Fast and easy processing of receipt- and payment flows
With the APRO Banking Gateway software, companies can process all payment- and receipt-flows between the banks and Oracle Financials.

All kinds of electronic bank statements and lockbox files can be picked up in the APRO Banking Gateway. Automatic recognition of invoice numbers, order numbers, customer numbers and part of descriptions will provide the necessary data for automatic reconciliation of receipts against customer invoices and statement lines against receipts or payments. APRO Banking Gateway populates the standard interface tables of Oracle Financials with the necessary data, and can be set to automatically start up the concurrent process(es) that imports the receipts through the Lockbox and the statements through the Cash Management interface.

With APRO Banking Gateway companies can also fetch direct credit batches (Payables) and direct debit batches (Receivables) and convert those batches to payments/direct debit files. Those files can be processed by the electronic banking software used by the customer. Customers can choose to work with the different Oracle Financials localizations for electronic payments and automatic receipts but they can also choose to use the APRO payment format. When using the APRO format you can bypass the need for the different localizations payment formats.

Bank statements
Most banks can deliver electronic bank statements with information about the payments and receipts that are processed for the different bank account numbers. The bank statement lines will contain all kinds of information about the payments that have been made by the company to other companies or persons and about the receipts initiated by other companies or persons. Below you see an example of a statement from the ISBC bank for China. With APRO Banking Gateway one can retrieve statements from different bank account numbers from different countries in one file and process all those statements in one run.

With the APRO Banking Gateway you will normally process your complete statements to Cash Management and the receipts in the statements that apply to customer invoices also go to the Receivable Lockbox interface. For lines that go to the Lockbox interface you can validate the results before the receipts are transferred to Receivables, see the screen print below.

After checking and when necessarry changing the found invoice numbers, you can send all the data to the Lockbox interface and the Cash Management interface. When set up, the APRO Banking Gateway will automatically start the import processes in Oracle Financials so that a user can go directly to the receipts that are not yet applied in Receivables and the lines that are not yet reconciled in Cash Management. As you can see below different bank statements can be processed to different organizations in Oracle Financials automatically.

Remittance advices
When processing bank statements, the result of the recognition of invoice numbers can differ per country.

For example in Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland and The Netherlands all companies will normally send the invoice numbers in the description of the payment. APRO Banking Gateway uses intelligent search rules and validates in Oracle Receivables to extract the right invoice numbers from the description of the bank statement line.

In England companies only have 18 positions for the description of the payment, it is almost impossible to send the invoice numbers in the description of the payment when more then one invoice is paid. Therefore companies send remittance advices (payment specifications) to specify the paid amount to their supplier.

In the APRO Banking Gateway you can enter remittance advices manually. You can use that option for entering the remittance advices that are received by mail. You can also import files with one or more remittance advices. This option can be used when certain (large) customers always pay a total amount for for example 300 different invoices and send a remittance advice in an electronic file. The APRO Banking Gateway validates the entered invoice numbers and amounts in Oracle Receivables.

When processing a bank statement the APRO Banking Gateway can search for open remittance advices (must have the same amount and must be for the same customer) and select the details (the invoice numbers and the amounts) of the remittance advice and add this to the statement line in the APRO Banking Gateway. In this way, large remittance advices can be processed fast and accurately.

Lockbox files
In America a lot of companies make use of a so called lockbox service from the bank. The details of the checks that are paid by customers are gathered at the bank and an electronic file with those details is send to the company that has been paid. With the APRO Banking Gateway you can pick up such a file (for example a lockbox file from the Wells Fargo Bank). Below you see the result of the import of such a lockbox file.

With the menu option Validate All Rows you can let the APRO Banking Gateway validate the invoice numbers and the invoice amounts in Oracle Receivables and so recognize the problem receipts in an early stage. You can remove invalid invoice numbers automatically so that the Lockbox process will not run in an error.

Domestic payments
With the APRO Banking Gateway you can select payment batches that are created in Oracle Financials and then let the APRO Banking Gateway create a payment file from that payment batch or you can select a payment file that is created by Oracle Payables and use the built in FTP to transport that payment file to the PC where it can be send to the bank for payment. When using the last method you will need to install and setup the Oracle localizations for the countries you are working in and you use the file that Oracle will create.

Using the selection of the payment batch is by far the simplest way. As well as for the implementation of the solution as for the user that has to work with the solution. Especially when your company has branches in many different countries, using the APRO Banking Gateway to create payment files from payment batches can make the implementation of the payment process less complex then when using all the localizations for the different countries. With the APRO Banking Gateway you can select payment batches from Oracle that are created using a so called APRO Format. Domestic payments for all countries can be made in the same way. No localizations or special processes are used in Oracle Payables.

When selecting the payments batch in the APRO Banking Gateway, the APRO Banking Gateway will create the correct file in the correct format. Below you see a payment batch (created with the APRO Format) being selected in the APRO Banking Gateway and converted to a payment file for France (ETEBAC). With one push on the button the payment file is created directly from the batch. No file transfer is needed from the server to the PC. The payment file is placed directly in the requested directory.

Because APRO has a lot of in depth knowledge and experience with setting up bank accounts and creating domestic payments for different countries we can advice and help you with a quick implementation of the payment process for the different countries.

Foreign payments
You can alse use the APRO Banking Gateway for foreign payments . You can easily create payment files from payment batches for payments to foreign suppliers, using IBAN numbers to lower your cost of foreign payments within Europe. Or create payment files for banks in countries in for example Asia.

Automatic receipts
When you are using Oracle to create Automatic receipts in Receivables, you can use the APRO Banking Gateway to create a file from an automatic receipt batch. That file can be send to your bank for processing.

On the screen print above you can see how a direct debit batch is selected and converted to a RIBA file. This file can be used in Italy to send direct debits to the bank.

Notifications
When creating payment- or direct debit files APRO Banking Gateway can also automaticaly create notifications with details of the paid amount and send these notifications (including a file that can be used to import the specification) to the suppliers/customers by e-mail. Creation of these notifications can be done for every payment or only for payments for which the payment details do not fit in the description of the payment. Notifications can be easily changed by changing the template in for example MS Word.

Non Sufficient Funds
When using automatic receipts (direct debits) it often occurs be that a certain percentage of the direct debits is refused by the bank. There are many reasons why a bank or a person can refuse a direct debit. A few important ones are Non Sufficient Funds (there is not enough money on the bank account number you are trying to receive money from) or Not Authorized (the owner of the bank account does not allow you to make a direct debit from his or her bank account number).

When there are a lot of refused direct debits, processing them with APRO Banking Gateway can save you a lot of time. The APRO Banking Gateway can process a file with refused direct debits or extract those special lines from a normal bank statement. Next these refused direct debits will be populated into the Oracle Direct Debit Reversal Interface. Starting the import process can be done automatically by the APRO Banking Gateway and all the automatic receipts that were refused are reversed.

Using this functionality when you process large amounts of direct debits could save you days on processing the refused direct debits.

Supported countries

APRO Banking Gateway supports the described functionality in all the countries mentioned below.

If APRO Banking Gateway needs to support a country that is not in the list below then just deliver us the specifications of the electronic banking format and/or the payment format and it will be build in and become part of the standard APRO Banking Gateway application.