Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations

Prepayments

A prepayment is an amount paid in advance by a customer to a merchant for a good or service.

For example, a customer orders the custom-made furniture, which will be produced according to his or her requirements, like materials, parameters, color, design and so on. In this case, a merchant can ask for a payment in advance to make sure that when the furniture is finally made, a customer will definitely buy it.

 NOTE

A prepayment is available for a customer only if he or she pays the order online through a payment gateway.

How prepayments are processed in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations

To settle a prepayment transaction for the order in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations, an accountant needs to create a payment journal for the customer's prepayment amount with the reference to the sales order and post it. Then, the accountant should mark the open prepayment transaction for settlement and create an invoice for the sales order. The invoice payment will be automatically settled with the prepayment transaction, meaning that the order has been paid by the customer.
When a customer pays an order in a Sana webshop online, all above mentioned steps can be automatically executed in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.

The accountant does not need to create and post the payment journal and mark the open prepayment transaction for settlement. He or she just need to create an invoice and Sana will do the rest.

 NOTE

When a customer pays an order in the Sana webshop online, the prepayment amount always equals to the total order amount.

Once the invoice is created, a customer can see it in the Sana webshop with the "Paid" status.

If you allow your customers to pay their orders online in the webshop during checkout, Sana can automatically post payment transactions in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations.

Set up prepayments posting

To post payment transactions automatically, in Microsoft Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations click: Webshop > Common > Webshops. Select your webshop and on the Payment processing FastTab select the Post prepayments automatically checkbox.

To post payment transactions, Sana uses a payment journal and offset account that are selected on the Payment processing FastTab.

Offset accounts

In Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations you can set up offset account for a payment journal, a webshop and for a payment method.

When a customer pays for the invoice in the Sana webshop, the offset account that will be used for a payment is based on priority.

If the offset account is set up for a payment journal selected in the webshop settings and the option Fixed offset account is enabled, then an offset account from a payment journal is used for a payment transaction.

In case the option Fixed offset account is not enabled, then an offset account set for a webshop is used for a payment transaction.

If the option Fixed offset account is not enabled in the settings of a payment journal and offset account is not set up for a webshop, then an offset account from a payment method set in the Payment processing settings of the webshop is used for a payment transaction.

So, the priority is the following: Payment journal offset account (Fixed offset account option is enabled) > Webshop offset account > Payment method offset account. 

Payment journal approval

 NOTE

Applies to: Sana 9.3.1 and higher

All payment journals for customers' prepayments can be automatically approved by the Microsoft Dynamics 365 user that is used for connection between Sana and Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. This user is specified in the ERP connection settings in Sana Admin.

To approve payment journals automatically, the Microsoft Dynamics 365 user should be associated with the appropriate person (user relations) and should be added to the group set on the payment journal you are using in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations and that is authorized to approve payment journals.

Step 1: Open the details of a payment journal set for your webshop. In the Approval section select the Active option and make sure that your Microsoft Dynamics 365 user is added to the group selected in the Approve field.

Step 2: In Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations click: System administration > Users > Users. Open the Microsoft Dynamics 365 user you are using. Assign the appropriate Person to the Microsoft Dynamics 365 user.

If the Microsoft Dynamics 365 user is correctly set up, then all payment journals for customers' prepayments will be automatically approved by this user and you can see it on the History tab of the payment journal.

Payment method status

 NOTE

Applies to: Sana 9.3.1 and higher

All payment journals for customers' prepayments have a payment status in Dynamics 365 for Finance and Operations. Sana uses the payment status from the payment method set on the Webshops form.

You can see the payment status of the payment journal for a prepayment in the payment journal lines.