3.0 How to setup and generate AR Statements

To send customer statements, there is a bit of setup required within the customer accounts to determine whether the customer should receive a statement, and if so, how they would like to receive their statement.  Once the customer account is configured, statements can be run in just a few minutes on demand from within Softbase.

To begin, the customer must be set up to receive statements from you.  This is set up in the customer record under the terms tab. The statements box needs to be checked in order for the system to generate a statement for this account.

Second, the customer account can be flagged to have statements e-mailed to them rather than printed and mailed.  To denote this in the customer record, the e-mail address can be entered on the web/e-mail tab of the customer record. In order to e-mail the statement, the customer must have an e-mail address in the statement e-mail address field or in the invoice e-mail address field. If there is an entry in the statement field, we will send it to that e-mail address. If there is not, but you choose to have statements e-mailed, we will send it to the invoice e-mail address in absence of a statement e-mail address. If neither of those fields are filled in, we cannot e-mail the statement to the customer.

Customer statements can be run on demand within Softbase by accessing Accounting > AR Statements.

The screen that pulls up when accessing this tab is as follows:

You will want to enter an "as of date" to run the statements for. Typically this will be either the end of the month or the first of the month, but we also have customers that run them weekly or as of the current date as well. This is your choice. We will reflect items in Softbase as of the date you enter.

You can elect to send the statement for one customer, or you can choose all selected customers.

The options on the right give you a few different ways to run the statements.

Include $0.00 statements will create a statement for every customer, not just those with an outstanding balance. If you only want to run a statement for customers with an outstanding balance, uncheck this box.

You can also choose whether or not to include credit balance statements or not, and whether or not you would like to include received payments.  If you check the box to include received payments, it will have you enter a timeframe for the payments received to show on the statement.

You can also choose to include a comment on all statements.  This will print on all statements right below the aging bar if you enter text.  See example below.

Finally, you will select how to send the statements.

If you choose to print at the bottom right, a statement will print for every customer that meets your criteria, regardless of their e-mail setup in the customer record.

If you would like to only print statements for customers that do not have an e-mail address set up for statements, you will want to check the "only print w/no e-mail" option. This will only print statements for customers without an e-mail address on file then.

If you choose e-mail, it will e-mail statements to any customer that has an e-mail address on file in either the statements e-mail address field or the invoice e-mail address field.

Typically, we will see customers run this twice, and select e-mail the first time to generate statements to paperless customers, and then they will run it again with "only print w/no e-mail checked" to print statements for the remaining customers without an e-mail address on file.  You can, of course, choose to print them all instead and mail a copy to all customers too in addition to the e-mailed versions if you prefer.