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TRANSCRIPT
AMC Consult A/S
January 2015
Ver. 2012.3.0.0
USER GUIDE
FOR
AMC DIRECTDEBIT (PRE-AUTHORIZED PAYMENTS)
FOR DYNAMICS AX 2012
english version
| Introduction 2
Contents
1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 4
2 Why use AMC DirectDebit? ................................................................................................. 5
3 Structure............................................................................................................................. 6
4 General setup ..................................................................................................................... 7
Parameters ............................................................................................................................ 7
Customer parameters............................................................................................. 7
Web service parameters ........................................................................................ 9
Log ........................................................................................................................ 12
About .................................................................................................................... 13
Banks ................................................................................................................................... 14
Synchronize bank list ............................................................................................ 16
Company specific file paths .................................................................................. 17
Bank accounts ..................................................................................................................... 17
Bridging posting .................................................................................................... 19
Bank days............................................................................................................................. 20
Bank day principles ............................................................................................... 21
Create bank days .................................................................................................. 22
Journals ............................................................................................................................... 23
Collections journals .............................................................................................. 23
Mandates journals ................................................................................................ 24
Advice .................................................................................................................................. 25
Bank file advice ..................................................................................................... 25
Email advice .......................................................................................................... 28
Mandate templates ............................................................................................................. 29
5 Customer setup ................................................................................................................. 32
6 Mandates ......................................................................................................................... 36
Maintain mandates in volumes ........................................................................................... 36
Maintain mandates individually .......................................................................................... 38
| Introduction 3
7 Subscriptions .................................................................................................................... 40
Processable subscriptions ................................................................................................... 40
Pending subscriptions ......................................................................................................... 41
Active subscriptions ............................................................................................................ 43
8 Collection journal .............................................................................................................. 44
Customer transaction requirements ................................................................................... 44
Add collections .................................................................................................................... 44
Validating the journal .......................................................................................................... 46
Transferring the journal ...................................................................................................... 47
Send advice to customers ................................................................................................... 48
Import of return files ........................................................................................................... 48
Posting the journal .............................................................................................................. 50
9 Posting journal .................................................................................................................. 51
Add collections .................................................................................................................... 51
Validating the journal .......................................................................................................... 53
Posting the journal .............................................................................................................. 53
10 Process collections automatically ...................................................................................... 54
11 Customer scenarios ........................................................................................................... 56
None .................................................................................................................................... 57
SEPA DD CORE and B2B ....................................................................................................... 58
Nets LeverandørService ...................................................................................................... 59
Nets Betalingservice ............................................................................................................ 60
Nets Betalingservice Total ................................................................................................... 61
12 How does cash disc work? ................................................................................................. 62
| Introduction 4
1 INTRODUCTION
In order to benefit as much as possible from your AMC-DirectDebit module, you should follow this
user guide describing in detail, which parts of the system are to be processed for the module to
function correctly.
The guide will first review the basic setup module, which means the part of the setup that only
needs to be executed once. Additionally, you will also find detailed description of the module's
functions, so you can become familiar with the daily use of the module.
In the last sections of the manual you will be able to view the processes of the different DirectDebit
type the module can handle.
Some syntax in the manual:
Tables, describes field functionality
Field Activity
Tables, describes button functionality
Button Activity
| Why use AMC DirectDebit? 5
2 WHY USE AMC DIRECTDEBIT?
� Get your money on time
The most obvious reason for using the AMC DirectDebit module is to receive your money
on time.
Even though most direct debit solutions allow customers to cancel withdrawing of cash
from their accounts, a cancellation requires the customer to actively take action in order to
block the withdrawing of cash. Cancellations are not very likely, because a direct debit
solution is in general based on a mutual agreement between both vendor and customer.
Instead of requiring the customer to actively process a payment, a DirectDebit solution
instead requires the customer to actively cancel the transferring of cash, and experience
has shown, that customers are much more likely to neglect paying outstanding invoices,
than cancelling payments bound by an active agreement.
A DirectDebit solution should therefore be a cornerstone in your cash flow optimization
� Less settlement errors.
The direct debit process is backed by a number of bank return files, references etc.
allowing the process to complete more or less automatically. Outstanding invoices will be
reconciled and posted upon receival, making the process of having to register customer
payment manually obsolete. This saves both time and money, while minimizing settlement
errors, which again helps optimizing your cash flow.
� More accurate cash need forecast.
Your forecasting for your cash needs is more accurate and therefore it minimizes the
margin of your cash needs, resulting in better cash flow.
Centralization.
Centralize your payment collection process from several legal entities into single company,
reducing the need for resources.
| Structure 6
3 STRUCTURE
AMC Direct Debit has 3 main functionalities.
1. AMC Direct Debit provides facilities for the collection of debts created in Dynamics AX. The
DirectDebit module can e.g. process collections throughout Europa via several different
banks. Furthermore the Direct Debit is easily expanded to allow new banks and solutions.
Should the module not contain your desired bank or collection solution, please contact
AMC or your reseller, to determine how to add the desired integration.
2. AMC Direct Debit provides facilities to receive, automatically settle and post processed
customer payments.
3. AMC Direct Debit provides facilities to easily maintain both electronic and physical
customer mandates, thus simplifying the process of handling your customer agreements.
| General setup 7
4 GENERAL SETUP
To get the most of your DirectDebit module, you should review the setup in this section carefully.
PARAMETERS
The basic parameters of the module are set up from AMC Direct Debit > Setup > Parameters.
CUSTOMER PARAMETERS
The customer tab contains setup specifically related to the process of collection customer
payments.
| General setup 8
The fields on the customer tab have the following features:
Field Description
Description This field is used to define the posting text in the payment journal.
You may use the following placeholders:
- %1 : Invoice number
- %2 : Customer account number
- %3 : Voucher number
- %4 : Due date
- %5 : Customer name
Tax registration number
Due to a general lack of consensus, on which field to use, when registering customers’ tax registration number, you are able to set up, which field from the customer table that is used by the AX legal entity/company.
The options are:
- Tax exempt number
- ID number
- Organisation number
Default bank The default bank which customers will be initialized with
Send advices automatically
If enabled, payment advices are automatically emailed to customers with specified email address and email template. The email is send (only) when the payment has been transferred successfully.
If not enabled, users have to print the payment advices manually from the journal. Note: Emails are send using standard AX email functionality. That also means that the standard AX email setup is used to configure the SMTP relay server
| General setup 9
WEB SERVICE PARAMETERS
For the DirectDebit module to be able to send and receive files, the module must be connected to
a web service, which can be hosted both locally as well as externally. The web service parameters
are set up on the web service tab.
| General setup 10
The fields have the following meanings:
Field Description
Use XTendLink
Use In this field you select AMC Direct Debit module to be used in the current company.
Addresses
Solution If you are using a AMC-DirectDebit Classic solution, please choose classic in this box. This results in the http sections being completed automatically with the correct addresses. Using an Enterprise solution (locally hosted webservice) allows the user to change to service adress parameters.
Primary address The address of the primary webservice. If using a classic solution, the field is specified automatically and cannot be edited
The address is specified using the following syntax:
https://servername:port/amcxml (e.g. https://mylocalwebservice:8080/amcxml)
Secondary address The address of the secondary (fallback) webservice. This address is usually only used in Classic solutions, where the primary server can be unavailable due to server maintanance etc.
This address is used if the primary address is not available.
Last connection Shows the last succesfull webservice adress used, and allows users to override which webservice adress to use next.
HTTPS
Status A status indicator displaying the status of the HTTPS communication between the AX AOS server and the webservice. The field is updated each time the webservice is called.
License
Serial Your Dynamics AX serial number (Used as webservice login username)
Password The webservice login password
Date verified The date when the license was last verified
| General setup 11
4.1.2.1 TESTING THE CONNECTION TO XTENDLINK
Once you have specified the web service parameters, you can test whether the AX AOS server is
able to communicate with the license server and bank conversion web service, by clicking the "Test
connection" button.
In addition to testing the communication, username (serial number) and password is also validated
to ensure that login information is valid.
4.1.2.2 CHECK LICENSE
Activates the license verification automatically
| General setup 12
LOG
You can setup a log if you need to view the communication between web service and Dynamics AX
Field Description
Log detail level
Log detail level In this field you can set up how much excessive to output info in the info log
The values are:
• All: All non-technical messages are shown
• Errors and warnings: Info level messages are suppressed
• Errors only: Only errors are shown
• Debug: All messages, also technical, are shown
Log
Log files Indicates whether the web service communication log is enabled.
File name The file path and the file name of the web service log file (cannot be changed)
| General setup 13
ABOUT
The about tab contains information regarding the Direct Debit modules version number and the
serial number of the AX license
| General setup 14
BANKS
Open AMC DirectDebit > Setup > Bank > Banks to set up your bank(s).
The table contains a list of banks, which have either been added automatically or manually.
The fields below have the following meanings:
Field Description
General
Bank A short name bank reference used throughout the module to refer to a given bank
Name A description/name of the bank
| General setup 15
Country/region The country of the bank
Active Indicates whether the bank is active (licensed)
License
License bank The license bank working as a technical bank reference when communicating with the web service
Workflow
Scenario The scenario is used to specify how to complete payment collection when using the bank.
E.g. is electronic or physical customer mandates required, should the sequence of customer collections be maintained etc.
Status of customers and payment transactions are both highly dependant on the selected scenario.
For more info please see Customer scenarios
The values are:
None, SEPA Core, SEPA B2B, Nets LS, Nets BS, Nets BST.
Ready for posting Indicates when a collection (payment) transaction is regarded as executed and thereby is postable The values are:
• Transferred Allows the user to post the collection immediately after the it has been transferred to the bank (usually by creating the bank file)
• Confirmed Allows the user to post the collection once the bank has verified and accepted the collection
• Executed Allows the user to post the collection once the bank has confirmed the execution of the collection
• Never Posting of transactions are not allowed. This option is used on environments with both AMC Banking and AMC Direct Debit installed, where the posting is to be done in Banking.
Warning amount If a payment exceeds the specified amount in this field, a warning message is displayed. This option is typically used if users want to supervise collections exceeding a certain amount
Settlement
Calendar Indicates which bank calendar to use
| General setup 16
Minimum days ahead
In this section, you can state the earliest payment date for your payments. For instance, if you are using a bank unable to handle payment transfers the same day as the file is sent, you can state the value 1. This setup results in the payment date in the journal is postponed to the following banking day, but only if the payment date is today.
Grace period If your customer is eligeble for a cash discount, these days will be added to the original discount date, postponing the cash discount expiry date
File paths
File to bank (collections)
The file path of the collection files created by the module
File to bank (subscriptions)
The file path of the mandate subscription files created by the module
File from bank The file path of the bank return files
Archive The file path of the archive in which processed return files are archived
Templates
Bank file advice Indicates which advice template to use, when creating the electronic advice, which are included in the collection files
Email advice Indicates which email advice template to use, when creating customer email advices. To use email advice, an email address is required in the customer setup of AMC DirectDebit.
Bank agreement
Main agreement id Identification of the main agreement between your company and the bank
Sub agreement id Identification of the sub agreement (if any) between your company and the bank. Sub agreements are usually used to identify specific legal entities, which are part of larger corporations
Tax registration
Alternative tax registration number
Overrides the tax registration number specified in standard company setup.
SYNCHRONIZE BANK LIST
If the “Synchronize bank list” button is clicked, the module will contact the license server and
synchronize the list of licensed banks. Existing banks in the bank list will become either active or
inactive depending on the presence of the related license bank. Furthermore, new licensed banks
will automatically be added to the bank list.
| General setup 17
COMPANY SPECIFIC FILE PATHS
The file path setup on the right side file path section is shared amongst all companies. It is also
possible to use company specific file paths by clicking the “File paths” button.
Specifying a company specific file path (for the current company), will result in the shared file path
setup being overridden.
BANK ACCOUNTS
The setup of own bank accounts can be opened from either AMC-DirectDebit > Setup > Bank >
Bank accounts, showing all bank account in current company, or by clicking the “Bank accounts”
button in the bank setup, showing only bank accounts related to the selected bank.
The fields have the following meanings:
| General setup 18
Field Content
Grid
Bank The bank in which the bank account is registered.
Bank account number
The bank account’s actual bank account number. Though IBAN is usually prefered, the bank account should be specified according to the bank’s requirements.
As a result, it can be necessary to use local bank account numbers (BBAN) instead, prefix the account number with 0 (zeroes) etc.
Currency The currency of the bank account
Priority This field is used to prioritize accounts, with 1 being the highest priority. Priority is used if multiple bank accounts in same currency exist.
General
Company The company to which the bank account belongs.
SWIFT code The SWIFT code identifier of the bank to which the bank account belongs.
Method of payment Method of payment is primarily used as a way of linking customer invoices to a certain bank account. By specifying the method of payment, the bank account will be used as own bank account, when adding customer invoices, with similar method of payment, to the collection journal.
Furthermore the method of payment can be used to activate bridge posting if desired. For futher info see the Bridging posting section below
Accounts
Offset account The ledger account in AX, which should function as the bank account’s offset account. The offset account can be specified either as a bank account or a ledger account. It is also possible to specify financial dimensions.
Fee account The ledger account in AX, which should function as the bank account’s fee account. The offset account can be specified either as a bank account or a ledger account. It is also possible to specify financial dimensions.
Fee
Fee Id Identification of the payment fee setup to use for handling and posting fees
Company setup
Company setup In this section is is possible to add and remove companies, in which collection journals are allowed to utilize the bank account.
| General setup 19
BRIDGING POSTING
Bridging posting can be actived by using the method of payment field. In order to use bridging
posting a method of payment with bridging posting enabled is required.
To activate bridging posting on a bank account, select a bridging method of payment. This will
result in the offset account automatically being specified according to the method of payment’s
bridging account. Furthermore the offset account is locked, preventing user from changing the
offset/bridging account.
| General setup 20
BANK DAYS
When collections are added to the journal, they are granted a date of execution. To ensure that the
payment can be executed on the provided date, the module needs to whether the bank is able to
process payments on a given date.
To set up bank days, on which the bank is able to process payments, open AMC DirectDebit >
Setup > Bank > Bank days
To reflect that bank days can vary in different countries, banks etc., it is possible to add several
bank day sequences (calendars). A bank day sequence contains a list dates reflecting the days on
which the bank is able to process payments. Furthermore the sequence has a “Pay by” field,
defining if invoices should be collected or paid individually.
The fields have the following meaning:
Field Activity
Calendar The payment calendar’s identifier
Description An elaborate description of the bank calendar.
Pay per This field is used to define the collection principles of the customer invoices.
| General setup 21
Bank days
Bank day Each date entry represents a valid bank day.
If a certain date is not listed, the system will instead attempt to find an alternative date of execution. If cash discount is eligeble the system will search back in time (unless grace days are set up, see Banks), to ensure that the cash discount can be posted correctly. If cash discount is not eligeble the system will instead postpone the payment till next available bank day.
Example 1:
Payment calendar is set up as shown above and customer invoice is due on Monday 13th of January. Cash discount is not enabled The bank day exists in the list, resulting in payment date Monday 13th of January.
Example 2:
Payment calendar is set up as shown above and customer invoice is due on Saturday 11th of January. Cash discount is not enabled The system will postpone the payment to next available bank day Monday 13th of January.
Example 3:
Payment calendar is set up as shown above and customer invoice is cash discount eligible on Saturday 11th of January. The system will search back in time to find the first preceding bank day, resulting in payment date Friday 10th of January
Day The name of the day of the date entry
The bank calendar is specified in the bank setup (see Banks), but can be overridden on individual
customer when required (see Register customers)
BANK DAY PRINCIPLES
4.4.1.1 INVOICE
If the bank calendar is set up to use the "Invoice" principle, each customer invoice is created as an
individual payment transaction in the journal.
4.4.1.2 COLLECT
If the bank calendar is set up to use the "Collect" principle, the system attempts to collect customer
invoices.
The calendar can be attached to the bank (must be selected) or a specific debtor. When the system
attempts to find a valid payment date, the search is focused on a calendar attached to the debtor
first and then a calendar attached to the selected bank.
| General setup 22
It is recommended to define the method to be used generally on bank level under Main
information (see section 2.2, Bank setup) and thus merely select one alternative debtor setup if it
deviates from the bank default. This setup makes it considerably easier to change the collection
method in general later since this only has to be done in one location.
CREATE BANK DAYS
To create the calendar, click on "Create" button and define the valid bank days within a date range.
Note: Holidays like Easter, Whitsun, Christmas, etc. must be manually removed afterwards
| General setup 23
JOURNALS
From AMC DirectDebit > Setup > Journals it is possible to setup the various journal types used
throughout the module.
COLLECTIONS JOURNALS
In order to create and process collection journals, a collection journal with an associated voucher series
is required
The fields have the following meaning:
Field Description
Name Name and identifier of the journal
Description A more elaborative name for the journal. The description is also used as as the initial journal name when a new journal is created
Voucher series The voucher series to use when fetching voucher numbers for the transaction of journals, related to the journal setup
New voucher This field is used to specify, how and when voucher numbers are fetched and applied to the payment transactions
Posting
Delete lines after posting
If enabled, the journal and the included payment transactions are deleted once they have been posted
| General setup 24
MANDATES JOURNALS
If you handle collection mandates in batches, a mandate journal with an associated voucher series is
required.
Note: Mandates can also be handled individually from the customer setup (see Customer setup)
The fields have the following meaning:
Field Description
Name Name and identifier of the journal
Description A more elaborative name for the journal. The description is also used as as the initial journal name when a new journal is created
Voucher series The voucher series to use when fetching voucher numbers for the transaction of journals, related to the journal setup
Posting
Delete lines after posting
If enabled, the journal and the included mandate actions are deleted once they have been processed
| General setup 25
ADVICE
When processing collections, hence withdrawing cash directly from a customer’s bank accounts, it
is important to create sensible, satisfactory and correct messages, allowing the customers to see
exactly what and why their bank account was debited. The module contains various advice options,
which should accommodate the divergent demands from the individual customers.
From AMC DirectDebit > Setup > Advice it is possible to the different advice types of the module
BANK FILE ADVICE
There are three ways of creating the electronic bank advice, included in the actual bank file, which
should eventually be visible in the customer’s online banking system. The three advices types are:
- Simple
- Detailed
- Class
4.6.1.1 SIMPLE
The simple option, results in a very simple advice, containing only a short (optional) header text
followed by the invoices of the payment, separated by commas.
Example:
Invoices: INV-0001,INV-0002,INV-0003,INV-0004,INV-0005
| General setup 26
4.6.1.2 DETAILED
The detailed option, allows a more advanced, yet still rather simple, way of creating the payment
advices. This options offers separate header, body and footer text and allows linefeed separated
invoices as well as placeholders.
Example (using the setup above):
Hello
Invoice: INV-0001 999,95 EUR 01012014
Invoice: INV-0002 100,00 EUR 01012014
Invoice: INV-0003 1000000,00 EUR 01012014
Invoice: INV-0004 0,05 EUR 01012014
Invoice: INV-0005 -99,50 EUR 01012014
BR MyCompany
| General setup 27
4.6.1.3 CLASS
The third and final option, class, is an advanced option allowing your company to create and use an
individual advice class to generate the customer advice. The class options is typically used, when
the easy accessible information used by e.g. the detailed options does not meet the requirements.
Should the advice include data from the invoice journal, the Project module etc., the class option is
what you are looking for.
To utilize the class option, a custom class should be developed. Once completed, the class should
be available in the class name field.
Create a copy of the class selected in the above screen (AmcDDAdviceClassTutorial) and use the
copy as the basis of the customized class.
| General setup 28
EMAIL ADVICE
Bank files are often limited in terms of the number of lines/characters allowed when creating
payment advice to the customer. As a result, the electronic bank advice, included in the bank file, is
often unsufficient, especially for high load customers. In that case you can instead utilize the email
advice option.
AMC Direct Debit includes a standard payment advice report, which can be selected. This report
should be sufficient for most customers, and has no limits in terms of number of invoices.
The fields have the following meaning:
Field Description
Advice id The identifier of the email advice
Description A description of the email advice
Email id Used to select the standard AX’ email template to use when creating the email
| General setup 29
Report
Report name The name of the report which to use for the advice
The report AmcDDReportPaymentAdvice is included in the module
Report design name
The name of the report design to use for the advice
The design PaymentAdvice is included in the module’s AmcDDReportPaymentAdvice. If the provided report designs are insufficient, a custom report can be designed. For more info please refer to the install guide.
File format Default report output file format is PDF, but if demanded, the other file formats supported by the reporting services can be selected
MANDATE TEMPLATES
If your bank requires that physical mandates are exchanged and approved, before collections are
allowed, you need to set up a mandate template. This is done from AMC DirectDebit > Setup >
Mandate templates.
In the mandate template, you are able to set up one or more templates, which can then be
connected to the individual customers.
The mandate process is as follows:
- Mandate is sent by either email or by regular postal services to your customer
- If customer does not respond, first reminder is sent
- If customer still does not respond, second reminder is sent
- If customer still does not respond, an interruption is sent
| General setup 30
The fields have the following meaning:
Field Description
General
Mandate template The mandate template identifier
Description A description of the mandate template
Default If marked as default new customers is initialized with the default mandate template
Mandate
Email id Used to select the standard AX’ email template to use when creating and sending the email including the mandate. If not setup
Report name The name of the report which to use for the mandate
The report AmcDDReportMandate is included in the module.
Report design name
The name of the report design to use for the mandate
The designs Core and B2B are included in the module’s AmcDDReportMandate. If the provided report designs are insufficient, a custom report can be designed. For more info please refer to the install guide.
| 31
Reminder 1, Reminder 2 & Interrupted
Days The number of days from the mandate was sent until a reminder or interruption action should be sent (using the mandate journal).
0 = not in use
Email id Used to select the standard AX’ email template to use when creating and sending the reminders and interruptions.
| Customer setup 32
5 CUSTOMER SETUP
In order to process customers collections, the customers should be added to the customer bank
table. The customer bank table list page can be accessed from AMC DirectDebit > Common >
Customer bank table. From this form customers’ bank information can be set up and maintained.
The list page contains a list customers, which can be filtered, sorted etc. Each customer is in the list
has five different colored icons which reflect the customer’s current status. The five colors mean:
- Yellow: Customer mandate is being obtained
- Orange: Customer is being subscribed
- Green: Customer is active
- Gray: Customer is being unsubscibed
- Red: Customer is inactive
For more info on how customer scenarios reflect customer status, see Customer scenarios
A detailed overview of the individual customers can be opened e.g. by clicking the “Edit” button.
| Customer setup 33
| Customer setup 34
The fields have the following meanings:
Field Description
General
Customer account
The customer account of the customer, set up in standard AX
Name The name of the customer, set up in standard AX
External account Account number used to identify the customer outside AX, typically in file interchanges with the banks etc.
The external account is automatically specified, but can be manually overridden if required.
Unless manually overridden the external account will be created based on the customer account number, but special characters and prefixed zeroes will be removed. This is done to create a safe-proof account number which can be used as an identifier regardless of the file formats being exchanged later on.
Bank
Bank The bank used for collecting customer. Note: This is not customer’s bank, but merely a reference to the bank of yours, which are to initialize the collection.
Bank account number
The customer’s bank account number. This field is used regardless of whether the account number is an IBAN, a local BBAN or another type of bank account identifier
SWIFT code The name of the report design to use for the mandate
The designs Core and B2B are included in the module’s AmcDDReportMandate. If the provided report designs are insufficient, a custom report can be designed. For more info please refer to the install guide.
Calendar Indicates which bank calendar to use. If nothing has been specified, the bank calendar set up on the bank will be used
Status
Status The customer’s status. The status field is essential for which actions are available for the customer
Addresses
Postal address A reference to the address in the standard customer setup, which to use as customer’s address. If nothing is specified, the customer’s primary address will be used as postal address.
| Customer setup 35
Advice
Email A reference to the electronic email address in the standard customer setup, which to use when sending email advices to the customer
Email advice Which email advice template to use for creating email advices
Bank file advice The bank file advice template to use for creating advices that are included in the collection files
Mandate
Mandate id Identier of the mandate allowing collections from the customers bank account
Date of signature The date on which the mandate was signed (accepted) by the customer
Email A reference to the electronic email address in the standard customer setup, which to use when sending mandate related emails to the customer
Mandate template The mandate template to use for creating mandates and for controlling when to remind and interrupt pending mandates
One-time mandate
Marker indicating whether the mandate is for one-time use only. If checked the customer is deactivated, once a collection has been executed. When the collection is regarded as executed, depends on the “Ready for posting” setup on the bank.
In addition to the customer setup, the lower right corner contains a quick overview of the
customer’s current status. This is important as it indicates, whether the customer can be collected.
In the above picture the customer is active and ready to be collected, which is indicated by the
green status indicator. If the customer is not active (not to be confused with inactive), the lower
right corner will indicate the status, and what course of action is needed next. Depending on the
customer scenario specified on the bank, the customers need different actions. For more info, see
Customer scenarios
If for some reason you want to skip the steps related to the mandate and/or subscription process,
you can use the “Activate” and “Deactivate” buttons in the menu’s status section, to do so. These
buttons will change the customer status to active or inactive respectively
| Mandates 36
6 MANDATES
A mandate is an acceptance from the customer, giving you access to withdraw funds directly from
the customer’s bank account. The mandate implicitly include general rules as to the customer’s
rights to cancel collection, your obligations of advice before the drawing etc.
Depending on your bank and the collection scenario (see, Customer scenarios), this process can
vary, but normally you would need an acceptance (mandate) from the customer, before being
allowed to withdraw funds from the customer’s bank account.
The module provides multiple ways to maintain mandates. Mandates can be handled one-by-one
directly from the individual customers (see, Customer setup) or in bulks from the designated
mandate journal.
MAINTAIN MANDATES IN VOLUMES
The mandate journal, which is used to handle customer mandate actions in volumes, is opened
from AMC Direct Debit > Journals > Mandates > Mandate journal
By clicking the Add button, the system will loop through the customers who have mandate status,
reflecting that you are in the process of retrieving a signed mandate from the customer, and
| Mandates 37
identify whether any pending actions need to be taken. Customers will be added to the journal if
any of the following conditions are true:
� Customer has status “Mandate create”
� Customer has status “Mandate sent” and reminder 1, reminder 2 or interrupt deadline has
been exceeded
� Customer has status “Reminder 1 sent” and reminder 2 or interrupt deadline has been
exceeded
� Customer has status “Reminder 2 sent” and interrupt deadline has been exceeded
Once the pending mandate actions have been added to the journal, the Generate option becomes
available. Clicking the Generate button will complete the pending actions (generate mandates,
send mail, interrupt mandates etc.) and change status from Pending to Completed. Once all
actions/records are complete the journal will disappear from the journal overview’s list of open
journals.
| Mandates 38
MAINTAIN MANDATES INDIVIDUALLY
To maintain a specific customer mandate, open the customer bank table setup form. Here you are
able to maintain the complete life-cycle of a mandate (generate, import, remind, interrupt), using
the related mandate buttons. The buttons will actively check customer status, mandate setup,
reminder rules etc. automatically showing you the next logical option to complete.
To see the previous completed mandate events, open the mandate event form by clicking the
mandate overview button.
From here you are able to see the complete list of mandate actions completed as well as the actual
mandates related to each individual event.
| 39
If an event has an attached document, a small icon will show in the field to the right. The
attachment can be opened by either clicking the small icon or by clicking the Open button in the
menu’s mandate section
| Subscriptions 40
7 SUBSCRIPTIONS
In this chapter we will discuss the subscription process. Like mandates, the subscription process is
all about getting access to withdraw funds from the customers’ bank accounts, but unlike
mandates, which are physical files/documents, subscriptions are electronic interchanges of
mandate information. Subscriptions can be maintained from AMC Direct Debit > Periodic >
Subscriptions.
The form, from which subscriptions are handled, contains three separate grid. The left most grid
contains subscription which are ready to be processed. The middle grid contains pending
subscriptions, which requires some kind of action in order to complete. The right most grid
contains a list of active subscriptions.
PROCESSABLE SUBSCRIPTIONS
If a customer is set up to use a bank which requires electronic subscription, and the customer’s
status is either Subscribe or Unsubscribe, the customer will automatically show up in the left most
grid, when the form is opened. The refresh button can also be used to update the list of
processable subscriptions.
To process the processable subscriptions, mark one or more of the records in the grid and click the
transfer button. This will activate a validation of the customer and subscription data. If the
validation is successful, an electronic subscription file will be created, and the processed
subscriptions will change state from processable to pending, hence move from the list of
processable subscriptions to the list of pending subscriptions
| Subscriptions 41
PENDING SUBSCRIPTIONS
As the name indicates, the list of pending subscriptions contains subscriptions, which have not yet
been fully processed. There are basically two types of pending subscription.
The first type covers the subscriptions, which have been transferred and now awaits a bank
response confirming the completion of the subscription.
The second type covers unknown (active) subscriptions, which need to be linked to customers in
the system. Unknown subscriptions are typically created as a result of a bank response, containing
subscriptions which cannot be identified by the data in the response. In that case a warning
messages will inform that an unknown subscription has been added to the list of pending
subscriptions
| Subscriptions 42
Pending subscription awaiting bank response can be recognized by the small clock icon on the left
side of the pending list. In most cases, these subscriptions will be updated and processed
automatically, once the bank file is imported. It is also possible to manually cancel or process the
pending subscriptions by using the Cancel subscriptions and Process subscriptions buttons.
Unknown subscriptions can be recognized by the error icon, which indicates, that the subscription
cannot be finished until customer information has been specified. Once the required customer
information has been specified the error icon will change into a green check icon, indicating that
the subscription can now be finished. This is done by clicking the Process subscriptions button
Once processed the unknown customer is added to the list of Active subscriptions
Furthermore the unknown customer is added to the customer bank table Customer setup.
| Subscriptions 43
ACTIVE SUBSCRIPTIONS
The list of active subscriptions contains the customers, which is considered active and is thereby
considered eligible to be included in the collection process. Usually active subscriptions remain
active without the need of user involvement. The active subscriptions have two related options.
The first option is triggered by the Cancel subscriptions button, and will result in the active
subscription being moved to the list of pending subscriptions. In the “happy day scenario” this
option is never used, and it has only been added in order to easily handle mistakenly activated
subscriptions.
The second option which is triggered by the Unsubscribe button, is used when a customer
relationship is terminated. Using the Unsubscribe button will result in the subscription being
moved from the list of Active subscriptions to the list of Processable subscriptions with status
Unsubscribe. In addition the customer will no longer be included in the collection process.
Note: that the most common scenario, is for the customer itself to terminate the subscription
allowing collections. In that case the customer is usually unsubscribed automatically as a result
of a bank response file.
| Collection journal 44
8 COLLECTION JOURNAL
Once the setup has been completed and the required mandates and/or subscriptions have been
gathered, you are ready to convert open customer transactions into fully automatic collections.
CUSTOMER TRANSACTION REQUIREMENTS
Open customer transactions are typically created from several locations, both internally and
externally in AX. However no matter how and by whom the transactions are created, they all need
to meet a common set of requirements, before the module allows any further processing of the
transactions. Therefore it is important to understand which requirements the module has, before a
transactions is included in the collection process.
� The transaction must be approved
� The transaction’s related customer must be added to the customer bank table.
� The transaction’s related customer must have an active status
� The transaction may not be settled elsewhere in Dynamics AX.
ADD COLLECTIONS
Before collections can be processed, you must first create a journal for the purpose. This is done by
entering AMC-DirectDebit > Journals > Collections > Collection journal, and creating a new
journal.
Once the journal has been created, you can enter it by clicking the “Lines” button. In the empty
journal, press the button "Add" in order to add transactions to the journal. This will open a dialog,
which can be used to filter, which open transactions to add to the journal as well as change the
behavior of the module when adding transactions.
| Collection journal 45
To avoid adding all open customer transactions, due date is often used as the primary filter/range.
Use the due date to quickly decide how far in the future to look for due customer transactions. By
clicking the “Select” button, you are able to further filter, which open customer transactions to add
to the journal.
Note: The due date range has been moved to the dialog for convenient reasons, as this is usually
used as the primary range. Specifying a due date in the dialog, works similar to adding a due date
range on the open customer transaction table, using the “Select” button.
In addition to the ranges, the dialog also contains two options, which enables the user to control
the behavior, when transactions are added.
Field Description
Total date Using the total date options, forces the system to create transactions with a given execution date, despite being due on another date
Use cash discount Pretty much self-explaining, this check box controls whether the module should utilize cash disc if transactions are cash discount eligble
| Collection journal 46
Clicking the dialog’s “OK” button, results in the module searching through the open customer
transaction for transactions, which belongs to customers allowing collections and lies within the
specified ranges.
For more information on how payment date, payment amount and cash discount is determined,
please see How does cash disc work?
VALIDATING THE JOURNAL
As the other journals in Dynamics AX, you are able to validate the content of the journal before it is
posted. In AMC Direct Debit the validation is a requirement, and you cannot post the journal until
the journal has been successfully validated (and transferred).
Clicking the “Validate” button will result in a standard Dynamics AX ledger validation, ensuring that
journal can be posted with the current transactions and the transactions data. Unlike the standard
AX validation, the validation in AMC Direct Debit also includes a bank validation part, which
ensures that the transactions can be converted into actual direct debit transactions.
Once the journal has been successfully validated, both ledger and bank wise, the transactions’
status will no longer be “Editable”, which means that the journal is locked, preventing users from
changing the journal’s transactions.
| Collection journal 47
If necessary the journal can be unlocked again by clicking Functions > Cancel journal from the
menu.
TRANSFERRING THE JOURNAL
Once the journal has been successfully validated, the “Transfer” button is enabled.
Clicking the “Transfer” button will result in the collection file being created and saved in the set up
directory. Once the file transfer is complete, a message will be added to the infolog informing
where the file has been stored.
Depending on the “Ready for posting” setup on the bank (see Banks), the transactions will change
status from validated to either Transferred or Postable.
| Collection journal 48
SEND ADVICE TO CUSTOMERS
If automatic sending of email advice has been enabled in parameter setup, the system will send
advices to customers, who are set up to receive email advices, once the transfer has been
successfully completed. In that case, though still possible, the users do not need to print advices
manually.
If not, the users have two ways of creating and sending advices. One possibility is to print the
advice report from inside the collection journal. In that case, if the customer is set up for email
advice, the advice will be created and sent to the email address specified in the customer setup.
The other option is to print the advice from the journal overview. In this case, all the journal’s
transactions will be looped and if the related customer is set up for email advice, the advice will be
created and sent to the email address specified in the customer setup.
IMPORT OF RETURN FILES
Unlike with regular vendor payments, it is very common to receive return files when executing
direct debits (pre-authorized payments). The return files are very useful for receiving the banks’
own responses, which can be used to find out whether payments have been accepted, rejected,
executed etc. It is often also possible to get the actual execution date, the posted amount, and the
exact exchange rate of the individual transactions.
Once a bank return file has been received, the next step is to import the file into the Direct Debit
module. The import is initiated by opening AMC DirectDebit > Periodic > Import bank files
| Collection journal 49
If the module is set up as a Classic solution, the import dialog is prefilled and the user will only need
to click to “OK” button to initiate the import.
If the module is set up as an Enterprise solution, the import dialogs fields are enabled and editable.
Unless running a host-to-host solution towards the bank, the dialog should usually be set up like
the classic solution, as seen on the picture above. To initiate the import, the “OK” button is clicked.
If the upload box is checked, the module will search for bank return files in the import folders,
which have specified on the banks in the bank setup (see Banks). The found return files are
uploaded to the webservice, which converts them into an internal format, which is then returned
to the Direct Debit module afterwards.
Once returned, the response is parsed and processed based on the type of response. E.g. if the
bank sends a status on the collections of a given journal, the Direct Debit module will update the
journal and the journal’s transactions according to the bank response.
| Collection journal 50
POSTING THE JOURNAL
Once the required responses, according to the specified “Ready for posting” parameter (see
Banks), have been received, the transactions’ status changes to “Postable”. Once all transactions
have reached status “Postable”, the journal can be posted by clicking the now enabled “Post”
button.
Clicking the post button will initiate a standard AX posting. This ensures that posting related
requirement, which lies outside the Direct Debit module are checked as they would in e.g. a
standard AX ledger journal. As a result of this, you will only be allowed to post a Direct Debit
collection journal if all of the transactions meet all posting requirements, external as well as
internal.
Note: If some, but not all, transactions have reached “Postable” status, the collection journal
cannot be posted. This is a quite normal scenario, and in that case it is possible to post the
“Postable” transactions by using a posting journal instead (see Posting journal).
| Posting journal 51
9 POSTING JOURNAL
When using the Direct Debit in such a manner, where journals contain transactions, which are
expected to be executed and thereby being posted on different dates, users can take advantage of
the posting journal.
The posting journal works and looks quite similar to a regular collection journal. The main
difference is, that the journal is specifically designed to post “Postable” transactions. The journal
offers posting of transactions across journals, which is quite useful when attempting to achieve a
posting, which is equivalent to the actual posting in banks, which uses batch booking per day.
ADD COLLECTIONS
As with the collection journal the first step is to create a posting journal. This is done opening AMC
DirectDebit > Journals > Collections > Posting journal, and creating a new journal.
Once the journal has been created, you can enter it by clicking the “Lines” button. In the empty
journal, press the button "Add" in order to add transactions to the journal. This will open a dialog,
which can be used to filter, which postable transactions to add to the journal.
| Posting journal 52
Once the “OK” button is clicked, the module will add postable transactions, which lies within the
ranges of the filter specified in the dialog.
One of the biggest differences between the regular collection journal and the posting journal, is the
number of functions available. The functionalities in the posting journal is kept to an absolute
minimum, only leaving posting related functionality.
| Posting journal 53
VALIDATING THE JOURNAL
Like other journals in Dynamics AX, you are able to validate the content of the journal before it is
posted. Validation of the journal is voluntary, as the journal has already been validated in the
original collection journal.
Clicking the “Validate” button will result in a standard Dynamics AX ledger validation. Unlike the
validation in the collection journal, the validate functionality in the posting journal only initiates the
standard AX ledger validation.
POSTING THE JOURNAL
Because the posting journal only contains postable transactions, the “Post” button is always
available.
Clicking the post button will initiate the standard AX post functionality. This ensures that posting
related requirement, which lies outside the Direct Debit module are checked as they would be in
e.g. a standard AX ledger journal. As a result of this, you will only be allowed to post a Direct Debit
collection journal if all of the transactions meet all posting requirements, externally as well as
internally.
| Process collections automatically 54
10 PROCESS COLLECTIONS AUTOMATICALLY
Companies which have many customers, often also has a large number of customer payments,
which can potentially take very long to process, if using a step-by-step approach.
For that purpose we have introduced the possibility to process collections journals automatically,
which can be initiated from AMC DirectDebit > Periodic > Process collections automatically.
Using this option, the processes of finding, validating and transferring collection files can be
gathered in a single process, which is also batch executable, making it possible for the system to do
the work, which should otherwise have been done by the user, allowing the user to attend to other
tasks at hand.
The initialization of the automatic collection process is done from a dialog which works and looks
almost identical to the dialog for adding customer transactions to a collection journal (see Add
collections). Yet, the auto collect dialog contains additional fields for setting up the journal and
deciding the exact behavior of the collection process.
| Process collections automatically 55
Usually the “Bank” is decided when a collection journal is created, but due to the lack of a journal
at this point of time, the “Bank” field is editable. This requires the user to decide which bank to use
for processing the collections before proceeding.
The additional fields are as follows:
Field Description
Journal
Name The name of the journal to use when creating the journal in which to add the transactions, which should by auto processed
Actions
Find Indicates whether to find and add customer transactions to the aute collections journal
Note: This option is mandatory, as it makes no sense to auto process an empty collection journal
Validate Indicates whether to validate the auto collection journal once customer transactions have been added
Transfer Indicates whether to transfer the auto collection journal once the journal has been succesfully validated
Error handling Indicates which action to take in case some transactions are erroneous (as a result of the validation) and therefore cannot be processed further.
The options are:
- Abort: The auto collection process is aborted if one or more transactions are erroneous
- Delete: The erroneous transactions are removed from the journal
- Move: The erroneous transactions are moved to a new journal, which uses the same journal setup as the original auto process journal.
| Customer scenarios 56
11 CUSTOMER SCENARIOS
Through the customer’s life-cycle the customer will pass through one or more of the status
indicators in the picture below. The status of the customer, determines which action to perform
next.
The customer status is decided by the customer scenario, which have been set up on the bank (see
Banks), which has been selected as the customers collection bank. Thereby the bank will have a
great impact on which status a customer can and will have, and thereby which actions to perform
from creation till inactivation.
| Customer scenarios 57
NONE
If you select the “None” scenario for your bank, you have disabled all mandate and subscription
handling.
| Customer scenarios 58
SEPA DD CORE AND B2B
SEPA (Single Euro Payments Area) is a European based payment solution simplifying bank transfers
in EUR, and is therefore supported by most banks in Europe.
SEPA Direct Debit is split into two separate solutions, CORE and B2B. Even though the two solutions
follow different rules as to advice, cancellation etc., the process in the Direct Debit module is based
on the same
scenario.
| Customer scenarios 59
NETS LEVERANDØRSERVICE
When using the NETS LS scenario posting basis only includes credit notification as status reports
are not suitable for import into AMC DirectDebit.
| Customer scenarios 60
NETS BETALINGSERVICE
When using the NETS BS scenario posting basis only includes credit notification as status reports
are not suitable for import into AMC DirectDebit.
| Customer scenarios 61
NETS BETALINGSERVICE TOTAL
| How does cash disc work? 62
12 HOW DOES CASH DISC WORK?
Determining payment amount and cash disc
Determining payment date
Payment add
Add open customer
transactions to journal
Use cash disc? Yes
No
Use cash disc?
Use total date?
Ok button pushed
No
No
Transaction has
cash disc date?
Yes
Payment date
=
Total date
Payment date=
Due date
Use total date? Yes
No
No
Payment date is
a holiday?
Payment dateforwarded to next
bank day
Yes
Cash disc date +
grace period
exceeded?
Yes
Yes
Payment date
=Cash disc date
Payment date is
a holiday?
Grace period is
adequate to
reach next bank
day?
Yes
Yes
Payment date
is reversed to previous bank day
No
No
No
No
Payment amount
=
Invoice amount –
cash disc amount
Payment amount
=Invoice amount
Cash disc eligible
on payment date?
Use cash disc Yes Yes
Payment added
No No
User prompted with warning
Yes Cancel button pushedPayment add
cancelled