Revenue Accounting and Accounts Receivable Overview

What are Revenue Accounting and Accounts Receivable? 

Revenue Accounting (RA) in Florida PALM is a collection of business processes that support the management of customer information, including demographic and receivable information; and support the receivable process for State revenues. 

Accounts Receivable (AR) in Florida PALM is a collection of business processes that support the management of the accounting, reporting, and collection of outstanding State revenues; support the intake and accounting for cash receipts; and ensure the write-off of outstanding debt is appropriately approved.

How will Revenue Accounting and Accounts Receivable be handled in Florida PALM?

Florida PALM provides a customer record structure allowing each agency to maintain its own customer information. This structure allows agencies to capture unique customer information. Grantors are also set up as Customers in Florida PALM. As an agency identifies a Customer to which services and/or goods may be provided, they can create the customer record directly in Florida PALM or import customer information through an interface or spreadsheet upload. Establishing a customer record is fundamental to the receivable processes.

Agencies with an AR business system may choose to continue recording and maintaining receivables in their Agency Business System. In Florida PALM, agencies have the option to record item receivables for a Customer. The pending receivables are established by manually entering a receivable, uploading a spreadsheet, or interfacing from an Agency Business System and receivable items can be updated, as needed. Florida PALM also provides approval workflow for write-offs and manual online entry to create or update receivables. The customer account is updated to reflect outstanding items and payments received.

Florida PALM offers various reporting and inquiry capabilities for researching and reviewing transactions. This allows agencies to efficiently manage open item receivables. It also allows agencies to reconcile and correct transaction errors prior to closing the AR Accounting Period.

Accounts Receivable Lifecycle 

Customer

What is different or changing?

• Customer ID is a 15-digit system generated number.
• In Florida PALM, there are additional fields available to populate customer information (i.e., contact name and phone number).
• Agencies will have several user-defined fields available to capture details such as an Agency Customer ID (legacy number or identifier from the Agency).
• Florida PALM offers a parent/child relationship between Customers (i.e., Parent – Publix Corporate Office and Child - Publix Tallahassee).
• Agencies have the option to record item receivables for a Customer.
• Other agencies are not setup as Customers, agencies should follow Inter/IntraUnit processes.

What is the same?

• Customer records are agency specific.
• Florida PALM provides the ability to integrate customer data with Agency Business Systems through interface(s).
• Due to the extensive use of Agency Business Systems, customer records are not required in Florida PALM unless the agency is creating receivables on a customer account.
• Agencies can create a Direct Journal Deposit that includes a Customer ID to track revenue.

Other Helpful Information

• Visit the Customer Lifecycle Page for more information about the Customer Lifecycle including associated Business Processes, Interfaces, Conversions and Reports.

Receivables

What is different or changing?

• Florida PALM provides approval workflow for write-offs and manual online entry to create or update receivables. The customer account is updated to reflect outstanding items and payments received.
• Write-offs are routed through workflow which includes the Department of Financial Services (DFS) level of approval. Supporting documentation can be attached.
• A receivable group can have one-to-many items and one-to-many accounting lines.
• Refunds are integrated with the Accounts Payable (AP) module.

What is the same?

• Agencies have the option to record item receivables for a Customer.
• Agencies with AR business systems may choose to continue recording and maintaining receivables in their Agency Business System.
• Using Customers and Receivables for Grants assists with tracking and reporting.
• When an agency receives a returned item from the bank or when sending debt to a collection agency, the agency can create an AR balance to track and monitor the debt owed.
• Agencies can create a receivable balance in Florida PALM when sending customer information to the collection agency.

Other Helpful Information

• Visit the Receivables Lifecycle Page for more information about the Receivables Lifecycle including associated Business Processes, Interfaces, Conversions and Reports.

Deposit

What is different or changing?

• A deposit can have one-to-many payments and one-to-many accounting lines.
• One deposit can have one-to-many payments and one-to-many accounting lines. Agencies will need to understand how many payments or accounting lines are needed for their business as the system provides flexibility to break these data elements down to lower levels.
• Agencies will create a Direct Journal to correct accounting entries or reclassify revenues within their agency through $0 deposits, similar to FLAIR today.
• AR Deposits are associated with customer payments and outstanding AR items.
• Payment Predictor is used to match AR items entered on the payment with outstanding AR items in the System.
• Same Day Deposit transactions route through Workflow, to Treasury, for approval.
• For Expenditure refunds, transactions route through Workflow approval to DFS Division of Accounting and Auditing based on the Account ChartField value.

What is the same?

• Similar information is used with Deposits (i.e., Deposit number, dates, amount, accounting).

Other Helpful Information

• Visit the Deposit Lifecycle Page for more information about the Deposit Lifecycle including associated Business Processes, Interfaces, Conversions and Reports.

Revenue Accounting Resources

• Business Process Models (BPMs)
  • How to Read a Business Process Model
  • Revenue Accounting BPMs
  • 50.1 Set Up and Maintain Customer

Accounts Receivable Resources

• Business Process Models (BPMs)
  • How to Read a Business Process Model
  • Accounts Receivable BPMs
    • 60.1 Enter and Maintain Receivables
    • 60.2 Deposit and Apply Receipts