Creating First Payment Run Tutorial

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to prepare for and create your first payment run with Payment Assistant.

Before your first payment run, verify the following steps even if you've completed some of them already.

Verify bank account allows bank drafts

Treasury > Bank accounts

When Payment Assistant pays an invoice, it creates a bank draft record in Financial Edge NXT. To withdraw funds from the bank account to pay vendors, your bank account needs to allow bank drafts.

  1. From Treasury, Bank accounts, open the bank account record you set up with Payment Assistant. If you aren't sure which one you set up, in the list of bank accounts, look for "Payment Assistant enabled" in the Account column.

  2. Select Edit.

  3. Scroll down to Subledger settings, Transaction types.

  4. For Bank draft, select either "Start numbering with" or "Start numbering as Computer check". The only thing it can't be is "Not used."

  5. Select Save.

Enable EFT sharing – Optional

When you onboard to Payment Assistant, you can opt-in to sharing your EFT vendor bank account details with Payment Assistant. From the Getting Started with Payment Assistant page or from Settings, Payables, under Payment Assistant, you can Allow EFT sharing .

Tip: EFT details are only shared one time with REPAY for the set up of the vendor's Payment Assistant payment method.

Payment Assistant always reaches out to the vendor and allows the vendor to choose their preferred payment method. If the vendor chooses ACH, the EFT details you shared are used for the one-time setup.

Note: If the vendor is an individual person and you elect to share EFT information, the vendor is automatically enrolled in ACH without contact.

For more details, see EFT Sharing with Payment Assistant .

Identify vendors to pay

Payables > Invoices

Your first payment run is a learning process, so we recommend choosing vendors who don't have a payment due in the next 10 business days. Try to find vendors with a due date further away so you can give yourself time to learn and practice Payment Assistant.

Also, it's important for you to choose real vendors with real invoices to pay, instead of fake ones or a small amount. Small payment amounts, such as .50¢, may be flagged as not important and not treated with the same level of priority as a real payment run.

  1. To help you identify vendors to include, from Payables, select Invoices.

  2. On the Invoices page, select Filter.

  3. Select the Payment tab.

  4. For the Payment date, select "This calendar year" or a "Specific range". If you select "Specific range," choose dates.

  5. Select Apply filters.

  6. Browse the invoices and select a handful that you're comfortable paying. Take note of which vendors and invoices you choose as you'll need to recall these when you create the payment run.

    Tip: You can sort the list of invoices by the Due date column to help you see those who have a payment date further out.

Verify invoice records

Now that you've chosen your invoices, let's double-check that they are ready for payment. For the ones you identified to pay, open each invoice record verify the following details.

Invoice records

Payables > Invoices

While you can update invoices when you create a payment run, it's important to have invoice records that are ready to process with Payment Assistant. Processing requires all the following required fields on the invoice and making sure they are up-to-date, including:

  • Vendor address, including city, state, and zip code

    Note: Currently, only invoices with a United States remittance address can be processed with Payment Assistant.

  • Invoice number

  • Vendor customer number

  • Vendor contact information, including phone number (with correct phone number type)

  • Payment method

    Tip: Even though you must select a payment method on the invoice, Payment Assistant uses the preferred payment method chosen by the vendor and may differ from what you select.

Vendor records

Optional – In addition to the vendor contact information on the invoice record, we recommend you open the vendor record from the invoice and verify the record has the following:

  • Vendor email address (with correct phone number type)

  • Payee name

  • Primary contact first and last name

For payment runs, phone numbers and email addresses on vendor records must be formatted correctly. We recommend updating phone type defaults.

  1. From Settings, select Fields and tables.

  2. Select Tables tab.

  3. Find and select the Phone Type.

  4. For each phone number type you want to use with Payment Assistant, edit the type and select Telephone number for the Phone number type.

  5. For each email address type you want to use with Payment Assistant, edit the type and select Email address for the Phone number type.

Ensure the contact info phone number is formatted correctly. These are the currently allowed phone number formats.

  • XXXXXXXXXXX i.e., 15555555555

  • X-XXX-XXX-XXXX i.e., 1-555-555-5555

  • X XXX XXX XXXX i.e., 1 555 555 5555

  • X.XXX.XXX.XXXX i.e., 1.555.555.5555

  • X (XXX) XXX-XXXX i.e., 1 (555) 555-5555

The country code is optional, but defaults to 1 if not included.

For vendors with multiple customer numbers, create a separate vendor record for each number. You could also enter "MANY" as the customer number and include the account number in the invoice description.

If you need to send payments to multiple addresses for one vendor, create a separate vendor record for each address that needs to get paid. When a vendor is set up with REPAY, they send payments to a single address only. If a vendor needs to update their address, you or they need to notify REPAY.

To contact REPAY, call 801-679-6044 or 801-762-8772, or email payableshelp@repay.com.

Inform vendors in advance

Now that you know which vendors you want to pay with Payment Assistant, notify vendors in advance that someone from REPAY will contact them. This prevents delays caused by miscommunication.

Use the following template to customize to your organization.

Download template

Create a payment run and submit for approval

Payables > Payment Assistant

Now that the setup and preparation is complete, you're ready to create the payment run.

  1. From Payables, select Payment Assistant.

  2. From the Payment runs page, select New.

  3. If you have more than one bank account set up to use with Payment Assistant, select which bank account to pay invoices from.

  4. Select the invoices you identified earlier as ready to be paid. If an invoice is still missing required info, a status appears in the Action needed column. Select the link in the Action needed column to review and provide missing details.

  5. Select Pre-payment report to verify there are no distribution errors. If there are errors, adjust the invoice before submitting the payment run for approval.

  6. Select Submit for approval. An email is sent to users identified as approvers on the Approval tiers setup. Approvers will also see an in-product notification when they log in to Financial Edge NXT.

  7. Track of the payment run progress from the Payment run record.

Approval process overview

When you set up approval tiers, you also defining email and in-product notification settings. The approvers you define are all notified, unless you adjust their settings on Approver Notifications for Payment Assistant. After you submit a payment run for approval, the approval tiers process initiates.

Notification order

Email and in-product notifications are sent based on the order of the approval tiers.

  1. When you select Submit for approval, the first set of emails and notifications are sent for the first tier.

  2. After the final Approve is selected for the first tier, the next set of emails and notifications are sent for approvers in the second tier.

  3. After all the approval requirements are met for each tier, the person who submitted the payment run is notified and the payment run status updates to Approved - Awaiting funds.

  4. After the payment run status is updated to approved, REPAY contacts the vendors to determine their preferred payment method.

    Once a vendor is enrolled with REPAY, payments are issued automatically according to their selected payment method — no further communication is required.

    Based on their chosen payment method, REPAY customizes the payment notification message. For more details, see Vendor Payment Communications for Payment Assistant.

Summary

Congratulations! You've created a payment run, it's approved, and sent to REPAY for payment processing. You're now ready to track the payment run using the following tips.

Payment run record

From Payables, Payment Assistant, select the link in the ID column to open the payment run record.

  • Under Overview, review the run's status, including the number of payments paid and outstanding. You can also view the run approver and a brief history.

  • Under Payments, track the status of each payment using the Payment status . You can also customize the information that shows for each payment by selecting and sorting columns. For more details, see the Payment run record help.

Bank draft record

From the payment run record, Payments tab, select the link in the ID column to open the bank draft record. Use the Payment Assistant tile on the bank reord to view payment status. When paid, download the payment confirmation and confirm which payment method the vendor chose. For more details, see the Bank Draft Records for Payment Assistant.

Dive deeper into Payment Assistant

To continue learning about Payment Assistant, review the following help.