Bookkeeping Data for Payments

← Bookkeeping Overview

JustOn Billing & Invoice Management can receive payment information first-hand – either directly from JustOn Cash Management or from imported payment data.

Once generated, users can export the bookkeeping data to accordingly configured CSV files, like DATEV posting batch or SAP CSV, which can then be transferred to the corresponding accounting system.

Payment Bookkeeping Data Structure

Bookkeeping data is structured in booking periods and booking details, where booking periods represent bookkeeping months, and booking details represent the records in an accounting ledger.

Technically, booking periods and booking details are in a master-detail relationship.

Booking Period

A booking period represents one month in bookkeeping. Hence, it aggregates the booking details produced for this month. Booking periods are grouped by business entities.

Be aware that the booking period status finally decides the booking detail allocation:

• Open: A booking period with the status Open aggregates the booking details produced for this month.

• Closed: A booking period with the status Closed is ignored. Any booking details produced for this period are moved to the next open booking period.

  
  Booking detail allocation with closed booking periods

Booking Details

A booking detail represents a record in an accounting ledger. JustOn creates one booking detail per payment change.

The following table lists the relevant payment booking data and its possible sources:

Booking Text

Accountants may expect specific references to the operation from which produced booking details originate. To support this requirement, you can use booking texts. They define the content and pattern of this human-readable reference information, and JustOn then populates the Booking Detail field Booking Text accordingly.

Payment Bookings With JustOn Cash Management

If you have integrated JustOn Billing & Invoice Management with JustOn Cash Management, the payment bookkeeping data is created directly without resorting to balances.

General Workflow

Thanks to the integration, JustOn Billing & Invoice Management immediately writes payment-related booking details when JustOn Cash Management registers payment events – together with the relevant balance records. The produced booking details will have the field Origin set to JPAY1, and will be linked to the original payment records in JustOn Cash Management.

The following processes in JustOn Cash Management trigger the direct booking detail creation in JustOn Billing & Invoice Management:

• initially associating payments with open entries (settlements)
• reassigning payments to different accounts (using interim accounts or via the original payment account)
• issuing refunds
• registering chargebacks

Interim Account Bookings

JustOn Cash Management allows users to reassign payments to different accounts. To track those movements, accounting systems may require specific booking data. To this end, JustOn Billing & Invoice Management can write booking details of the type Interim Account after integrating with JustOn Cash Management.

Since interim account booking details track money that is temporarily put in a transit account, they always come in pairs:

• One with a positive amount for money moving into the interim booking account
• Another one with a negative amount for money moving out

Generally, booking details are created per payment and per account. This means:

• When a payment is received for a single debtor, one booking detail is created for that payment on that debtor's account.
• When a payment is moved to a different debtor (debtor change), additional booking data is created because money moves between accounts.

• When money is reassigned to a different entry on the same account, no additional booking data is created – as long as the booking detail still refers to a valid, active entry item.

  Each booking detail is linked to the first entry item with a non-zero amount on the account. As long as this entry item remains unchanged, the booking detail stays valid and no update is needed.

  However, if the entire amount of the related entry item is moved to a different entry on the same account, that entry item's amount becomes zero. The booking detail now points to an entry item that no longer carries any assigned money. In this case, the system updates the booking detail to refer to the new active entry item – or, if the booking detail has already been exported, creates additional interim account booking data (a reversal and a forward booking).

The following scenarios illustrate the behavior:

Balance-Based Workflow

JustOn Billing & Invoice Management provides a dedicated scheduled job to generate bookkeeping data from payment-related balances.

Once set up, the software generates booking details for balances of the following types: Payment, Refund, Prepayment, Payout, Write-off, Clearing (if Clearing Reason is set and not Final Invoice), Dunning Fee, Dunning Income, Chargeback. All other balance types are ignored.

Since payment balances are subject to change, like amount modification, deletion or splitting, JustOn does not track payment balances and booking details in a one-to-one relationship, but uses a payment hash instead. The following Balance fields are used to compute the hash: Account, Date, Payment Method, Payment Provider, Reference, Transaction No and Type. This means, all balances where these fields have the same value are aggregated to the same booking detail.

JustOn uses the Booking Detail field Balance to link back to the original balance. This does not guarantee, however, its accuracy in case of a balance split or recombination. Use this field for information or navigation purposes only.

The bookkeeping data creation does not update existing payment booking details. JustOn always creates a new booking detail record to track an individual payment balance change.

JustOn tracks amount modifications to existing balances as new booking details with a new amount. That is, a change by a delta of 5,00 EUR results in a new booking detail with an amount of 5,00 EUR.

Deleted balances are written off: JustOn creates a new booking detail, reverting the amount, like Amount * (-1). By default, the new reverse booking detail includes only the original JustOn fields. If you need additional project-specific fields to be copied, you must use the custom setting Copy Additional Fields.

Assigning Bookkeeping Accounts

With booking details created from payment balances, the field G/L Account Number specifies the bookkeeping account number of the bank account or payment provider. To have the field set, you use a dedicated collective account setting.

The field Contra Booking Account specifies the debtor number of the related account. The way to set the debtor number depends on your business use cases:

• For customer-specific debtor numbers, you use the optional Account field ON_DebtorNo.
• To support collective debtors (or debtor groups), you use the Business Partner Account field of the relevant collective account setting.

When creating booking details, the Account field ON_DebtorNo takes precedence over the Collective Account field Business Partner Account. If the Account field ON_DebtorNo is empty or does not exist, JustOn uses the Collective Account field Business Partner Account to set Contra Booking Account in the booking detail.

For details, see Enabling Payment Booking Accounts.

Handling Provider Fees

Provider fees are tracked on the balance using the field Provider Fee. Some payment provider integrations via the (legacy) JustOn Self-Service Extension may also define the custom formula field ON_ProviderFee for calculating the provider fees. If the field is not available or empty, JustOn uses the standard Provider Fee field.

If JustOn detects a provider fee when generating the bookkeeping data, it will create an individual booking detail of the type Provider Fee. You can move these booking details to separate bookkeeping accounts using the collective accounts feature.

Handling Business Entities

If a balance is associated with an invoice, JustOn takes the business entity of the invoice to determine the correct booking period. If a balance is unassigned, the business entity is determined from the customer account using a business entity mapping.

Correction booking details, like for an amount modification or a deletion, always use the business entity of the original booking detail.

Handling Balance Transfer

Users can manually transfer balances that represent payment transactions (Payment, Refund, Prepayment, Payout, Chargeback and Chargeback Fee) from one account to another. If the creation of bookkeeping data is enabled and at least one booking detail exists for the moved balance, JustOn will update the bookkeeping data accordingly.

• By default, it creates two new payment booking details: one for the new debtor booking account and a "reverse" one for the old debtor booking account (using the bank booking account as a "relay" account).

• If required by your accounting system, JustOn can bypass this two-step move using a booking detail of the type Transfer. Doing so directly transfers the balance amount from the old debtor to the new debtor without involving the bank. To this end, you enable the global setting Enable Transfer Booking Details.

  This option is not supported if you integrate JustOn Billing & Invoice Management with JustOn Cash Management. The integration tracks debtor changes using interim account bookings.

Payment Booking Details Examples

The following examples show how JustOn writes booking details for payment balances and tracks further changes on involved balances.