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Managing accounts payable / creditors and accounts receivable / debtors
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=======================================================================
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Open ERP provides many tools for managing customer and supplier accounts. You'll see here:
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* financial analysis of partners, to understand the reports that enable you to carry out an analysis
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of all of your partners,
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* multi-level reminders, which is an automatic system for preparing reminder letters or emails when
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invoices remain unpaid,
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* detailed analysis of individual partners.
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Financial analysis of partners
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------------------------------
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single: module; board_account
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pair: dashboard; accounting
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When members of your accounts department sign on to the Open ERP system, they can immediately be
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presented with the :guilabel:`Accounting Dashboard`. By default it contains a useful graph for analyzing
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Receivables. To get access to it, install the module :mod:`board_account`. Then look at it using
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the menu :menuselection:`Dashboards --> Accounting --> Accounting Dashboard`.
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.. figure:: images/account _board.png
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*Accounting Dashboard*
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.. index:: balance; aged
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In the dashboard, the graph at the right entitled :guilabel:`Aged Receivables` represents your
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receivables week by week. That shows you at a glance the cumulative amount of your customer debtors
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All of Open ERP's graphs are dynamic. So you can, for example, filter the data by clicking
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:guilabel:`Zoom` and then :guilabel:`Filter` on the Search form. Or just click on :guilabel:`Zoom`
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to open in a larger window for a graph, then click :guilabel:`Search` to display this in a list
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To obtain a more detailed report of the aged balance (or order by past date) use the menu
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:menuselection:`Finance --> Accounting --> Reporting --> Partner Accounts --> Aged Partner balance`.
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.. figure:: images/account_balance.png
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*Aged balance using a 30 day period*
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When opening that report, Open ERP asks for the name of the company, the fiscal period and the size
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of the interval to be analyzed (in days). Open ERP then calculates a table of credit balance by
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period. So if you request an interval of 30 days Open ERP generates an analysis of creditors for
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the past month, past two months, and so on.
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For an analysis by partner you can use the partner balance that you get through the menu
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:menuselection:`Financial Management --> Reporting --> Partner Accounts --> Partner balance`. The
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system then supplies you with a PDF report containing one line per partner representing the
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cumulative credit balance.
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.. figure:: images/account_partner_balance.png
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If you want detailed information about a partner you can use the partner ledgers that you reach
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through the menu :menuselection:`Financial Management --> Reporting --> Partner Accounts --> Partner
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.. figure:: images/account_partner_ledger.png
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Finally you can look up individual account entries by searching for useful information. To search
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* by journal, go through the menu :menuselection:`Financial Management --> Entries Encoding -->
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Entries Encoding by Line`,
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* by account, go through the menu :menuselection:`Financial Management --> Charts --> Chart of
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Accounts` and double-click the appropriate account,
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* by making a global search, go through the menu :menuselection:`Financial Management --> Entries Encoding
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--> Entries Encoding by Move` and searching,
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* by partner, do it by navigating from a :guilabel:`Partner` field in any form that shows it to the partner then
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using the buttons to the right of the partner form.
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.. tip:: Exporting entries
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It's helpful to remember that you can export all types of resource in Open ERP.
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From the web client you need to navigate to a search list for the resource then click
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the :guilabel:`Export` link at the bottom left of the list.
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From the GTK client you'd use the menu :menuselection:`Form --> Export`.
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This enables you to easily make your own analysis in Microsoft Excel or OpenOffice.org Calc,
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by exporting accounting entries.
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single: module; account_followup
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Multi-step follow-ups
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---------------------
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To automate the management of followups (reminders) you must install the module
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:mod:`account_followup`. This is installed automatically as part of the accounting profile, but is
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not part of the other profiles. Or you can install it alone.
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Once the module is installed configure your levels of followup using the menu
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:menuselection:`Financial Management --> Configuration --> Follow-Ups`.
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The levels of follow-up are relative to the date of creation of an invoice and not the due date.
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This enables you to put payment conditions such as 'payable in 21 days' and send a reminder in 30
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days, or the converse.
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For each level you should define the number of days and create a note which will automatically be
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added into the reminder letter. The sequence determines the order of the level in ascending order.
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.. csv-table:: Example of configuring followup levels
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:header: "Sequence","Level","Days","Description"
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:widths: 5, 5, 15, 15
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"1","Level 1","30 days net","First payment reminder"
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"2","Level 2","45 days net","Second reminder"
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"3","Level 3","60 days from end of month","Put on notice"
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You can send your reminders by mail and/or email with the menu :menuselection:`Financial Management
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--> Periodical Processing --> Send followups`.
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.. figure:: images/account_followup_wizard.png
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*Form for preparing follow-up letters*
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Open ERP presents you with a list of partners who are due reminders, which you can modify before
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starting the procedure. On the second tab of the form you can supply the information you'll send in
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The system then gives you a PDF report with all of the reminder letters for each partner. Each
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letter is produced in the language of the partner (if that's available) and you can therefore get
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letters in several languages in the same PDF on several pages.
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To check the due date of customers and/or suppliers before starting the reminder procedure, use
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the menu :menuselection:`Financial Management --> Periodical Processing --> Send followups`.
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You get a list of unreconciled entries accounts. You can then modify
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the date and the last follow-up and the level of reminder for each entry.
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To obtain a detailed report per partner use the menus in :menuselection:`Financial Management -->
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Reporting --> Follow-Ups`.
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The different reports are standard Open ERP screens, so you can filter them and explore the elements
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.. figure:: images/account_followup.png
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*Summary screen for follow-ups*
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single: overdue payments
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In daily use of Open ERP a manager will often need to search quickly for financial
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information amongst partner data. For this she can use the buttons to the right of form when she
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opens a partner form, to go directly to:
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* a follow-up letter from the :guilabel:`Overdue payments` Report button,
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* the list of open :guilabel:`Invoices`,
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* a shortcut to :guilabel:`All account entries`,
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* the unclosed CRM requests from :guilabel:`Open cases`,
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* a shortcut to the unreconciled :guilabel:`Receivables and Payables`.
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The exact links depend on the modules that are installed in Open ERP.
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These links are also available to her using the navigation features such as right-clicking partner
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fields in the GTK client.
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The :guilabel:`Overdue payments` report produces a PDF document which is used for follow-up but it
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doesn't modify any of the partner's accounting entries. Its use doesn't increase the follow-up
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level so you can run this report repeatedly without any problem.
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In Open ERP you can search for a partner on the basis of the value of its trade receivables. So
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search for partners with a credit amount between 1 and 99999999 and you'll get a list of partners
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that owe you payment. You can then select the whole list and print follow-up letters for them all.
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To the right of the partner form there's a shortcut to :guilabel:`Invoices`. This link includes
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all of the invoices defined in the systems, namely:
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* supplier credit notes.
220
.. tip:: Reminders from accounting entries
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Companies that do not have computerized records tend to keep track of payments from invoices and
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paperwork and not from a formal partner account.
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It's better to create reminder letters from a partner's account receivable than from unpaid bills,
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By using the Open ERP system you can easily take account of all advances, unreconciled payments,
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credit notes and credit payments.
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So it's better to send a letter based on the accounting entries of invoices and unreconciled
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payments than just on a list of unpaid invoices.
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In the links appearing on the partner form, two buttons enable the opening of partner accounting
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* :guilabel:`All account entries`,
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* :guilabel:`Receivables & Payables`.
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The first button is useful for obtaining a historical analysis of the customer or supplier. You can
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get information about such significant items as sales volume and payment delays. The second button
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is a filter which shows only the open trade credits and debits for the partner.
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