Purge A/P Open Item File

Application Overview

Even when an invoice has been fully paid, the information on the A/P Open Item File pertaining to it remains on file until purged.  If you never purged the A/P Open Item File, the disk would eventually get very full, and some of the applications in the A/P package would start running very slowly, since they would need to sift through large volumes of data to operate.

The A/P Open Item File is always purged up to a particular cut‑off date.  Any invoices on file that have been fully paid on or before this date will be removed from the file.  A purge journal is printed that shows all of these removed invoices in detail, sorted by vendor.

Normally, purging clears out a file and the only access you have to purge information is the Purge Journal. The Elliott Purge A/P Open Item File Function gives you a new file, A/P History File; and when you purge the A/P Open Item File, the data is written to the A/P History File.  As a result, you can still maintain detailed A/P History without slowing the system down.

This is a useful feature in that it allows you to selectively maintain historical data by vendor.  Example:  You may just want to keep open items for 90 days and the rest in history.  Since the open items purged are written to the History File, you can then select vendors by range and cutoff date when you purge the A/P History File.  This will allow you to keep unlimited history for key vendors, a specified length for other vendors or a determined time period for all vendors.

Note:    When you do a vendor inquiry, you will have the option of viewing both the A/P Open Item File and the A/P History File.  At the present time, purged data from the Open Item File will not be available for reporting purposes, i.e., A/P Open Item Report, Vendor History Report, and the Check History Report.  However, you can access the A/P History File with a third-party report writer and create your own reports.

Run Instructions  

Accounts Payable à Processing à Purge A/P Open Item File à Purge à then select Open Item File or History Item File.

The A/P package always remembers the cut‑off date of the last purge.  Every time the purge is run, the cut‑off date will need to be at least one day later than the previous purge cut‑off date.

The purge also removes the data used to produce the Check History, Open Item, Vendor History, and Vendor Analysis Reports. 

Entry Field Descriptions