Wells Fargo - Payment Manager Export

Owned by Vince Luong
Last updated: Nov 17, 2020 by Alex Hatzopoulos-A (Unlicensed)
5 min read

Introduction

Banks are introducing "Payment Manager" services that allow a business to forward their payables to the bank, where the bank manages them. The first such a service that our software will need to support is Wells Fargo. and where to export payment manager files.

The Payment Manager process is a lot like the ACH process in terms of how to batch records, send them to a file, and commit the batches once the file is sent. The only real difference is that this new file format accepts APC (Pay Card) formats, as well. 

The Wells Fargo export was updated to allow the ability to send automated remittance to the vendor. The email that it is sent to is the one configured for the vendor.

 

Prerequisites

To create payment manager files, we will need:

  • Security Access to:

    • Banks

    • Vendors

    • The Voucher Payments Feature (ACS specifically). 

  • Configured Payment Types

Configuring Banks to Perform Payment Exports

Master → Miscellaneous → Bank Accounts

When adding or updating a bank, there is a new tab for "Payment Manager" Settings. Configuring these values will allow us to create payment manager files for this bank.

  • Enable Payment Manager: Setting this will make this bank account appear in the bank drop down for payment manager batches.

  • Export File Destination Path: This is the where the file will be placed.

  • APC Payment Type:

    • This is a drop-down of payment types.

    • Chose the one that will be exported in the file as payroll card payments.

  • Pay Card Disbursement Number: Like check numbers. This number is set on the bank configuration and will increment by one with every pay card disbursement that will be sent from this account.

    • Per the requirements of the file specification, this number should be unique for a period of at least 60 days.

 

Configuring Vendors to Perform Payment Exports

Master → Payables → Vendor

Vendors are eligible to be paid via the Payment Manager Export when their configured payment type configurations on a bank. To set a vendor payment type, we'll set the "Payment Type" drop-down in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

If this vendor has been configured to "Enable ACH" on the ACH settings tab, then the payment type drop down is locked to ACH. Set all of the ACH configurations for this vendor, and their ACH payments will be included in the batch lookups.

Vendors will only appear in Payment Manager batches for banks they are assigned to. Set the Default Bank for the Vendor to one that has payment manager configurations, or add a bank account for a bank that has them on the "Bank Accounts" tab.

Performing a Payment Export Batch

Payables → Voucher Payments

Once we have some vouchers for our configured Vendors, we can create a payment batch. Open the Voucher Payments Screen. Click the "New Pay Manager Batch" button.

This will open the "Open Vouncher List" screen. First, we'll select a bank in the lower right corner. Like ACH batches, this list of bank accounts is filtered to only include banks that are configured to perform payment manager exports.

The list of bank accounts is filtered to only include Banks that have valid Pay Manager Configurations. Once we have set our bank, we can enter search criteria at the top of the form to load our vouchers. For payment manager batches, the ACH Checkbox and Payment Type filters are disabled - the payment types configured on the bank itself will be used to determine what payment types appear in the results of a search.

We'll select the records that we want to process and Click "OK".

This will take us to the Payment Batch Maintenance screen, where we can review our outgoing payments once more. If everything is in order we'll click the "Pay Mgr. File" button to commit the batch and generate the file.

 

 

 

Like the ACH files before it, Payment Manager does not do a very good job of reporting to the user that the file was completed, and where it can be found. This is a shortcoming of Powerbuilder that we would like to remedy in future improvements and refactors to this process.

The file can be regenerated any time we open the batch and click the "Pay Mgr. File" button. If the file was previously generated it will be overwritten. If the file was previously generated and is opened or in use an error may be encountered.

Upon completion, the file will be available at the destination path specified in the bank settings.

 

Looking Up Existing Payment Manager Batches

Payables → Voucher Payments

Existing Payment Manager Batches can be searched for a reloaded from the "Payment Batch Maintenance" screen. They can be distinguished by their payment type "Pay Manager".

The Payment Manager File

The file is a pipe delimited flat file. We'll map out the fields here.

The file will always conform to a naming convention PayManager_[Batch Number]_[Batch Create Date].txt

  • The batch number is the APSPmtBatch.apbbatchno.

  • The Create Date is the APSPmtBatch.apbcreatedt.

 





A file output example is provided here:

Power Users: Generate File from .Net

For Power Users with access to the database, there is a way to regenerate files for a batch run. If we know the payment batches Batch ID, we can enter it into a Power User utility and regenerate the file.

This is helpful when troubleshooting or testing.

Power User → Report Group → Payment Export

When we enter the batch ID into this screen and execute again we get a regenerated file. This will come in handy for users or implementers that are proofing the results of the file output.