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Setting up electronic funds transfer for A/P

Adapted from the Exact Macola® ES knowledge base document "Setting up Electronic Funds Transfer for AP" (23.394.144), revised February 2012, which itself summarizes several documents on the subject.

Paying vendors by ACH in Macola® ES takes three pieces of setup: the cash account, the vendor, and the ACH information screen that produces the file. The first two are quick. The third asks for numbers that go into specific positions of the NACHA file, and getting one of them wrong means the bank rejects the batch.

Before you start

Define the bank properly. In Cash Flow → Cash Accounts → Maintain, make sure the bank is set to something other than Other Banks. If your bank is not in the list, use Default U.S. Bank. The field sits directly beneath the journal used for the bank account.

The bank tabs do not feed the ACH screen

Information keyed on the Bank Account Setting and Bank Transmission tabs does not flow into the Automatic Clearing House Information screen that appears when you process an electronic payment. You have to key the ACH information by hand the first time. Macola® saves it for the next run.

Set up the vendor's banking details. A vendor cannot be paid electronically until their bank information is on file. See Exact document 23.391.327, "Setup Vendor for EFT Payment Method".

The ACH Information screen

The screen appears when you process an electronic payment from Cash Flow → Process or A/P → Process.

Field What it is Where it lands in the NACHA file
Immediate Destination Number The nine-digit routing number of the bank that will disperse the funds The 1 record
Immediate Origin Number Who is sending the funds. If your company is an ACH banking facility, your routing number; otherwise your company's nine-digit Federal Tax Identification Number The 1 record and every 6 record
Originating DFI Number Required by some banks — Bank of America among them. Leave it empty and the system copies the Originating Routing Number into the position. Only eight characters are written even if you key more The 5 record and the 8 record
Federal ID Number Your federal identification number The 5 record
Account Sequence Number Which account to use, when your company has more than one account at the bank —

The check boxes

  • Include Debit Records — only if you need offsetting entries for the transactions being transmitted.
  • Include Addendum Records — adds code 7 records in a predefined format that includes the check number.
  • Include File Header — adds data at the beginning of the file so modem software can determine the content and validity of the file, such as a user name and password. Your bank will tell you whether this is required.
  • Header text — the first line written to the file when Include File Header is ticked. Up to 80 characters.

Click OK. The screen closes and the ACH file is created.

Where the file is written

The export directory is set at System → Company → Company Settings → Bank → Export Directory. Within it, Macola® creates a folder per country — US for United States banks, CA for Canadian — and inside that, a folder per bank.

An ACH file for Bank One in the United States, with an export directory of C:\export, is written to C:\export\US\BankOne.

Tip

On Macola® Progression. Progression has no built-in ACH. The Pulse Utilities ACH Payment Processing utility produces the NACHA file for Progression sites, with the same vendor pre-notification and remittance advice. Call (513) 723-8091.

Support & contact

Our team is glad to help with anything from a quick question to a full implementation.