Other Payments

[Dave Yeomans]

I'm using the other_payments API to post bank payments that don't relate to customers or suppliers.  The header section includes 'bank_account_id' and 'reference' fields.  The payment_lines section includes 'ledger_account_id' and 'details' fields.  However, when I view the transaction in Sage and look at the bank account then the description field is not populated. When I look at the ledger account then the description shows the 'details' field. Is there any way to get the bank account to show the details in the description field?  For example, when doing bank reconciliation, it is useful to see the transaction description as well as the reference. 

[Steel, Mark]

Hi Dave, thank you for your question. 

In short, you can't view the detail of the individual payment lines in the initial bank screen. The reference is a description of the entire transaction and you would need to drill down on the transaction and view the line details in the transactions itself. You're able to see the detail in the ledger activity as that is the description for the item line. 

If we take the following JSON in a POST request to other_payments, the bank UI view would show the reference "transaction header ref" and the ledger activity for the individual ledger accounts would show "Payment Line 1" for the first line and in the activity of the other ledger, it would show "Payment Line 2".

{
  "other_payment": {
    "transaction_type_id": "OTHER_RECEIPT",
    "payment_method_id": "CREDIT_DEBIT",
    "reference": "transaction header ref",
    "bank_account_id": "8a425d32fe80418abcb24d7f9b434f07",
    "date": "09/02/2021",
    "total_amount": "60.00",
    "payment_lines": [
      {
        "ledger_account_id": "a4262c706a1711ebb8fe0a8b4d715243",
        "total_amount": "30.00",
        "net_amount": "25.00",
        "tax_amount": "5.00",
        "details": "Payment Line 1",
        "tax_rate_id": "GB_STANDARD"
      },
      {
        "ledger_account_id": "a42526cb6a1711ebb8fe0a8b4d715243",
        "total_amount": "30.00",
        "net_amount": "25.00",
        "tax_amount": "5.00",
        "details": "Payment Line 2",
        "tax_rate_id": "GB_STANDARD"
      }
    ]
  }
}

 

[Dave Yeomans]

Hi Mark

Thanks for your reply. Therefore I really need to include all relevant information in the 'reference' field in the bank part of the JSON.  Then I will see this  when viewing the transaction in the Bank UI view.  For example, I could include the payee name in the 'reference' field so that when performing the bank reconciliation then we have an idea of who the payment went to. The reference could include other info as well.

In the API Reference guide, it would be useful to know the size of the various fields?  It often states 'string' but doesn't give indication of field size.

Thanks

Dave

[Steel, Mark]

Hi Dave

Yes, adding that detail to the reference would allow it to be seen in the bank rec screen and allow for easier identification.

Thank you for the feedback around field lengths, we'll raise a request to have this information added to the swagger/open API definitions. For reference the character length for the reference field is 25 chars.

Regards

Mark