10 easy tips for payment terms success in Microsoft Dynamics NAV

1.  Know that the Document Date is what controls the calculation of payment terms. This is true for both vendor invoices as well as customer invoices.

2.  The vendor and customer areas share the same Payment Terms setup. Make sure the folks who maintain these tables know they’ll need to share the codes that are set up here.

3.  Basic terms use very basic setup. Payment terms of Net 30 simply require a Due Date Calculation of 30D in order to work.

4.  Immediate payment terms can be accomplished in two ways. The first way is to leave the payment terms field blank on the vendor or customer card. When this occurs, NAV makes the assumption that the payment terms are immediate. The second way is to populate the Due Date Calculation with 0D. By putting in zero days, you can still define a payment term and name it as immediate. I don’t like to see blank fields in any of my data, so I recommend using this method.

5.  Discounted terms follow a specific combination in the payment terms table. For discounted terms like 1/10 Net 30 (one percent discount if paid in ten days, otherwise due at thirty days), use this setup.

6. You may have some things you always pay on the first of the month, like rents. How do you get invoices to show up on your payables aging on the first day of the month regardless of whether the month has 31, 30, or 28 days? In the due date calculation, use this simple formula:  CM+1D.

7.  If you send checks, and you need for that first of the month payment to get in the mail in time to be received on the first, get a little fancier with the formula and use CM-3D. This will calculate the due date as the third to last day of the month, no matter how many days are in the month.

8.  If you need to date something as always due the last day of the month, set up the Due Date Calculation as D31. This will always calculate the due date on the last day of the month, regardless of how many days the month has.

9.  When running the suggest vendor payment process for payables, the last payment date corresponds to the due dates calculated by the payment terms. The date you put in this field will suggest payments to be made with due dates up to and including the date listed.

10.  If any invoice gets posted with incorrect payment terms and you need to correct the due date in order for it to show up properly on your aging, you can go in and correct the due date on the already posted invoice. This can be done from the end-user level and does not require use of the object designer.  Drill down to the correct invoice record from the Balance ($) field found on the general tab of the vendor card.  Use a triple-click with your mouse on the due date field to change the date quickly and easily. The same steps can be accomplished from the customer card.

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