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This article covers some best practices for using Payment Accounts in Garde to help you avoid editing paid invoices in your accounting system.

When uploading invoices, the default is to mark them as unpaid by assigning them to the Accounts Payable payment account. If you want the correct payment method recorded when the invoice is processed, there are two ways you can help ensure that this happens. Both are outlined below. *If you need to change the payment account on a closed invoice, see this article for instructions.

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Getting the Payment Account Right During Processing

  1. You can adjust the vendor settings to show a default payment account, or
  2. You can write the payment used on the invoice itself

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Option #1

Set the Payment Account from within the Vendor settings. With this method, you can set a default payment account that will be used for this vendor. You also have the option to lock this setting.

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Here are the steps:

  1. Select your Vendor under the “Vendors ” navigation tab in Garde.
  2. Click to open the vendor and click the small blue “Edit Vendor” icon.
  1. Inside the Vendor, scroll down to the “Accounting Configuration ” section.
  2. Here, you can choose the default Payment Account you want. Note, this Payment Account must be created previously in order to appear on the list.
  3. If you want to lock this setting so that this Payment Account cannot be changed during invoice processing, click the checkbox to “Prevent changing this account during order reconciliation ”.
NOTE: You can also set Category Restrictions here if you want to ensure that only certain categories are used for this vendor.

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Option # 2

Write on the invoice which Payment Account should be used. Note, the Payment Account must be created previously in order for our team to be able to close the invoice to the Payment Account written. Below are best practices for the various payment types.

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Petty Cash

For an invoice being paid with Petty Cash, please write “Petty Cash” on the invoice.

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Checks

SINGLE INVOICE, SINGLE CHECK When you have a single invoice that has been paid with a check, please clearly write CHECK # followed by the check number. As people write all manner of notes on invoices, our team will only assume a number is supposed to be for a check if it is specified as such. MULTIPLE INVOICES, SINGLE CHECK When you have multiple invoices being paid by a single check, please write “CHECK # ” with the check number AND the CHECK TOTAL on each and every invoice. When invoices are uploaded together, our team automatically separates them into individual orders. If the information is not present on every invoice, they will not know how to process it after it gets separated.

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Credit Card

For an invoice being paid with a Credit Card, we recommend you have a Payment Account whose name includes the last 4 digits on the card. When marking an invoice, please write Credit Card + the four digits (i.e. VISA - 2245) on the invoice to match as it is defined in your Garde Payment Accounts.

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*EFT/ACH

Generally speaking, payment accounts are used to record unpaid invoices or payments made on invoices prior to upload. If you have an auto-draft arrangement with a vendor, you can have those invoices marked as paid from the desired bank account and the payment will include a randomized transaction number as a check number. We recommend you map this payment account to the account the funds are drafted from. Two things to note about this arrangement. The first is that doing this will send one check per invoice to your accounting system and the check date will match the invoice date. Since we do not know exactly when or which invoices will be included in an auto-draft, there is no way to mark invoices to reflect a future draft from your bank account for several invoices. Second, since we cannot export a check for a negative amount, credits from your vendor will be sent to your AP and not marked as paid with a check. To choose this option, follow the instructions above to lock your vendor to a checking type payment account that is mapped to the balance sheet account the funds are drafted from.