9.3 Customer Payment Methods

Billing decides whether the customer owes you or has already paid. Collecting decides how the money moves. Help's Payment Processing Options topic lists credit card processing, alternative non-card methods for web store orders, PayPal Express, and electronic payments through Electronic Bank Payments. The customer payment is the native transaction that applies money to an open invoice. A payment method record chooses the account that money posts to. Some processors are built in. Electronic Bank Payments and several gateways are SuiteApps or add-on modules. The Coastal Software integration is not a current processor.

The customer payment and the cash sale

Keep the $100 story from the sales-order section. An invoice debited accounts receivable for $100 and credited income. The customer still owes that $100 until you accept a payment. Record the payment at Customers > Accounts Receivable > Accept Customer Payments or Transactions > Customers > Accept Customer Payments. Select the customer, the accounts receivable account if you have more than one, and the invoices to apply. Help's customer-payment example debits Undeposited Funds and credits accounts receivable. Applied to this invoice, the payment debits undeposited funds for $100, or the bank account if you choose Account because the deposit already happened, and it credits accounts receivable for $100. The receivable falls. Income is not credited a second time.

Choose Undep. Funds when you have a check or cash that will be deposited later at Transactions > Bank > Make Deposits. Choose a bank account when the payment is already in the bank. The date controls where the payment appears on the accounts receivable register. If Multiple Currencies is on, the currency selects which invoices can be paid.

A cash sale for the same $100 already debited undeposited funds or the payment method's cash account and credited income. It never created a receivable. Entering a customer payment against that cash sale would try to clear a balance the cash sale did not create, and it would treat collected money as if it were a second collection. Do not add that payment record for a sale the cash sale already settled. The payment method on the Standard Sales Order is what sent billing down the cash-sale path. The customer payment is what closes an invoice.

The payment method record, under Setup > Accounting > Accounting Lists, is native setup. Group with Undeposited Funds posts to undeposited funds, and that setting wins even if the transaction names another account. Deposit To a bank account posts to that bank. Deposit To the settlement account posts to the ledger account on the merchant bank account. That is why the $100 cash debit is sometimes undeposited funds and sometimes a bank account. You select the account by name. Help does not require a fixed account number.

Credit cards and merchant accounts

Customer credit card processing is a native funds-capture feature for sales orders and web store orders. You can enter the card on the payment area of a sales order, on the Payment Method subtab of a customer payment opened with Accept Payment from an invoice, or on a cash sale. When the card is processed, NetSuite tells you whether it was accepted or rejected. You do not have to hunt for a separate approval box to learn the result.

The hold and the capture are different gateway requests. If Get Authorization is checked, saving the order sends an authorization request. The gateway checks the card and places a hold on the cardholder's funds. When you bill the order, NetSuite sends a capture. By the end of the day the gateway settles captured amounts from the issuing bank to your merchant bank account. A payment processing profile lists which request types that gateway will run, including authorizations and captures.

Before the profile exists, establish a merchant account and set it up with the gateway. Create the profile at Setup > Accounting > Payment Processing Profiles > New, one for each settlement currency and merchant bank account. Preferred and regional gateway partners integrate here. PayPal Payflow Pro requires an add-on module. The legacy SECPay (PayPoint) gateway is kept only for existing accounts. The card network and gateway move the money. The NetSuite transaction that settles an invoice is still the customer payment, or the cash sale when billing already collected the funds. A card payment method must use an accepted card name. Capturing that card against an invoice still credits accounts receivable.

ACH, EFT, and electronic bank payments

ACH and electronic funds transfer (EFT) move money between banks. They are not card authorizations. The ACH Processing topic warns that the integration with Coastal Software is no longer supported. That integration served ACH Vendor Payments and the older EFT feature. Help tells you to move to the Payment Automation SuiteApp, Electronic Bank Payments, and Payment Instruments records. Do not treat Coastal Software as a current partner. Help names it only to retire it.

Know the history anyway, because it appears in NetSuite's own practice material. An October 2024 sample item asked which customer payment method NetSuite supports and keyed ACH Processing with Coastal Software. The other choices were Electronic Funds Transfer, PayPal Express for Web Stores, and Credit Card Processing for Sales Orders. Current Help retires the Coastal integration, so that key reflects an older product state. Collecting customer payments by ACH is still supported, now through Electronic Bank Payments and the Commerce ACH feature described below.

The SuiteApp that builds the file

Electronic Bank Payments is a SuiteApp. It builds payment files for vendor bills, employee expenses, customer refunds, and customer payments, including discounts and credits. You send the file to your bank or the customer's bank. For money coming in, Help's table says the customer's bank, or that bank's processor, handles the transfer. The SuiteApp creates the file. It does not replace the customer payment. The payment is still what credits accounts receivable.

Direct debit on that payment uses the EFT subtab. Check For Electronic Bank Payment (Direct Debit), then choose the entity bank account. EFT on that subtab is the SuiteApp instruction. It is not a reason to turn the retired Coastal EFT feature back on. File-size limits in Help do not change the debit to cash and the credit to accounts receivable.

Commerce ACH is a separate feature. Help says ACH Payments on Commerce Web Stores is unrelated to ACH Processing. It covers My Account and Checkout on SuiteCommerce, SuiteCommerce MyAccount, and SuiteCommerce Advanced from release 2023.1. Payment Instruments must be enabled. A shopper can pay an invoice, pay a sales order at checkout, and add, edit, or remove an ACH payment instrument. The ACH type on a payment method also requires Payment Instruments. General Token is a gateway token that does not represent a payment card. External Checkout sends the shopper to an outside provider and can import the sales order with a P/N Ref. None of these is the Coastal integration.

PayPal

PayPal Express Checkout remains on the Payment Processing Options list for web store orders. The customer pays your company, and PayPal is the processor. That is separate from PayPal Payflow Pro, the card gateway that needs an add-on module. PayPal Express settles the web store order. An invoice created from terms still needs a customer payment if that checkout did not record one. Other non-card web-store methods are gateway or SuiteApp processing. Some cannot authorize and send a sale request instead, so you collect before fulfillment.

Use a customer payment to apply cash, a check, a card capture, or a bank debit to an open invoice. Use a cash sale when the sales order already collected funds at billing. Use Electronic Bank Payments when you need a bank file. Use PayPal Express when the web store sends the shopper to PayPal. Leave the Coastal Software integration unused.

Practice the transaction choice on the Oracle NetSuite Foundation practice questions.

What each method settles