Payments ABA

The Payments (ABA) file can be used for scheduled payments posted in Payments / Periodic.
The set-up for the Payments (ABA) file is detailed below.

References

Refer to the Australian Payments Clearing Association website: http://www.apca.com.au/ and their Direct Entry Fact Sheet for more information.

The following programmer blog is also helpful: http://ddkonline.blogspot.com.au/2009/01/aba-bank-payment-file-format-australian.html

Supplier Set-up

  • Suppliers / Account “BSB Number” and “Bank Account Number” must be populated

  • Suppliers / Account “ABA Format Type” must be selected appropriately from either Supplier or Payment Reference

ABA Format Type ‘Supplier’

‘Supplier’ is the default format. Use this to make payments to the supplier’s bank account. Each payment will be shown as a separate row.

ABA Format Type ‘Payment Reference’

Use ‘Payment Reference’ to make a separate payment to a subsidiary bank account for each vehicle contract.
This is done by combining the supplier’s “BSB” and the contract’s “Supplier Ref” to work as the bank account for payment.
This feature was created for finance payments being made to St George, who run a subsidiary account for each contract.

You will see a payment alert if any contracts are not linked to a driver record, and you won’t be able to post the payment. This is because the driver’s name forms part of the ABA file.

The Contracts / Payments “Supplier Ref” field is not restricted to 9 characters, but if used in this ABA file, the records can only be 9 digits long. If it is longer, you will get an alert and the Text (ABA) will not print.

These validations are not applied to contracts when the Contract Type “Group” is Salary Packaged.

ABA file fields

Visit the Bank Account Setup page for the setup requirements. The table below lists which fields are populated into the ABA file from the banking tables.

[table]field_name

Field Value

Comments

[gl_bank_accounts]bank

Text (3)

Must be an approved financial institution abbreviation. (Refer to APCA publication BSB Numbers in Australia.)

[gl_bank_accounts]account_name

Text (26)

Payer's Name. Must not be all blanks. Should be User preferred name.

[gl_bank_accounts]account_name_short

Text (16)

Name of Remitter. Must not contain all blanks. This field is used by Financial Institutions for statement narrative.

[gl_bank_accounts]bsb

NNN-NNN

The BSB that is displayed on a Detail-Credit row (if created).

[gl_bank_accounts]account_number

Numeric (9)

The Account Number that is displayed on a Detail-Credit row (if created).

[gl_bank_account_aba_mappings]acpa_number

Numeric (6)

User Identification Number which is assigned by APCA and User Financial Institutions for transacting credit ABA files.

[gl_bank_account_aba_mappings]aba_description

Text (12)

Transaction Description. Should accurately describe transactions. This is displayed in the first row of the ABA file.

E.g. Payments

[gl_bank_account_aba_mappings]aba_self_balancing_flag

Rule

If this flag is set to 'no', only Detail-Credit rows will be created. If 'yes' then a Detail-Debit row is created also. The description of this row reads as 'Payments', 'Receipts' or 'Reimbursements' to reflect the transaction being generated, in this case it would show 'Payments'.

Useful Queries

select ba.bank_account_id,
 ba.gl_code_id,
 ba.bank,
 ba.account_name,
 ba.account_name_short,
 baam.process_type,
 baam.aba_description,
 baam.apca_number,
 baam.aba_self_balancing_flag
from gl_bank_accounts as ba
inner join gl_bank_account_aba_mappings as baam
on baam.bank_account_id = ba.bank_account_id
and process_type = 'payables';