Cash Application Manager – NetSuite Integration App overview

In many companies, cash application/resolution tasks are performed manually. Valuable staff hours are diverted to low-value tasks such as manually processing payments and applying them to customer account balances. In addition to higher processing costs, manual A/R processing increases Days Sales Outstanding* (DSO), creates payment backlogs, and increases errors. Time needs to be allocated to research exceptions and correct inaccurate data. Customer service also suffers without real-time visibility into customer payments and invoice statuses.
*DSO is an accounting ratio used to estimate a company’s average collection period and gauge a company’s effectiveness in managing receivables. A lower number is desirable. Manual A/R processing can take longer for customer remittances be applied to A/R, and may artificially make the ratio higher.

Welcome to Celigo Cash Application Manager.

Customer payments made via bank funds transfers are automatically applied to account receivables in NetSuite by Celigo’s Cash Application Manager (formerly known as Lockbox Connector). Bank payments are immediately applied against invoices in a hands-free process. The CAM dashboard allows companies to quickly identify exceptions and view details. Cash Application Manager (CAM) supports file formats used by many major banks for check payments, wire transfers and ACH push (ACH credit).

Key Benefits

Cash Application Manager is capable of automating more than 90% of the manual, repetitive tasks associated with managing customer remittances that are made via bank funds transfers. With CAM, companies are able to:

• Reduce manual work and errors by automating cash application of bank payments
• Lower DSO with immediate application of customer payments against invoices
• Accurately monitor cash flow and capital by reducing unallocated payments and open items
• Reduce operating expenses by handling more payments with fewer staff
• Receive out-of-the-box integration with NetSuite – no development is required
• Improve customer satisfaction with real-time view of account balances
• Reduce the time taken to catch up with the backlog during month-end
• Receive a complete audit trail and improved process visibility with the CAM dashboard and reports

Cash Application Manager is an integration between your bank/s and NetSuite. The solution supports you with the following strategies:

• Fully automates inbound integration and association of bank transactions with NetSuite Customer, NetSuite Invoice and NetSuite Customer Payment records
• Captures payments deposited at your bank and securely syncs them into your NetSuite account
• Eliminates the manual processes of entering payments into NetSuite

How Celigo Cash Application Manager works

Cash Application Manager automates cash management as follows:

1. Capturing bank payments
• Bank payment files are automatically passed from a designated FTP server at designated time intervals to NetSuite or can be manually uploaded into NetSuite
• A payment transaction is automatically created in NetSuite for each payment in the file
2. Cash application and exception handling
• Payments are matched against outstanding invoices based on customer information, invoice number and payment amount
• For successful matches, payment is matched with the invoice and invoice is marked as fully paid. Status of the payment will be changed to “Applied”
• For missing or questionable payments, they are flagged and no further action is taken 
3. Reporting
• Standard or customized reports can be run against payments that have been processed and any exceptions that have been found
• The CAM Dashboard shows the status of all transactions processed by the Integration App with a complete audit trail

As a result of the matching process, the Cash Application Manager will label each payment with one of the following 5 status values:

• Applied: CAM finds the NetSuite invoice which matches the payment, and the payment amount is equal to the invoice amount. (A customer can send a single payment for multiple invoices. In that case, “applied” means that all invoices for a given payment were found in NetSuite and the amounts for each invoice were matched.)
• Partially Applied: CAM finds some of the NetSuite invoices which match the payment. Because other invoices on the lockbox file are not found in NetSuite, the payment exceeds the total of the invoice amounts. This can also be due to an overpayment, i.e for example, your customer has made a payment against an invoice already closed.
• Unapplied: CAM finds the NetSuite customer that corresponds to the payment, but it does not find any of the invoices for that payment.
• Unidentified: CAM does not find the NetSuite customer for the payment.
• Error/Skipped: CAM isn't able to create payment because of any reason. For ex. the transaction currency from the bank is not same as the customer currency.

The Cash Application Manager usage model and data flow

• The AR department creates invoices in NetSuite
• Your customers send checks, wire transfers, and/or ACH payments to your bank
• The bank creates a lockbox file/other formats, typically either fixed width or character delimited, which isn’t designed to be easily read by a person
• Celigo’s Cash Application Manager attempts to match payments first to invoices and then to customers, depending on the data in the file. The solution can be customized to look at one or more other criteria.

File import options with Cash Application Manager

The Celigo Cash Application Manager file import optional feature

• CAM can be configured to automatically import files from an FTP site based on a specified schedule 

Cash Application Manager dashboard

CAM provides an intuitive and graphical dashboard with which you can analyze the mismatched payment issues easily and resolve them directly in NetSuite.

Celigo Integrator.io Integration Platform

Celigo's Cash Application Manager is built on integrator.io, Celigo's integration platform. CAM comes with prebuilt data flows between your bank and NetSuite. You can add any number of banks to your account, provided you secure adequate licenses. You can set up any type of bank payment file in the platform. You can run data flows to import new bank files from the FTP server, on demand, or schedule data flows to run at specific intervals. Integration job status can be viewed in real time, and any issues, can be resolved from within the integrator.io platform.

Key features of the Cash Application Manager solution

• Supports multiple banks having different file standards and payment types
• Supports multiple accounts as a single file from the same bank
• Parser settings - to set positions of fields from data file
• Credit Memo - available in all editions
• Write-off - accurate reporting
• Dummy Customer - to assign placeholder customer
• Write-off based on Threshold for underpaid transactions
• Summary and Exception Dashboard
• Reports (Short Paid Invoices, Overpaid Invoices)

Related topics

• Install Cash Application Manager for NetSuite
• Settings for Cash Application Manager for NetSuite
• Add a bank in Cash Application Manager
• Set up a bank file in Cash Application Manager