Receivables uses payment methods to account for your receipt entries and applications. Payment methods also determine a customer’s remittance bank information. For bills receivable, you need to define two types of payment methods: creation payment methods, which determine how Receivables automatically creates bills receivable from transactions, and remittance payment methods, which designate the remittance banks and accounting for bills receivable remittances.

You can assign multiple remittance banks to each payment method, but only one bank account can be the primary account for each currency. For each remittance bank branch account assigned to a payment method, you must define all of your receipt accounts. You can then assign your payment methods to your receipt sources to use with your AutoLockbox and manually entered receipts.

The receipt class you assign to each of your payment methods determines the processing steps that Receivables requires for receipts that you create using this payment method. These steps include whether to require confirmation, remittance, and bank clearance for receipts that you create with a specific receipt class.

Receivables requires that you specify a payment method when you create your automatic receipts through the Receipt Batches window.You also assign payment methods to invoices when you manually enter them in the Transactions window.
You can assign all payment methods to transactions in the Transactions window, with the exception of bills receivable remittance payment methods. You enter bills receivable remittance payment methods in the Remittances window.
Only automatic payment methods can be associated with invoices. If you remit receipts in several currencies for a single payment method, you must enter at least one remittance bank per currency. At least one of these remittance banks must be primary.
Note: You define payment methods in the Receipt Classes window.

Number of Receipts Rules
When defining payment methods for a receipt class with an Automatic creation method, you can choose from the following receipts rules:
One Per Customer: Create one payment for each customer.
One per customer and Due Date: Create one payment for each customer and due date. This option creates several payments for a customer if a customer’s invoices have several due dates.
One per Site: Create one payment for each site.
One per Invoice: Create one payment for each invoice.
One per Site and Due Date: Create one payment for each customer site and due date.

Assigning Remittance Banks

Assign remittance banks to your payment methods to facilitate data entry and specify the General Ledger accounts Receivables will use when you enter or apply receipts. A remittance bank can be assigned to a payment method only if its institution type is 'Bank.'
You can assign multiple bank accounts to a payment method, but you can only have one primary account for each currency defined for that payment method

To assign a remittance bank to a payment method:
1. Enter general Remittance Bank information, such as Bank, Branch, Account Name, and range of Effective Dates. You can only select active banks and bank branches.

2. If the creation method of the receipt class is Automatic, enter a Minimum Receipt Amount. This is the minimum amount in this currency that must be specified when you create automatic receipts with this payment method.
Note: You can also define a minimum receipt amount at the customer profile level. Receivables uses the larger of the two minimum receipt amounts when creating automatic receipts.

3. If the remittance method for this receipt class is either Factoring or Standard and Factoring, specify the number of Risk Elimination Days for receipts created with this receipt class (optional). When you factor receipts, Receivables creates a short term debt to account for your risk in case of customer default. When you run the Automatic Clearing program to clear or risk eliminate these receipts, the debt is cleared y days after each receipt's maturity date, where y is the number of risk elimination days that you enter here.

4. If the remittance method is not No Remittance, enter the number of Clearing Days for receipts created with this receipt class (optional). Remitted receipts are cleared x days after their maturity date, where x is the number of clearing days that you enter here. Factored receipts are cleared immediately on the remittance date.

5. To be able to override this bank during the remittance process, check the Override Bank box.

6. If you do not want this to be the primary remittance bank account in this currency for this payment method, uncheck the Primary check box. You can only assign one primary remittance account per currency to your payment method. Receivables ensures that at least one remittance account per currency is primary.

7. In the GL Accounts tabbed region, enter GL Account information for this remittance bank.
7.1 In the Unearned Discounts and Earned Discounts fields, select an unearned discount activity type and an earned discount activity type from the lists of values.
7.2 If using Oracle Trade Management, then in the Claim Investigations field, select a claim investigation activity type.
7.3 If the creation method of the associated receipt class is Automatic, open the Formatting Programs tabbed region, then enter formatting program information.