EFT Check Run Limit in NXT

Geoffrey Goodfellow

Today, I learned for the first time that there is a limit to the number of EFT Check invoices that can be included in a single EFT file that gets uploaded to our bank. Not until our February bank reconciliation did we discover that 6 invoices were left out of our 2/28/2024 EFT file. To confound matters, all six invoices were marked as paid. Unless you actually open the cryptic text of the EFT file itself, you would never know.

I contacted support and was told that 11 invoices is the limit for NXT. In database view, the limit is much higher, so it is really an issue exclusive to NXT. Support indicated that if you try to process more than 11 invoices in a single EFT file, you run the risk of the file not generating at all or that some invoices will be excluded from your EFT file, all while the invoices still get marked paid, and no error message or alert is shown to the user. They recommended that I create an idea in the Idea Bank to increase this limitation.

If this is an idea that would benefit you, I encourage you to please vote for:

"Currently, in Financial Edge NXT, a run of EFT Checks is limited to 11 invoices. If you try to pay more than that at a single time, there is a very high risk that your invoices will be marked paid but the EFT file generated for the bank doesn't include all of your invoices. This is often not discovered until bank reconciliation. Blackbaud Support Case 019656188 verified that this is a known current limit for NXT. Such a limit does not exist in database view but is present in NXT. Unfortunately, there is no error screen to alert the user that the limit has been exceeded or that his/her EFT file is incomplete. The invoices are marked paid as if everything worked fine.

Please expand the number of EFT Check invoices that can be included in each run. At the very least, an error message should alert the user that the limit has been exceeded or those invoices that were excluded should be left "unpaid" so that they could be sent in a separate EFT file."

Ed Leiter

@Geoffrey Goodfellow
Did support provide a knowledge base article on this? Is this limitation documented anywhere? I voted for your idea. This seems crazy particularly when organizations are migrating from paper check/US mail to ACH. Thanks for your post.

Kevin Brazell

@Geoffrey Goodfellow
I know the initital contact with support said it's a limitation, which it may be, but I know it's not been documented in Knowledgebase. Furthermore the description of the extra invoices being changed to a paid status, sounds like a bug. I would follow back up and ask for further investigation as that alone should be a bug that needs to be looked into. I get a limit may be there, but the marking invoies paid when they are not is clearly not functioning as designed or intended.

Geoffrey Goodfellow

@Kevin Brazell Agreed. However, support suggested that this is an informal limitation based on their experience with other clients. They have seen some people process dozens without a problem but others where processing too many causes no EFT file to be created at all or the EFT is created but with some invoices missing. I know for a fact that we have processed many more than 11 in the past with no problems, so 11 isn't really an hard limit just that support indicated that doing more than 11 runs the risk for the problem happening. Part of my reason for posting in the community and to reference my exact ticket number was to get some other Blackbaud eyes on it since it does really seem like a product defect to me.

Geoffrey Goodfellow

@Ed Leiter No official KB that I know. Seems to be more an unofficial limit.

Nikki Baldwin

Just to clarify here for anyone following along – the limitation in question is not specific to webview vs database view but rather the check/EFT format you choose for the bank in which payments are being cut. See this KB that talks about the maximum number of invoices that can be paid on one check or EFT by the format: https://kb.blackbaud.com/knowledgebase/articles/Article/47387

The issue of the unpaid invoices being marked as paid is what was indicated to be a bug that should be fixed. So if anyone is having that issue, that needs to be resolved on a 1:1 basis. Anyone regularly cutting payments for more invoices than is allowed per check/EFT format, could edit their formatting preference. This also in no way refers to the overall number of payments in your payment run, just specific to the number of invoices from one vendor being paid on one check/EFT.

Geoffrey Goodfellow

@Nikki Baldwin Thanks for this clarification, Nikki! I don't believe that my customer chat case reporting the unpaid invoices invoices being marked as paid accurately reflects the details you provided. The case was initially closed by the agent as a product limitation rather than a bug, and I was encouraged to create an Idea in the IdeaBank which is what prompted this thread. I will re-open that case if we experience this problem further.