Ledger Batching