The Payment Management feature allows you to create EFT files compatible with most major banks in Canada, along with pre-filled Wire Letters, allowing a seamless process from posting distributions to sending the funds to investors.
If you have not yet gone through the steps of setting up data in your system to include all of the information required for payment batches to be successfully generated, please do so before attempting to generate a payment batch. The Setting your Data article linked at the bottom of this article will guide you through the process.
Accessing Payment Batches
The Payment Management module is found on the left sidebar, represented by a $ symbol.
The landing page is separated into two sections:
Payment Batches - Creating a new payment batch
Processed Payment Batches - Viewing previous payment batches
Creating a new Payment Batch
To create a new payment batch click the (+) Create Payment Batch button.
In the 1st step, you will be asked to provide the following information:
the type of distribution being paid (income, interest, return of capital)
the offering being paid
the date range of the transaction being paid (based on the Closed/Settlement date - only transactions in a Closed status will be included)
The date range can be extended to include transactions that have a future closed/settlement date. If you are preparing your payment files ahead of posting transactions, please ensure you have verified your work before continuing.
In the 2nd step, you are provided with a list of all of the transactions that match the criteria you supplied in the 1st step. From here, you can select each transaction you would like to include in your payment batch by clicking the toggle in the 'Import' column. If you'd like to select all transactions at once, you can click to 'All' button at the top of this column.
As you are selecting transactions, you will notice that additional fields will appear above the list of transactions. These fields provide information about the account from which you will be sending the funds. Some of these fields are required to generate an EFT file, and some are required to generate a Wire Letter. Please fill out each of the supplementary fields displayed as the payment batch will not generate otherwise.
If you are unsure what information to enter in any of the Payment Method Information fields, contact your financial institution.
Once you have completed your selection, you can click 'Start Batch Process'.
In the 3rd step, your payment batch has been finalized and you can access your payment files by clicking 'Download Payment Files', which will automatically download a .zip file directly to your computer.
If you would like to add a note to any of the payments or update their status, please see the Reconciliation article below.
If the files you have received confuse you, here is an explanation of what you will receive, based on the information in your batch.
EFT
These files are generated in a 1464 byte .dat format, which is the format that banks require.
Any investor whose funds are held with a trust/bank should have their payment method set to Instruction, therefore, their payment amount will be aggregated with all other clients of that trust/bank. Along with this file, you will receive a CSV that you can provide to the trust/bank to instruct them on the allocation of each amount across their investors.
Any investor with an open cash account should have their payment method NOT set to instruction, therefore, their payments will be presented as individual rows within the EFT file. All investors not receiving an instruction payment will be included in the same EFT file. No CSV list will be provided as it is not required.
Wire
These files are generated in a .pdf format, with all information pre-filled except the 'Wire Fee Total' and the sum of 'Total Payment Amount' and 'Wire Fee'; this information must be manually entered.
Any investor whose funds are held with a trust/bank should have their payment method set to Instruction, therefore, their payment amount will be aggregated with all other clients of that trust/bank. Each trust/bank included in your batch will receive its own Wire Letter. Along with this file, you will receive a CSV that you can provide to the trust/bank to instruct them on the allocation of each amount across their investors.
Any investor with an open cash account should have their payment method NOT set to instruction, therefore, their payments will be presented as individual Wire Letters. No CSV list will be provided as it is not required.
Olympia Trust Company accounts
Any payment batch that includes a payment for an account held with Olympia Trust Company will include a copy of their Exempt Market Security form, which they have requested be provided with every submission of funds. This form will not be pre-filled, please ensure you complete it before sending.