You've already paid the Grain Producers/Sellers in agrē with an EFT payment type. Now you need to let both your bank and your producers know about it.
agrē has an optional Grain EFT Approval Process that allows users to create EFT payments but the EFT file cannot be generated until the payments are approved by someone with a higher level of security.
What you'll find:
I want to read the white paper on EFT Payments (with lots of screenshots) for more setup and process details.
I'm looking for AP Supplier EFT Payments.
Company Configuration options have been set
Accounts Payable tab - EFT Payments: BCC address and custom email text
(optional) Grain tab > Purchases sub-tab > Payments section: Use EFT Approval Process (if using)
Seller/Producer Notification "email return address" has been set.
The company value for "Emailed reports are sent from" will be used as the reply address for supplier emails, or you can override it with a User Config Option.
Supplier Banks & Branches have been setup
Grain Reference Number for EFT Batches has been specified
AP Payment Type for EFT has been setup with your company's banking information and flagged as a Grain Payment type
(once an AP Payment Type has been flagged as a Grain payment type it cannot be used for non-grain transactions)
EFT banking details have been added to the Grain tab on the Grain Producer's Customer Account
Grain Payment (specifying an EFT payment type) has been made
agrē aggregates the Grain EFT payment information into an export file that you upload to your bank to tell it to take funds from your account and transfer to your grain producer's accounts. Back in agrē, once you enter the bank's confirmation number into the payment batch you'll be prompted to automatically email payment notification to the producers.
This step generates the file that contains the details about each Grain EFT Payment that you will upload to your bank.
Note
Electronic Funds Transfers are limited to payments from and to Canadian banks only.
To add a Grain EFT Payment Batch
* indicates a required field
Navigate to Grain > Grain EFT Payments.
The Grain EFT Payments window opens.
Click Add.
The Add EFT Batch window opens.
Enter a Reference* number, or let agrē generate one for you.
Leave Confirmation No. blank for now.
After you have uploaded the batch to your bank for processing, they'll provide you with a confirmation number that will be added here later.
(optional) Enter a Comment.
Click Retrieve Payments.
The Payment Search window opens.
Select the Payment Type*.
The default is EFT.
Select the Payment Date or range.
The default is payments made in the last month.
Select the Payment Locations.
The default is all locations. Click to select a single location; Ctrl+Click to select multiple locations.
Click Search.
The Payment Search window closes and the grid is populated with Grain EFT payments that meet the criteria.
Check Include next to the payments you want to add to this batch.
Click Save.
The Add Grain EFT Batch window closes and the Preview Grain EFT Batch window opens.
Optionally view/print the Grain EFT Batch report by selecting Yes or No.
to Approve
Edit the Grain EFT Payment Batch (user must have Approval permission).
Check Approved By and the text box will default to your agrē User Name (but can be changed).
Click Create Payment File.
The batch is automatically saved, the Add Grain EFT Batch window closes, and the Grain EFT File Generated window opens.
Once the Payment File has been generated, no payments can be removed from the batch and the Approved box cannot be unchecked.
(optional) Click Yes to open the folder where the Payment File was saved.
Optionally view/print the Grain EFT Batch report by selecting Yes or No.
Tip
Before submitting the EFT Batch file to your bank for processing, you may want to compare the Grain Payment Activity report to the Grain EFT Batch report to ensure no payments were missed (for example, if a grain producer's Customer Account contained no EFT info on the grain tab you could still pay them with an EFT Payment Type, but their EFT payments could not be included in an EFT Batch until it was added).
If a batch is rejected because a payment was submitted with invalid data and you want to process the remaining ones, edit the batch, remove the offending payment(s), then submit the batch to your bank. Correct the invalid data, add the previously removed payments to a new EFT Batch, and submit.
Follow your bank's process for manually uploading the Grain EFT payment file to their servers.
Your bank will provide you with a Confirmation Number for your records.
Once the grain EFT payment file has been accepted by your bank, enter the Confirmation Number into the Grain EFT Batch. Saving the Grain EFT payment batch with a confirmation number automatically triggers the producer notification prompt. Behind the scenes agrē will also set the Payment Tracking Number to match the Grain EFT Confirmation Number for all payments in the batch.
Tip
You can set configuration options to add custom text to the notification email (for example, who to call if they have any questions), and by default to send a copy of the notifications to yourself for reference.
To add Confirmation Number to a Grain EFT Payment Batch and email Producer Notifications
Navigate to Grain > Grain EFT Payments.
The Grain EFT Payments window opens.
Select the batch and click Edit.
The Edit Grain EFT Batch window opens.
Enter the Confirmation No. you received from your bank.
Click Save.
The Edit EFT Batch window closes and the Send Notification Emails window opens.
Click Yes to email notifications to producers.
The Email Notification window tells you how many notifications were sent.
Tip
This value should match the number of Producers in the payment batch. If it doesn't, you may have forgotten to enter an EFT Notification Email Address on a Producer's customer account. These producers will need to be notified manually.
Note
If a valid From email address has not been setup, agrē will notify you that no customer notifications have been sent. Enter a valid From address (at the Company or User level, edit the EFT batch again, and save. You will be prompted to send the notifications.
Click OK to close the Email Notification window.
Optionally view/print the updated Grain EFT Payment Batch report.