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Feature: Report Desk AR Statement

← Elliott Version 8.6
Release date: 5/5/2023
Elliott Version: 8.6

Overview
Beginning with Elliott version 8.6, there is a new ability to create more professional looking Accounts Receivable statements.  The following standard features are included:
  • Accounts are automatically aged before printing the statements.
  • Addressee information is positioned for inserting into standard windowed envelopes.
  • Optionally, PDF PostOffice is available to facilitate the delivery of statements via email.
  • Past due accounts get a delinquent message.
  • An image of your design can be substituted for your text address information.
In addition to these standard features, you may contract Netcellent to create an even more individualized statement layout, including custom logic, additional messages and an internet link to your website.

Statement Elements
The top portion of a sample statement is shown here:


Areas of the statement are described below:
  • Company address  is in the upper left corner.
  • Statement date and Customer number are in the upper right corner.
  • Customer mailing address would appear in the area that is shaped like a business envelope's address window.
  • Aging information is shown right of the envelope window area.
  • Purchases are shown in a grid with the titles shaded and bolded.
  • Running Balance  is shown as the last column of the grid.
  • Comments (optional) appear to the left, under the grid, in two lines.
  • Balance Due is the customer's current balance, as of the statement date.
  • Past Due, the total of all past due amounts (excludes the current amount), is highlighted in a shaded and bolded area.
  • Past Due message, for accounts with past due amounts, appears centered, below the optional comments and requested amount.

Using an Image for Your Address

By default, the upper left corner of the statement will include your company's name and address information.  However, you should provide a company address image that adds a marketing touch to the statement, as in the example below:


Netcellent sample image is distributed with Elliott in the following location: <ElliottRoot>\Logo\COMPADDR.PNG. Obviously, you don't want to send your A/R statements with Netcellent's image. To replace the Netcellent address image with you own, your Elliott administrator must do the following:
  • Create an image file named COMPADDR.PNG. Try to limit the size of this file less than 1 MB.
  • Place the image file in the directory <ElliottRoot>\Logo or, if you need different address images for different companies, <ElliottRoot>\Logo \<CompanyNbr>, e.g., M:\Elliott8\Logo\01.
  • This image will be displayed in the area where the Netcellent address image is shown above.
  • The space reserved for the image is 5 inches wide by 1 inch tall.  If your image does not match that size, the image can be stretched or shrunken proportionally.  For example, if your image is 4 inches by 1 inch, there will be no stretching nor shrinking because the height dimension matches the space allowed.  Note that stretching and shrinking can result in some loss of sharpness of the image.

Creating Statements

With Report Desk enabled (see Report Desk: Setup and Configuration), go to Accounts Receivable / Processing / Print Statements:  You will see a list like the following:


Select the highlighted entry and press Enter.  The following screen will appear:


Following is a description of each input parameter:
  • Statement Period:  Enter the date range for the statements.  The "from" date defaults to the first day of the last month.  The "to" date defaults to the last day of the previous month.
  • Comments:  Optionally enter one or two lines of comments,
  • Print Order:  Select either A=Apply To Document No. (to order the detail lines by apply to document number) or D=Document Date (to order the detail lines by the document date).
  • Customers:  Enter a range of customer numbers or skip this field to consider all customers. Just as a word of caution, while we don't see a problem with sending 100 statements in a batch, you may encounter memory resource limitations if you send 10,000 statements at a time. We don't know the practical limit for your particular workstation. If you run A/R statements for all your customers and the system crashes, then we suggest you use customer ranges to limit the size of your batch and fine-tune it accordingly.
  • Frequency Codes:  Enter one of the following: W=Weekly, S=Semi-Monthly, M=Monthly, Q=Quarterly, D=Discretionary
  • Print Only if Debit Balance:  Check this box to not print customers with a credit balance.
  • Show Open Items Only:  Check this box to show open items only.  This generally produces a shorter, easier to understand statement.
  • Print Zero Balance Customers:  Check this box to include customers with a zero balance.
  • Amount in Current Period or Older: The possible values are 0, 1, 2, 3, or 4. For example, if you only want to send statements to customers who have been past due for some time, you can choose the value "2," which means that customers who have a past due amount in period 2 or higher will qualify to receive statements. If you only want to send statements to customers who are severely past due, you can choose a value of "4."
  • Credit Hold Flag:  Enter "Y" to only include customers on credit hold, enter "N" to exclude customers on credit hold, or leave blank to include all customers, whether or not they are on credit hold.
  • Order by Customer Name:  Check this box to order statements by customer name instead of customer number.
You may enter a description if you are going to save these parameters for reuse in the future.

Once you have entered all the parameters, press Enter or click on OK.  You will see a screen like the following:


The Format (bottom line) defaults to PDF, which is required.  You may select one or more output destinations.  Fill in any destination information that is required, then press Go.  You will see a progress screen like the following:


As shown, the following actions take place:
  1. Identify the customers that are in your range of customers.  
  2. Age the accounts for those customers.  
  3. Requalify which of those customers should get statements based on your other input parameter choices.
  4. The qualified customers are placed in a queue and then processed.
  5. Finally, the delivery of the reports is documented, one output at a time.
Of course, in this example, there were not many progress lines.  In a more normal running of statements, there would be many more progress lines, keeping you informed on the progress of printing, emailing, etc.

Using PDF PostOffice to Email Statements

Before PDF PostOffice, statements had to be physically printed, stuffed in envelopes and delivered to the post office for mailing, which can take a while.  Now, with PDF PostOffice, each individual statement can be emailed to the designated contact(s) for that customer, cutting down on manual effort and delivery time.

See this article for details on using PDF PostOffice with Report Desk:


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