Contents - Index

Automated Payments

Automated payments are to assist your record-keeping in reminding you when automated entries will occur. You may set up an automated payment for any category and description that has been previously entered.

Automated payments are not limited to expenses, but may also be income entries as well.

Once you have established the category and have added a detail entry for the item, an automated payment may be set up.

Automated payment information is company-specific. If you are using multiple companies, you will need to define automated payments based on the current company selected.

Once a detail entry has been made for an item that is defined in the automated payment list, the automatic payment entry will turn light gray or dark gray. This is to let you know that the automatic payment has been made for the month. Dark gray means that the entry was made on the day specified in the automated payment list. Light gray means that an entry has been made for the same category and description, but on a different day than was specified in the automated payment entry. 

If you do not make an entry and the day of the month is past the day on which the automatic payment is set up, then the automatic payment entry will turn yellow (for 2 days past or less) and then red (after 2 days).

(Note: Automated payments are based on a monthly schedule. See Recurring Income and Expenses for setting up entries on different schedules.)

Adding a New Automatic Payment
To add a new automatic payment entry, press the corresponding Add button located above the automated payment list. A window will pop up that will allow you to specify the information for the entry. 

Fields
Day
The day of the month for the entry. It will always default to "1". You may either manually type the day or you may use the corresponding buttons to move the day down and up by one at a time. You may only specify days from 1 - 28.

Category
The predefined category for this entry. Categories must be defined before an entry may be posted against it. See Category Maintenance for more details.

This field may be provided by selecting the category from the pull-down list, or by typing the first letter(s) of the category. Once the category is correct, use the Tab key to move to the next field. (Warning: Categories are case sensitive.)

Description
The predefined look-up description for the category specified. (This field may be left blank.)

Amount
The amount of the entry. This amount may be negative. The amount may be left as "0.00" if the amount varies from month to month.

Account
The predefined account for this entry. Accounts must be defined in Account Master Maintenance before an entry may be posted against it. 

Press the OK button (or press Enter) to save the information.

Editing an Automatic Payment
To edit an automatic payment, click on the entry and press the corresponding Edit button located above the automated payment list. A window will pop up that will allow you to edit the information for the entry. 

You may also double click on the automatic payment entry to edit it.

Deleting an Automatic Payment
To delete an automatic payment, click on the entry and press the corresponding Delete button located above the automated payment list. Deleting an automatic payment entry does not delete any of the detail income or expense entries that you have made.

Applying an Automatic Payment
To apply an automatic payment to the current month, click on the entry and press the corresponding Apply button located above the automated payment list. The detail item add window will display, filled in with your automatic payment information. This information may be changed as desired before it is saved.

Searching Entries
To search for like items, right click on the entry and select "Search for more like this item" from the pop-up menu.

Going to Website Address
If a look-up has a corresponding website address specified, it will be underlined in the grid. Right-click on the entry and select the address from the pop-up menu to go to the website. Website addresses are specified on the Categories page.