Audience: Accounting Manager and MineralTree Administrator
Summary: Reviews how to create payment schedules and automate payments on a company-wide scale or at the vendor level.
The article covers the following topics:
- Overview of Payment Scheduling
- Setting up scheduling rules (Accounting Manager or Admin)
- Company-wide Payment Scheduling (Admin)
- Payment Scheduling by Vendor (Accounting Manager)
Overview of Payment Scheduling
Auto-scheduling allows users to schedule invoices to be paid on a specified date. This can be done at a company-wide level or at the vendor level. Even if a payment is auto-scheduled, it will still follow any invoice approval and payment authorization rules applied to it, and the payment will only be processed once all approvals/authorizations have been granted. Once the scheduled date arrives, auto-scheduled payments will go straight to your Payment Approvers for authorization. If the auto-scheduled date passes without invoice approval, the payment must be manually submitted.
Given that all invoice approvals are obtained before the auto-scheduled date, the payment will be submitted on the auto-scheduled date in one of two states:
- Awaiting Approval – if payment approvals are required
- Scheduled - if payment approvals are not required
MineralTree does not recommend using the Auto-Scheduling Payments feature if payment authorizations are not required.
Auto-scheduled payments will not be submitted if MineralTree detects that the required payment information is incomplete (e.g. invalid address for check payments, missing vendor information).
Setting Up Scheduling Rules
The first step in scheduling payments is to set up the various schedules you ultimately want to apply to your payments. This is done by navigating to Company Profile by clicking your initials on the top right of the navigation bar. When you select Company Profile, you will be taken to the Settings tab. From there you can see any existing schedules and add a new one. Click the Add New Schedule link to add a new schedule.
From there, you have several scheduling options that can be applied before or after the Invoice Date, Due Date, or Discount Date
- Number of days
- Day of the Week
- Day of the Month
To Pay on the due date, set the rule as “0” days before or after the due date
To Pay on the discount date, set the rule as “0” days before or after the discount date
Ex: Schedule for paying the Monday before the discount date:
Day of the Month allows you to choose up to two payment dates in a month. Many companies do their payment runs twice a month, so this allows automation of that.
Ex: Schedule for paying the 1st and 15th of the month - whichever date comes before the invoice due date:
Company-wide Payment Scheduling
Once you create the schedules, those schedules can be set on a company-level. This setting can only be completed by a MineralTree administrator. When scheduling payments at the company-wide level, all payments up to the set amount ($) threshold will follow the payment scheduling rules.
1. Click into Settings > Manage Company Settings to access the Administrator Application.
2. In the Payment Approval tab, you will see an Auto-Scheduling Payments section at the bottom. The feature is disabled by default.
3. Select Payment Schedule. Options will display to configure payment threshold amount and to select and existing schedule.
4. You may select a previously created vendor schedule and determine which payment values should be scheduled. Payments greater than $250K should not be auto-scheduled due to restrictions with certain banks.
Auto Schedule allows for an automation of payments while Manual Schedule will not force a payment, but rather allow the selected schedule to appear to Accounting Managers and Payment Authorizers throughout their workflows as a reminder of the ideal schedule for that particular payment.
Once the relevant invoice approvals are complete, the invoice will be submitted for payment and it is posted back to your accounting system by your Accounting Manager. The payment date will be determined by the schedule you set.
Vendor Level Payment Scheduling
This setting can only be completed by a MineralTree Accounting Manager user. If payments are auto-scheduled at the vendor level, the vendor level rule will override any company-wide rule but only apply to invoices from that specific vendor. You can also auto-schedule payments for specific vendors without having auto-schedule payments enabled at the company-wide level. If auto-scheduling payments is enabled for a vendor, separate payments will still be sent out for each invoice from that vendor.
To set up an auto-schedule at the vendor level, follow the following steps:
1. Go to the Vendor Details page. You can access the Vendor Details page by navigating to Search > Vendors.
2. Click into the vendor for which you'd like to schedule payments.
3. Scroll down to the Payment Preferences section.
4. Select Payment Schedule. Options will display to configure payment threshold amount and to choose an existing schedule.
Auto Schedule allows for an automation of payments while Manual Schedule will not force a payment, but rather allow the selected schedule to appear to Accounting Managers and Payment Authorizers throughout their workflows as a reminder of the ideal schedule for that particular payment.
Once the relevant invoice approvals are complete, the invoice will be submitted for payment and it is posted back to your accounting system by your Accounting Manager. The payment date will be determined by the schedule you set.