Importing Payables - both Invoices and Payments - from our bank's bill-pay service into Blackbaud via Excel

Cristin Gaffney

We recently implemented an online bill-pay service through our bank, CashFlow 360 (Chase bank). I'm sure a lot of businesses who did not previously use an online service have recently implemented such things because more people are working from home and can't hand over paper checks to the boss to sign. No? Just us? Okay.

Anyway! My concern now is getting all the invoice and payment data back into Blackbaud, but I don't want to import it all as JEs. There must be a way to import the data so that it appears under Payables, right? I don't want to have to start going to multiple areas to find invoices and payments, so hopefully someone with more knowledge than I can help me out here.

Karen Weiskopf

Hi,

I would like to know how to do this too.  I know you are probably using the Excel Add In for JE Imports but I do not believe it will allow the sub-ledger to be hit.

Jacklyn Tatge

Hello!  We are also beginning this process.  We are hoping we can have Blackbaud design an import template for us to use and Chase/Bill.com have committed to design an export file that will match the FENXT requirements.  We want the detail to upload to vendor files and also to the general ledger.  Currently, we are entering everything inn CashFlow 360 and again as bank drafts in FENXT.  Obviously not effective.  I'm surprised that solutions are not currently being investigated / developed for users knowing how many are now working remotely.  

Cristin Gaffney

I'm disappointed that nobody from Blackbaud has responded to this, even to say "sorry, that's not possible" or "we're working on it". However, since I'm getting dangerously close to the end of our fiscal year and need to finish our budgeting, I need to get these transactions into the system asap SO I guess I will be proceeding with importing as JEs unless I can get someone from BB on the phone soon.

Julia Petit

Thank you everyone for your feedback.  Here are some steps on importing invoices https://kb.blackbaud.com/articles/Article/41638.  There is a note there that touches on the fact that we're not currently able to import payments/checks.


What can be done is after a successful import of invoices, you can process checks for those invoices and print to blank paper or record them as a bank draft.  This way you'll see the payments recorded for those invoices.


We love to be able to track how popular the idea of importing payments/checks are.  To be able to do this add your idea to our Idea Portal.  We monitor these ideas regularly and can better understand what we need to prioritize by seeing how popular those ideas are.

Patrick Lunn

Jacklyn Tatge:

Currently, we are entering everything inn CashFlow 360 and again as bank drafts in FENXT.  Obviously not effective.  I'm surprised that solutions are not currently being investigated / developed for users knowing how many are now working remotely.  

That's how I do it. It works fine for me, especially since the functionality had been added to just run a bunch of "bank drafts" all at once like we do checks. I feel like that is probably as good as it's going to get.


Of course, you have to accurately get the invoices into the NXT A/P system in the first place, which obviously isn't a lot of fun. Very important of course, but tedious. Unless I could somehow have a system where I feed scanned invoices or emailed PDFs into it, and it's so "intelligent" that it just does it all for me. Even then though, it probably wouldn't be great because sometimes I have to split up where the invoice goes. And then I'd also have to worry about whether the smart system is accruing the invoice in the right period. 


What would probably be best for me is if I could enter the original invoice in NXT manually, but then when I hit "pay" or whatever, it magically sends all the required info to my bank and just makes it happen, rather than having to go through all the garbage of logging in to the bank, changing your password seemingly ten million times a year because it forces you to, entering the exact same info in your ACH/wire system that you just entered in NXT, then having to use your little security token to approve payments. And people wonder why it takes so long to deal with a little run of bills. Will probably never happen though. A/P is A/P, and annoying hyper-bureaucratic banks are annoying hyper-bureaucratic banks.

Thomas Walker

Patrick, 

I'm with you. There is a move towards open banking that will enable the dream of being able to handle cash management electronically though with the glacial pace of changes at the bank level if may be a while before we have parity w/ Australia and the UK - where no one cuts checks commercially. We continue to monitor developments as we want to be a leader in this area.

Tom

Thomas Walker

Patrick, 

I'm with you. There is a move towards open banking that will enable the dream of being able to handle cash management electronically though with the glacial pace of changes at the bank level if may be a while before we have parity w/ Australia and the UK - where no one cuts checks commercially. We continue to monitor developments as we want to be a leader in this area.

Tom

Patrick Lunn

Thomas Walker:

Patrick, 

I'm with you. There is a move towards open banking that will enable the dream of being able to handle cash management electronically though with the glacial pace of changes at the bank level if may be a while before we have parity w/ Australia and the UK - where no one cuts checks commercially. We continue to monitor developments as we want to be a leader in this area.

Tom

At least from my perspective, it doesn't seem likely anytime soon. I don't know if anyone else here uses Bank of America CashPro? The ACH function was always a little clunky, but it was workable. Well, recently, they changed their ACH function. Their changes actually *diminished* the app's functionality, and has made it significantly more clunky. I couldn't believe it. It took an almost 2 hour support call to figure out how to add a new vendor and pay the vendor.  I know how to do it now, but it takes way too long. Unless changes are made on their end, I don't see how an accounting system could really interface with that. It is kind of upsetting. I thought we were supposed to be making electronic payments simpler, more efficient, not less so. Thanks to BofA, I've gone backward. No joke, it is now quicker and more efficient for me to cut paper checks.

Lora Yanagawa

We are exploring this as well.  We were using AVID, which I do not recommend.  We have tried the Expense Management module from BB as a way for electronic approvals, but is has too many flaws.  I have been exploring Bill.com.  The big issue there is the ability to import payments into AP.  Bill.com works great for other software I have used.

What are you using for the electronic approval process?

Lora Yanagawa

We are exploring this as well.  We were using AVID, which I do not recommend.  We have tried the Expense Management module from BB as a way for electronic approvals, but is has too many flaws.  I have been exploring Bill.com.  The big issue there is the ability to import payments into AP.  Bill.com works great for other software I have used.

What are you using for the electronic approval process?

Thomas Walker

Hi Lora, 

Could you elaborate on the "too many flaws" statement about expense management. The more we understand from user's the better opportunity for us to continue to improve.

Thanks,

Tom

Thomas Walker

Also am curious about your experience w/ Avid Exchange. Could we set up a call to discuss?

Beth Strickland

Following this. In a few weeks, we are considering implementing an online bill pay system to make vendor payments direct from our bank. I believe the vendor file will be downloaded from the bank and then we will upload through journal entry method. But I believe the journal entry may have to be edited somewhat so that all components post to the correct journals (i.e. accounts payable, cash, etc). Will post an update at a later time.

Joy Meyer

@Julia Petit
This looks like it can only be done in Database view is that correct?

Cristin Gaffney

@Joy Meyer
Invoices can be imported through the Database view, but payments cannot be imported at all, they have to be entered manually/individually.