Recurring AP Documents: General Information

In MYOB Acumatica, you can create schedules to generate the following types of accounts payable documents on the Bills and Adjustments (AP301000) form: Bill, Credit Adjustment, Debit Adjustment, and Prepayment.

Attention: Only AP documents originating in the accounts payable subledger can be added to the schedule.

Learning Objectives

In this chapter, you will learn how to do the following:

  • Schedule the generation of AP documents
  • Run the schedule and process the generated documents

Applicable Scenarios

You create schedules for AP documents if these documents are recurring—that is, if they repeat regularly and have the same amounts and settings.

Scheduling of AP Document Generation

You can automate the process of creating the recurring documents by doing either of the following:

  • Adding a particular document to an existing schedule on the Bills and Adjustments (AP301000) form. On this form, open the document to be scheduled and click Add to Schedule on the form toolbar. The system opens the Recurring Transactions (AP203500) form, where you can assign the document to a schedule.
  • Creating a specific schedule and assigning one document or multiple documents to that schedule on the Recurring Transactions form.
Attention: Only documents with the Balanced status can be scheduled.

A schedule defines how many times and how often specific documents should be generated. To indicate how many times a schedule can be executed, on the Recurring Transactions form, you can do one of the following:

  • Permit unlimited schedule executions by selecting the No Limit check box
  • Specify a fixed number of times the schedule should be repeated by specifying a required number in the Execution Limit (Times) box

You also define the frequency of the schedule executions by selecting one of the following option buttons on the form and specifying the number of units of time (x in the descriptions below):

  • Daily: The documents should be generated daily or every x days.
  • Weekly: The documents should be generated once a week or once every x weeks.
  • Monthly: The documents should be generated once per month or once every x months.
  • By Financial Period: The documents should be generated once per financial period or once per x financial periods.

Once a document is assigned to a schedule, its status changes to Scheduled and it becomes the template document for the schedule. The system uses this document when it generates additional documents for the schedule.

Tip: If you want to use a closed document as a template, you need to copy and paste its details to a new document; then save this document with the Balanced status but do not release it.

Attachment of Relevant Documents to Schedules

To make the tracking of documents easier for users and to facilitate auditing, you can attach to each schedule the scanned documents or electronic versions of the documents that are the basis for the schedule you have created. To attach a file to the schedule, on the Recurring Transactions (AP203500) form, you perform the following steps:

  1. In the Schedule ID box, you select the schedule by its ID.
  2. On the form title bar, you click Files. This opens the Files dialog box.
  3. In the dialog box, you click Add File on the table title bar. This brings up the Upload File dialog box.
  4. In the Upload File dialog box, you click Browse to locate the file, and then click Upload to import the file and close the dialog box.

If multiple unrelated documents are assigned to the same schedule, on the Document List tab of the form, for each document in the table, you can click the staple (at the beginning of the row) to attach a file or multiple files explaining why this document is generated periodically.

Running of a Schedule

To generate AP documents in accordance with the schedule you have created, you run the schedule periodically by using the Generate Recurring Transactions (AP504000) form.

When you run a schedule, the system uses the original document as a template to generate similar documents. The documents generated by the schedule differ from the template document as follows:

  • Date: The date of each document is determined by the schedule you have configured.
  • Reference number: The system generates a new reference number for each document in accordance with the numbering sequence specified on the Accounts Payable Preferences (AP101000) form.
  • Tax rate: If any taxes are applied to a template document, the system calculates the tax and taxable amounts in each generated document by using the tax rates effective on the date of the document’s creation. Thus, in different documents generated based on the same schedule, the tax amounts can differ. You can find the tax rate used by the system in each generated document on the Taxes tab of the Bills and Adjustments (AP301000) form.
  • Currency rate: If the currency of a document differs from the base currency in the system, the system uses for conversion the currency exchange rate that is effective on the date of the document’s creation.

No matter how many times you run the schedule, documents will be generated only as required by the schedule. When you run the schedule, the system determines whether it should generate documents based on the current date, the schedule's start and expiration dates, the schedule type, and the date when the documents were last generated. If any needed documents have been generated, the system updates the Last Executed On date on the Recurring Transactions form. Thus, no documents will be generated ahead of time, but you can generate missing documents for previous due dates by running the schedule once for each missed due date.

For example, imagine that you have scheduled a document to be generated weekly on each Tuesday for an unlimited number of times. If you run the schedule every week on Wednesday, one document will be generated each time. If you run this schedule every day, the documents will be created only on Tuesdays. If you want to run this schedule only on the last Wednesday of each month, you must run it four times to generate one document each time.

The documents generated by the schedule have the Balanced status; they can be released or posted, as any other documents can. Also, you can change the documents' amounts, if needed. To view and edit a particular document, use the Bills and Adjustments form. If you make any corrections, the document can be released only if its status remains Balanced. You release the document or approve it for payment as you do for any other document.

Editing of a Template Document

You can edit the template document (that is, the document with the Scheduled status) any time you need to. On the next schedule run, the system will use the modified version of the document for generating documents.

Also, you can remove a scheduled template document from the table on the Document List tab of the Recurring Transactions form by clicking the row with the document and then clicking Delete Row on the table toolbar. The system changes the status of the document to Voided and does not use the document anymore for generating documents.