UNDERSTANDING BATCHES IN FSPC
Why do I need to worry about batches?
Batches are important to understand because some of the most often used reports in FSPC draw their information from batch numbers. For example, you cannot print a Funds Transfer report if there are no viable batches. Neither could you print a Member Payments report nor an Orders on Treasurer report.
What are batches?
Batches are files that store transactions. A batch number is assigned to a transaction or group of transactions for purposes of organization. The reports are designed to use transactions based on their batch number.
How do I create a batch?
To create a batch, you must first make sure that you have either entered some member receipts or added a voucher or receipt in Council Transactions. Those transactions are considered to be OPEN until you process them.
How do Batches work?
The first batch you create should have a batch number of 2. The next batch will be number 3. The system assigns these batch numbers in ascending order. It is not possible to assign or change these numbers yourself. Two batches can have the same number if one is for receipts and the other is for vouchers. Once you process receipts or vouchers and create a batch for them, no more changes to the transactions can be made.
In this scenario, we will be working with receipts. We already billed our members and sent out the dues bills. Each member shows an outstanding balance in their ledgers. Now it is time to enter the members’ payments. To do this, we go to Enter Member Receipts, found under the Procedures menu. We click on Create New Batch and a list of all the members who owe money will appear. (NOTE: The ‘Batch’ in this step has nothing to do with the subject of this help sheet.) We type in the payment information for the necessary members.
We will enter two payments of $25.00, for a total of $50.00. Now we Post the payments and then Apply the payments, by clicking on those buttons.
We can now exit this window and go to the Member Payments Trial Balance report (Output menu, then Reports, Labels, Letters,). This will show the two payments that we just entered.
A ‘Trial Balance’ report will show the transactions which are still OPEN, which have not been processed into a batch. We can view this same information in a Member Payments report once we process the council receipts. To process the receipts, we go to the Procedures menu and choose Process Council Receipts. Now those two receipts are closed and assigned a batch number, in this case batch number 10.
We can now view the Member Payments report (Output menu, Reports, Labels, Letters). The most recent batch will appear on the last page of the report. To get to the last page, we click on the button to the left of the percentage box in the Print Preview window.
We can also now view a Funds Transfer report. The Funds Transfer report includes two types of receipts – from members and from other sources. In this case, we only have member receipts in batch number 10. The Funds Transfer report shows the following:
If there were any receipts other than those received from members as payments, they would show up here as well. These ‘other’ receipts are entered in the Council Transactions window – this is also where vouchers are entered.
Let’s now enter an ‘other' receipt and some more member receipts. We go to the Edit menu and choose Council Transactions. Then we click on Add at the bottom and fill in the information above. The Type will be Receipt, the Description will be Donation, and the Amount will be $10.
We can view this receipt in the Funds Transfer Trial Balance report. Notice that the Batch Number listed at the top is 0 – any open transactions are given a temporary number of 0.
Now we enter another receipt for a member. We go to Enter Member Receipts, create a new batch, and enter a $25.00 payment for William Smith. Now, if we Process Council Receipts this time, both the Donation and the payment from William Smith will appear in the batch, number 11. The Funds Transfer report reflects this.
The above Funds Transfer Report is for batch number 11, the most recent batch. If for some reason we needed an earlier batch, we could reprint it by selecting the report named Funds Transfer Re-Print. Select the Funds Transfer Re-Print report – if you get a message that reads ‘Function argument value, type, or count is invalid’ click on Ignore. This means there is no valid batch number selected. Next we need to click on the Modify button on the right side. We need to modify the query so that we can view batch number 10 in the report. In the Query Builder window, be sure the Council Transaction Batch query is selected at the top. Next we click on the Equal To below the Operator heading. We click on Equal To again and a new window will appear. By clicking on the Choices button, a list of existing batch numbers will appear. We simply choose batch number 10, hit OK, then OK again, and finally close the Query Builder window and run the Funds Transfer Re-Print report.
Things to Remember:
Ø You need to have entered receipts into the system before you Process Council Receipts. If you enter payments into the Enter Member Receipts window, you need to Post the receipts before they are able to be processed into a batch
Ø You can create two kinds of batches – one for receipts and one for vouchers and they can have identical numbers.
Ø Receipts or Vouchers which are not processed can be viewed in a Trial Balance type report. If they are not processed, they are considered to be OPEN and will have a batch number of 0.
Ø Once you process a batch, everything you subsequently enter will appear in the next batch when you process it.
Ø Once you process a batch, the transactions in the batch cannot be altered – they are Closed.