Bank Payment File Generation and Processing
Once a transfer-type Bill Payment, Account Payment or Vendor Prepayment is authorized, the money hasn't actually left your bank yet — only the accounting record exists in AdmCloud. This area brings together the two screens you use to turn those already-authorized payments into a real bank movement: Generate Payment File, which produces the file you upload manually to your bank's portal, and Process Bank Payments, which sends payments straight to the bank when your account has a direct integration set up.
What is it and what is it for?
AdmCloud deliberately separates authorizing a payment (done from the document itself or from Payment Authorization) from actually executing it at the bank. This Banking screen is where that second step happens, and it offers two paths depending on how you work with your bank:
- Generate Payment File: lists the already-authorized Bill Payments, Account Payments and Vendor Prepayments of a bank account that don't have a file generated yet. You select the ones you want to include and AdmCloud downloads a text file in the exact format your bank requires, ready for you to upload yourself to online banking.
- Process Bank Payments: built for banks with a direct connection already set up (currently Banco BHD León via SFTP). Instead of downloading a file, you send the pending payments straight to the bank with one click, then check back with the same bank to update each payment's status (processed, rejected, etc.) with no manual work.
In both cases, a payment can only go through this process once: in "Generate Payment File" it gets flagged as already exported and won't show up in the list again; in "Process Bank Payments" only payments that are still pending or that the bank rejected are shown.
How to use it step by step
Generate Payment File
- Choose the Bank Account you're paying from. It's required; the file format is determined automatically from the bank linked to that account.
- Filter the list by date range, Subsidiary (if your plan has it enabled), Vendor Class or Beneficiary, to find the payments you're looking for faster.
- Enter the Effective Date the payment should be processed with at the bank; it defaults to today's date.
-
Check the payments you want to include and click
Generate. AdmCloud downloads a text file (
.txt) in the format your bank requires. - Upload that file to your bank's online banking portal, following whatever process your bank has for loading payment files.
Process Bank Payments
- Choose the Bank Account; only pending or rejected transfer payments of that account are shown.
- Select the payments you want to send and click Process. AdmCloud sends them to the bank through the configured connection; in production this runs in the background and you can follow its progress from the Processes screen.
- Use "Update processing status" whenever you want to check with the bank on the result of payments you already sent, to reflect in AdmCloud whether they were processed or rejected.
The buttons to generate the plain or encrypted text file that you may see on this screen are diagnostic tools for internal use by the AdmCloud technical team; as an end user you don't need them for your normal operation.
Key fields
| Field | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Bank Account | The bank account you're paying from. Required on both screens; determines the file format and which bank receives the payments. |
| From / To | Document date range used to filter the payment list, in "Generate Payment File". |
| Subsidiary | Filters by subsidiary when your plan has Subsidiaries enabled. |
| Vendor Class | Filters payments by the beneficiary vendor's classification. |
| Beneficiary | Filters payments by the vendor or person being paid. |
| Effective Date | The date the payment is instructed to the bank with when generating the file; defaults to today's date. |
Validations when generating or processing
- Only authorized, non-void payments show up on either list.
- On "Generate Payment File", only payments without a file generated yet are listed; once included in a file, they won't appear again.
- On "Process Bank Payments", only payments set up as a transfer are listed, and only those in Pending or Rejected status.
- The bank linked to the Bank Account must have a recognized file format (currently Banco Popular, Promerica or BHD León); otherwise "Generate" shows an invalid-bank error.
- For "Process Bank Payments", the account must already have a bank connection configured; if it doesn't, the system reports that there's no payment setup for that bank.
Availability and permissions
- Access is controlled by the "Payments" permission of the Banking module: "Generate Payment File" only requires view-level access, while "Process Bank Payments" requires add-level access.
- Available on every AdmCloud plan, as part of the Banking module.
- Sending payments directly to the bank and automatically updating their status in "Process Bank Payments" are only available once your company has that integration enabled (today, Banco BHD León) and AdmCloud support has already set up the connection with your bank; without that setup, use "Generate Payment File" instead.
- With Subsidiaries enabled, you can filter "Generate Payment File" by subsidiary.
Tips and common mistakes
This screen doesn't create payments, only executes ones that already exist. If you haven't registered the payment yet, do it first from Bill Payment, Account Payment or Vendor Prepayment, and authorize it from Payment Authorization; only then will it show up here.
"Invalid bank" when generating the file. Check that the financial institution linked to the Bank Account is one AdmCloud knows how to format (Banco Popular, Promerica or BHD León); for other banks, export the detail from your reports and upload the payment manually on your bank's portal.
Don't see a payment on the list? Confirm it's already authorized and that you haven't already included it in a previously generated file; those are the two most common reasons a payment doesn't show up.