Overview
Customer Outstanding Statements and Activity Statements are useful when dealing with inquiries or disputes from your customer regarding what they owe or have paid.
- An Outstanding Statement will show any outstanding invoices to a customer and their current balance.
- An Activity Statement will show any Billing, Billing Credit Memo, Cash Receipt, Cash Receipt Adjustment, or Alternate Payor Reference (if applicable) for a customer within a specific date range. This is typically generated as an inception-to-date report.
Email a Customer Statement
- Navigate to Accounting Home and click the Setup tab. Then, under the Master menu, click Accounts.
- Select a list view (other than the Recently Viewed list view).
- Select the desired Customer's Account.
- Click Create Statement.
- Select the appropriate tab for an Activity Statement.
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- The Ledger will default to what is set up in the Default Ledger. If Multi-company is enabled, then you can select a Ledger from the picklist other than the default.
If you select a different Ledger, the Currency field and the PDF Format field will automatically update accordingly to match the selected Ledger. For example, if you select a GBP Ledger, the Currency field will automatically update to GBP, and the PDF Format field will update for the related PDF format (if available). Additionally, the PDF Preview at the bottom of the page will update to reflect the selected change.
Note: While the Currency and PDF Format fields are automatically updated, you can manually select a different currency and/or different PDF format, if necessary. - The Include Alternate Payor checkbox defaults to checked to allow the statement to include activity for a Billing(s) that was paid by an Account other than the primary Customer Account. The Activity Statement will include applied Cash Receipts and Credit Memos from Alternate Payors (Accounts). A Cash Receipt or Credit Memo that has been applied from an Alternate Payor displays with an asterisk (*) to differentiate from one that was applied by the primary Customer Account. Additionally, the Activity Statement will reflect the Applied Date of any Adjustments recorded on the Billing Cash Receipt.
- The Currency field will initially default to the Account's currency if the Activity Statement PDF format field is populated on the Account. If the Activity Statement PDF format field on the Account is not populated, then the Currency picklist defaults to the currency assigned to the default Ledger (or the active Ledger if Accounting Seed’s Multi-Company Ledger Manager App feature is used). If multi-currency is enabled, then you can select a currency other than the default.
If the Ledger field is changed, the Currency field will automatically update accordingly. - The Activity Statement Format field will default to the same PDF value that is on the Customer Account or you can search for and assign another.
If the Ledger field is changed, the PDF Format field will automatically update accordingly. - The Statement Period (Start & End) are populated with default values but can be set to alternate ranges.
- Ensure the Send to Contact field is populated. This will auto-populate from the Billing Contact field on the Account. The Statement cannot be emailed if this field is blank. If blank, click on the Hour Glass icon to use the lookup feature to populate.
- Enter any CC Addresses, if necessary. For Salesforce Lightning, email addresses will auto-populate based upon the relationships that have been added as Related Contacts on the Account. For Salesforce Classic, this will auto-populate based upon the Contact Roles related to this Account.
- Review and edit the Subject and Body of the email. The email templates can be modified, if necessary.
- Add Attachments if necessary by clicking the Attach file button. (Up to five (5) attachments can be added).
- Scroll down to review the Billing Activity Statement PDF Preview.
- The Ledger will default to what is set up in the Default Ledger. If Multi-company is enabled, then you can select a Ledger from the picklist other than the default.
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- Select the appropriate tab for an Outstanding Statement.
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- The Ledger will default to what is set up in the Default Ledger. If Multi-company is enabled, then you can select a Ledger from the picklist other than the default.
If you select a different Ledger, the Currency field and the PDF Format field will automatically update accordingly to match the selected Ledger. For example, if you select a GBP Ledger, the Currency field will automatically update to GBP, and the PDF Format field will update for the related PDF format (if available). Additionally, the PDF Preview at the bottom of the page will update to reflect the selected change.
Note: While the Currency and PDF Format fields are automatically updated, you can manually select a different currency and/or different PDF format, if necessary. - The Currency field will initially default to the Account's currency if the Outstanding Statement PDF format field is populated on the Account. If the Outstanding Statement PDF format field on the Account is not populated, then the Currency picklist defaults to the currency assigned to the default Ledger (or the active Ledger if Accounting Seed’s Multi-Company Ledger Manager App feature is used). If multi-currency is enabled, then you can select a currency other than the default.
If the Ledger field is changed, the Currency field will automatically update accordingly. - The Outstanding Statement Format field will default to the same PDF value that is on the Customer Account or you can search for and assign another.
If the Ledger field is changed, the PDF Format field will automatically update accordingly. - The Generate Statement as of field defaults to today’s date. You can specify a date to generate the statement. Click in the Date field to manually change the date or to display the Calendar icon and select a date. The date can be changed to an earlier or later date, as necessary. The date in this field will display as the Statement Date on the PDF file.
- Ensure the Send to Contact field is populated. This will auto-populate from the Billing Contact field. The Statement cannot be emailed if this field is blank. If blank, click on the Hour Glass icon to use the lookup feature to populate.
- Enter any CC Addresses, if necessary. This will auto-populate based on the Contact Roles related to this Account. Alternatively, you may manually enter email addresses here.
- Review and edit the Subject and Body of the email. The email templates can be modified, if necessary.
- Add Attachments if necessary by clicking the Attach file button. (Up to five (5) attachments can be added).
- Scroll down to review the Billing Activity Statement PDF Preview.
- The Ledger will default to what is set up in the Default Ledger. If Multi-company is enabled, then you can select a Ledger from the picklist other than the default.
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- Click Send Email to save a copy of the PDF and then send an email containing the pdf and attachments or Save PDF to just save a copy of the PDF.
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- The Save PDF button only saves a copy of the statement to the Files related list on the Account record and does not email the Contact
- The Send Email button both sends an email to the Contact identified in the Send to Contact field containing the PDF as an attachment and all of the added attachments AND saves the PDF as an attachment to the Files related list on the Account record.
A Success Message will appear and an Activity will be logged.
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- Click Back to return to the Account Screen.
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Note: Organization-wide email addresses are supported. If an org-wide email is set up, it will be an option to choose as the from sender instead of the user’s email.
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Winter '24 Release
If you select a different Ledger, the Currency field and the PDF Format field will automatically update accordingly to match the selected Ledger.
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Summer '23 Release
A new Generate Statement as of date field has been added to the Outstanding Statements tab on the Create Statements intermediate screen on the Account.
Comments
15 comments
Am I reading this correctly - open credit memos are not included in the outstanding statement template?
Is there a particular reason that they are not? Is there a way to include them?
Thank!
Rebecca - That is correct. If there is an open billing, then the usual process would be applying the credit memo to that open billing before sending out the outstanding statement. All activity, including credit memos, will show up on the activity statement.
Sometimes it doesn't work out that all credit memos can be applied before sending a statement. Sometimes the credit memo is designated for an order that hasn't been shipped yet, and it needs to be reflected as a reduction to the customer's total open balance. It doesn't make any sense to me to deliberately omit open activity on a customer's account. It's all the same object, so it can't be a programming issue. Why not change the criteria from balance >0 to balance != 0?
There could be a great deal of activity in an activity statement that's a lot of visual noise when all you want to see are the items that have a balance. It's not a good solution for this use case.
-R
Rebecca,
I think it is a good suggestion. I will speak to the development team about it. Do you see any value in including options to show open Accounts Payable on the Outstanding Statement? and Accounts Payable and Cash Disbursements on the Activity statement?
Thanks,
Tony
Thanks Tony :-)
For the outstanding Statement I do think it would be beneficial to have the option to see all "open" activity with a customer and/or vendor since sometimes they are the same, and/or if refunds have been processed, they often go through the AP side.
So Open Billings and Credit Memos, Unapplied Cash Receipts, Open AP & AP Credit Memos, and, once it's possible to manually apply Cash Disbursements to AP records (wwhich release is that, by the way? ;-) ) unapplied Cash Disbursements, too.
It would also be good to have the option to include AP side activity in the Activity Statement.
It would be most ideal if the user could select which objects they'd like to have appear on the statement(s).
But at a minimum, just adding the open credit memos to the outstanding statement would be majorly helpful.
Is there a reason that the due date and the actual billing number aren't included in the standard Outstanding billing statement? an aging table would seem to be appropriate to include as well.
In our usage, we use the Proprietary Billing Number as the reference field for the customer and then use the default Billing Name as the invoice number, so it would be nice to have the option to include both in a statement.
Thanks!
my bad, I just noticed the due date column on the statement :-)
It would still be nice to have the aging table and the billing number included.
Hi David,
The outstanding statement is a visual force page that can be modified. If you are not familiar with visual force, then it would be best to bring in a partner to help with this. We offer the out-of-the-box code, which can then be modified. Feel free to send a ticket to support for a list of approved partners. Here is a link to the code: PDF Formats.
On another note, I see that you are using both the proprietary field and the billing number field. You will want to be careful if you are including both of these numbers on the billing pdf invoice because when you receive payment from a customer, one of these fields will flow through to the cash application screen. If the proprietary field is populated, then that will flow through, if not, then the billing number will flow through.
If you have any other questions, please submit a ticket to support.
Is it possible to edit the body of the email that is generated by clicking the Send Email button? At the moment, the body of the email is a bit terse and doesn't reflect the culture of our company or its customers. Although I understand that the email will always be a template, we would like the ability to edit that template.
David,
Yes the Knowledge article for this is here:
https://accountingseed.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/217730727-Customize-PDF-Email-Templates
Please submit a request with support if you have any issues.
Thanks, Tony! This is exactly what I was looking for.
We also have a key requirement for the outstanding statement to reflect open credit memos on the Account. Is this on the development plan and if so do you have a timing for this functionality to be updated?
I can add a third request for the addition of credit memos in outstanding billing statements. In the accounting department they cannot necessarily pre-apply credit memos, and the process for hunting if there are any is therefore forced on them each time. I realize this topic went through an age gap of about a year, but the need is certainly still here across the board. I imagine that fix would save a lot of time for a lot of company staff for a pretty small time in development. I am the SF admin for our company and would rather not butcher in a solution for them if this will be developed soon.
An official feature request for adding open credits to the Outstanding Statement:
https://support.accountingseed.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360014668573-Include-Billing-Credit-Memos-on-Outstanding-Customer-Statement
Please upvote :-)
Hi Everyone,
Thank you for the feedback, a product improvement ticket has been created to allow unapplied credit memos to show up on an outstanding statement. I don't have a timeline yet, but I will have the customer success manager follow back up once we have a timeline.
Thank you,
Ryan
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