It’s always a smart idea to think twice before performing an unfamiliar act. It’s a life lesson we all have come across at some point. The same could be said for running a process in OpenRDA. If you come across a situation where you’re unfamiliar, you should always double check any helpful notes you’ve recorded; or contact us here at RDA.
This is particularly important when making the decision on whether a check needs to be voided, reissued or ruined. A check that was voided may not have needed to be. It’s possible that the check could have been reissued or ruined, maintaining the voucher activity without having to start from scratch. Below will cover all three scenarios:
Stopping a Payment and Reissuing a Check
A process that is best suited for:
- Replacing a check that has been lost.
If a vendor notifies you that their check did not arrive, do not void the check. You want to keep the voucher activity intact and reissue the check using a different check number. This is handled via the Stopped Payment / Reissued Check process. Once complete, you simply reprint the new check to send to your vendor, and notify your bank to stop payment on the original check number.
Ruining a Check
A process best suited for:
- Print issues
Once again, a situation where you do not need to remove the voucher activity. If your printer jams and eats your check or the check is printed out of alignment, ruining the check number would be the correct option. This places the check number under a RUINED CHECKS vendor in the Vendor Payments module as well as recording the check in Bank Rec as ruined. This provides an audit trail in the system that those checks were ruined and not issued.
One other note here is if you are using MICR checks AND check stock that does not have pre-printed numbers, you do not need to ruin the checks. You can simply shred and reprint using the same check numbers when print issues such as jams take place.
Voiding a Check
A process best suited for:
- Payments issued AND expense and cash disbursement needs to be reversed on the books
If for any reason the original voucher’s activity SHOULD BE REVERSED and a check was issued, the void process is the correct option. The void process creates a new voucher transaction to offset the original. Both the original and void vouchers, as well as the check in Bank Rec, are flagged as voided. Once the void is distributed and cleared, activity is created in Financial Management to offset the original expense as well as the cash disbursement.
Once you recognize a situation, it becomes easier to know which process needs to be used. Until some sort of familiarity is present, please feel free to consult with an RDA representative as we will be glad to assist you in choosing the correct option. That’s what we are here for! You can always count on us!
