About Background Matching

If you want to automatically match cash entries (cash receipts and cash refunds), journals, sales invoices and credit notes, billing document invoices and billing document credit notes, you can use Background Matching. For example, you can automatically match cash entries that were generated from an imported file of credit card payments with sales invoices.

When you finish running the Background Matching process, all cash entries, journals, sales invoices and credit notes, billing document invoices and billing document credit notes that meet the following conditions are matched:

Notes:
  • The source document is the document that is being matched. The target document is the document that the source document is being matched to.
  • If you want to match a cash entry line with relevant documents by Document Number then either enter those document numbers in the Account Reference field of that line or select the documents to match. For more information on selecting the documents, see Matching Cash Entries.
  • When matching Journals to other documents in the background, the manual journal entries are used. Journals that are automatically generated, such as, Year End journals, are not included in the background matching process.
  • We recommend that you match sales invoices that include payment schedules manually because in background matching it is not guaranteed that the correct account line of the invoice is selected for the matching. For information on sales invoices with payment schedules, see Defining Payment Schedules.

The source and target outstanding values do not need to match exactly because you can choose to allow part payments, and you can add a condition to allow any available outstanding balance to be automatically matched to other documents for the same account. See Background Matching Example for an illustration.

When matching sales invoices to sales credit notes, select Custom Date as the matching date.

If you match a sales invoice to multiple cash entries, the date of the most recent cash entry is used as the matching date.

For matching to be carried out successfully, currency write-offs or settlement discounts may need to be posted to a general ledger account. If this is the case, the following general ledger accounts must be defined in your company information:

  • Currency Write-off
  • Settlement Discount
Note:

When calculating any settlement discounts that may be applied, the date to calculate the discounts is the one that you select as the matching date mode. The resulting cash matching journals are posted to the same date and period as that of the completed Background Matching process.

Match Statuses

A transaction line item can be in one of the following match statuses:

Match Statuses
Match Status Description
Available Line is available for matching.
Matched Line has been matched.
Not Matchable Line is unsuitable for matching. An example of this is the tax line from an invoice.
Proposed Line has been included in a payment proposal. It is not available for manual matching nor is it available for inclusion in subsequent payment proposals.

When the match status or outstanding value of a transaction account line is updated, the following related values are also updated:

  • The account line summary on the transaction.
  • The payment details on the related document.

Document Matching Scenarios

The following table lists a number of document matching scenarios and indicates which are currently supported in cash matching and background matching.

These scenarios apply to both sales documents and billing documents.

Document Matching Scenario

Supported By:

Cash Matching

Background Matching

Invoice - Credit Note Yes Yes - in Lightning
Invoice - Cash Refund

Invalid

The Commit button is disabled.

Invalid
Invoice - Cash Receipt Yes Yes
Credit Note - Cash Refund Yes Yes
Credit Note - Cash Receipt

Invalid

The Commit button is disabled.

Invalid
Cash Refund - Cash Receipt Yes Yes - in Lightning.
Invoice - Credit Note - Cash Receipt Yes

Yes - in Lightning.

Partially supported when running in Visualforce.
The Credit Note is ignored.

Invoice - Credit Note - Cash Refund Yes

Yes - in Lightning.
Partially supported when running in Visualforce.
The Invoice is ignored.

Invoice - Cash Receipt - Cash Refund Yes

Yes - in Lightning.

Partially supported when running in Visualforce.
The Cash Refund is ignored.

Credit Note - Cash Receipt - Cash Refund Yes

Yes - in Lightning.
Partially supported when running in Visualforce.
The Cash Receipt is ignored.

Invoice - Credit Note - Cash Receipt - Cash Refund Yes

Yes

In Visualforce, the Invoice is matched to the Cash Receipt.

In Visualforce, the Credit Note is matched to the Cash Refund.

Cash Receipt - Journal Yes - In Lightning Yes - In Lightning
Cash Refund - Journal Yes - In Lightning Yes - In Lightning
Journal - Credit Note Yes - In Lightning Yes - In Lightning
Journal - Invoice Yes - In Lightning Yes - In Lightning
Negative Invoice - Invoice Yes - In Lightning Yes - In Lightning

For more information, see About Document Matching Sequence in Background Matching.

Matching History Dates

You can select either Cash Entry Date or Custom Date, or Journal Date as the Matching Date Mode for background matching. The selected date is used as the matching date on the resulting matching history.

The Matching Date Mode field is automatically updated when you select the document matching sequences to avoid incorrect selection of the matching date modes.

If you select a custom date, that date is used in all scenarios.

The following are the different matching scenarios and the matching dates updated automatically

Matching Scenario

Matching Date

Invoice - Cash Receipt Cash Entry Date
Credit Note - Cash Refund Cash Entry Date
Cash Receipt - Cash Refund Cash Refund Date
Invoice - Credit Note Custom Date
Cash Receipt - Journal Cash Entry Date or Custom Date
Cash Refund - Journal Cash Entry Date or Custom Date
Journal - Credit Note Journal Date or Custom Date
Journal - Invoice Journal Date or Custom Date
Negative Invoice - Invoice Custom Date
Two or more sequences with cash entry as the source document Cash Entry Date
Two or more sequences with different source document Custom Date