External financing – Procountor

Procountor's External financing function enables creating sales invoices based on the contract between the company and the financing company. There are existing connections between Procountor and some financing companies, through which the information of the invoices can be transferred to the financing company. This article covers the necessary steps in beginning to use the external financing -function.

Implementing external financing

External financing can be taken into use in usage settings in Management > Company info > Usage settings. External financing is taken into use by choosing External financing “Is external financing in use” option in external financing settings section.

Bank connection authorizations needs to be done for all of the external financing accounts (Factoring receivable account and Factoring payable account).
Other option is that bank connection authorization forms will not be filled but only the reference payments are fetched regarding the Factoring receivables account. In this case, transactions in Factoring receivable account and Factoring payable account are posted with journals and reference payments are automatically settled.
Factoring receivable account and Factoring payable account are saved on Bank account information view (Management > Company info > Bank account information).
It is recommended to open accounting accounts to a chart of accounts. For example, 1725 Factoring-receivable (Factoring receivable account) and 2840 Factoring-payable (Factoring payable account).

Please note! When external financing is in use, sales invoices’ numbering cannot be changed afterwards, since the reference number consists of the invoice number.

External financing agreements

After external financing is taken into use, Financing contracts will appear to the control menu (Management > Company info > Financing contracts). Info about contracts with financing companies are filled to Financing contracts view. There can be several contracts and all contracts are entered to their own rows:

Financing company

The financing company is selected from the drop-down menu.

Financing company bank account

Financing company’s bank account is entered to the column.
The financing company’s bank account will appear to the invoice and it is the account, where the customer is wanted to pay their invoices instead of company’s account.
Note! Financing company’s bank account must not be saved as company’s own account on Company info view.
A foreign IBAN address can be added in the column.
When a Finnish IBAN address is added in the column, the BIC code field is filled automatically.

Agreement number

The agreement number provided by financing company is entered to the column.

Bank reference code separator

The bank reference code separator which affects to the bank reference codes generated on the invoices is entered to the column.
The code is provided by the financing company.

Personal Finvoice address and Financing company Finvoice address

In case the financing agreement includes usage of Finvoice addresses in e-invoice data delivery, Company and financing company’s Finvoice addresses are entered to the columns. Company gets its Finvoice address from bank and Financing company announces its address to company.

OP Factoring counter account (This column must be used only if the financing company is OP)

Company’s own bank account is entered to the column, if there is an agreement about specified reference (FL reference data) retrieving with OP.
The account in question is company’s own account, which helps to allocate specified references to the bank account where the payments are paid.
The account must be selected, since the FL reference data does not have defined bank account where the specified references would be entered (as KTL data does). OP adds a financing reference number to transactions in FL reference data. The reference number always includes financing agreement number, which enables importing the FL reference data to Procountor. All this requires that the OP Factoring counter account is entered. NOTE! OP has two forms of factoring reference number: "short" and "long". OP must apply the "short" reference number format from these options so that importing FL reference data will be successful from OP to Procountor.

Transfer notification (Finnish, Swedish, English and Estonia)

There are four different transfer notification fields for four languages. The transfer notification entered to the columns will be printed onto invoices to notify the invoice recipient that the receivable has been transferred to the financing company and it should be paid to financing company instead of the company.
Transfer notification is important, since there always must be info about transferring the receivable to financing company on the invoice. Usually the financing companies define how the transfer notification must occur on the invoice. The language of the transfer notification is determined based on the language of the invoice.

WS customer number

WS customer number is mandatory information, when the financing company is Danske Bank, OP or Nordea.
More info about WS number can be found here.

Finvoice

In general, the invoicing data can only be sent in a Finvoice form from Procountor, to financing companies.
Finvoice addresses added to financing agreement concern only external financing invoice data and in general, the invoice data can be sent in a Finvoice form only if the financing company is a bank that is mentioned in a bank connection authorization If the Factoring invoice data is wanted to sent as an e-invoice to the financing company, the company’s and the financing company’s Finvoice addresses must be added to the financing agreement.
If the company uses own Finvoice addresses to send e-invoices to customers, the addresses should be also filled to Electronic invoice addresses view.
If the invoice data cannot be sent in a Finvoice form to the financing company, it is recommended to find out how the data can be delivered, for example, in paper. At the moment the invoice data can be sent as an e-invoice only to bank’s financing companies, such as Nordea, OP and Danske Bank.

Ropo Finance financing

Ropo Finance is Procountor’s partner’s, Ropo Capital’s service, which enables transferring the invoices created in Procountor to Ropo Capital to be financed.
Further information about Ropo Capital’s financing services can be found from Ropo Capital’s website.
After the financing agreement is final, Ropo Capital can be added to the Financing agreements view. After this, the financing agreement can be taken into use either in customer specific or invoice specific way.
When invoices are approved, the info about approving will automatically be sent to Ropo Capital.
In addition to financing services, Ropo Capital also provides payment reminder and debt collecting services.

Svea Ekonomi financing

Procountor’s partner, Svea Ekonomi offers a service, which enables transferring the invoices created in Procountor to Svea Ekonomi to be financed.
Further information about Svea Ekonomi’s financing services can be found from Svea Ekonomi’s website.
After the financing agreement is final, Svea Ekonomi can be added to the Financing agreements view. After this, the financing agreement can be taken into use either in customer specific or invoice specific way.
When invoices are approved, the info about approving will automatically be sent to Svea Ekonomi.
In addition to financing services, Svea Ekonomi also provides payment reminder and debt collecting services.

Please note! If you are about to use some other financing service provider than the ones listed in bank connection authorization, or Ropo Capital or Svea Ekonomi, please contact Procountor’s customer service in order to get further information asiakaspalvelu@procountor.com.

Usage of external financing

External financing agreement for customers

When external financing is implemented, it can be taken into use for customers. External financing is taken into use in business partner register by selecting the financing agreement from the drop-down menu on Payment info section on Customer’s basic info When choosing the financing agreement, the account number for the payment changes in accordance with the financing agreement and the customer gets a transfer notification about the financing agreement on the invoices. The financing agreement defined in business partner register will appear as a default, when creating an invoice for a customer.
- The agreement can be filled to many customers at once in Registers > Customer register > Edit multiple > Financial agreements
If the external financing agreement is not defined to a customer in business partner register, invoicer’s own bank account number will appear on the invoice.

External financing agreement for invoices

When external financing is implemented, it can be selected from drop-down menu on Payment info section on Invoice Thus, the account number for the payment changes in accordance with the financing agreement. Other account numbers will not be shown on the invoice.
Transfer notification will appear on the invoice above the row information on the same language as the invoice is created.
Transfer notification is important, since there always must be info about transferring the receivable to financing company on the invoice. Transfer notification can be saved on several different languages and when creating an invoice, the language of the transfer notification is determined based on the language of the invoice. Transfer notification is not shown on invoice if the option Bank transfer is chosen on invoice's Template-menu.

Please note! The invoices to be externally financed, it is important to fill out the business ID or the social security number of the quarter to be invoiced.
The reference number for the invoice is created based on the external financing agreement number, the bank reference code separator and the invoice number. The external financing agreement number and the bank reference code separator are provided by the financing company and they can be found from the Financing agreements view (Management > Company info > Financing agreements).
If the financing company is OP, the reference number = financing agreement number + the bank reference code separator (301/001/002) + invoice number (zeroes filled in the front until the number has 9 characters) + verification mark.

Please note! For OP’s part, the bank reference code separator is entered to Financing agreement number field after the financing agreement number and the Bank reference code separator field is left empty. For example, if the financing agreement number in OP is 55555/001, you should enter 55555001 to Financing agreement number field and the Bank reference code separator field would be left empty.

Also, it should be recognized, for OP’s part, that it is not possible to use RF reference. OP does not support finance data with RF reference, which is why the reference on OP factoring invoices should be used as described above.

If the financing company is Nordea, the reference number = financing agreement number + the bank reference code separator (0) + invoice number (zeroes filled in the front until the number has 8 characters) + verification mark.
If the financing company is some other financing company, the reference number = financing agreement number + the bank reference code separator + invoice number (zeroes filled in the front until the number has 7 characters) + verification mark.

Processing of externally financed invoice

When clicking the Approve button, the sales invoice’s status changes to Not sent, and the invoice is transferred to the financing company, if there is a connection from Procountor environment to the financing company. After the invoice is transferred, the invoice’s status cannot be changed back to Unfinished, since the information has already been sent from Procountor. If necessary, a credit invoice can be created.
When clicking Send, the invoice is sent to the customer through the selected invoicing channel.
If the sales invoices are created in another software, they can be sent to Procountor through Automated invoice transfer. The invoices are imported in Not sent Thus, the info about the invoices is sent to the financing company and to the customer when clicking Send.
Financing data is timed to be transferred from Procountor to banks every couple of hours. Verify the data receiving schedules from your own financing company.
Information about transferring the invoice will be saved to Invoice transaction information. The transactions concerning external financing showing on the Invoice transaction information window are the following:
- Financing data queued: Field shows the time the data was approved.
- Financing data sent: Field shows the time the data was transferred to the bank from Procountor.
The information sent to the financing companies can be observed by clicking Printable list button on Receipt search Clicking the button opens a drop-down menu, where it is possible to select Extended export file. On the extended export file, there is a column “Transfer catalogue”, where the transfer catalogue numbers will appear, when the data has been transferred to the financing company.
The transfer catalogue numbers will not appear to the extended export file for the invoices transferred to Svea Ekonomi, since Svea does not deliver the transfer catalogue number. In this kind of cases, the date and time of transfer can be reviewed from each invoice’s Invoice transaction information view.

Other external financing company

If you are planning on co-operating with some other financing company than the ones listed on Bank connection authorization page or the ones mentioned above, please contact Procountor’s customer service: asiakaspalvelu@procountor.com.

The instructions above are only suitable for the financing companies mentioned above, so in case of other financing company, it is important to verify the actions needed before making a financial agreement.
Procountor’s customer service is able to give further information about how suitable the financing company is to Procountor and what things should be considered before making an agreement.
The following information is needed, when contacting Procountor’s customer service in order to find out if the financing company is suitable:
What is the financing company in question (the official name of the company, and its business ID).
Information of the instructions the financing company is giving about transferring the sales invoices from financial administration software (such as Procountor).

Default postings of Nordea’s factoring invoices

Example of utilizing default postings on bank statements:

Factoring-receivable 1725

The transfer catalogue is posted on bank statement per Factoring-receivable an 1700.
Posting specification 710, allocation to the account 1700 (rule number 1)
710 transfer catalogue 000033
Reference payment is posted on bank statement per 1700 an Factoring-receivable.
Posting specification 720, allocation to the account 1700 (rule number 2)
720 reference payment//

Factoring-payable 2840

Reference payment is posted per Factoring-payable an 1990
Procountor’s default postings ok
Remittance is posted per 1995 an Factoring-payable.
Posting specification 720, allocation to the account 1995 (rule number 3)
Financing costs are posted per financing cost an Factoring-payable.
Posting specification 730, allocation to the account 9440 (rule number 4)
730 reference payment fee//
730 payment reminder cost//

Checking account 1910

Money transfer from financing company is posted per Bank an 1995.
Posting specification 710, allocation to the account 1995 (rule number 5)

Utilizing factoring in balancing

Factoring-receivable (1725) account’s balance is the amount of factoring-receivables and it should match up with the open sales invoices (which are transferred to the financing company but still open) in the ledger.
If you want, the Factoring-receivable account can be added as a ledger account in Management > Accounting info > Chart of Accounts > Show receivable and payable accounts -view. Then you can check from the Reconciliation report for open invoices, that financed invoices match.
It is recommended to start an account for payment that are on their way.
The balance of Factoring-payable (2840) account’s balance is the amount of factoring-payables and it should match up with the bank statement of the financing company.
The condition of the financing agreement can be seen daily at the lower part of the bank statement.

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