The ability to manage BPAY Creditor CRNs by Area or Property was rolled out in 2022. See here for information about managing BPAY details, and see here for information about processing expense invoices with this new feature.
It should be intuitive to set up any newly created properties using this new structure. However, previously set-up properties may be set up with duplicated creditors due to the previous system limitation of only allocating CRNs to Properties.
We've set up a process to allow you to merge those duplicated Creditor Contacts, meaning all invoice and correspondence information can be stored on one Contact record.
However! It is vitally important that the BPAY CRN allocations are correctly set up on the duplicates before any merge is done, as otherwise the CRNs stored on the duplicates will be lost, and will need to be manually entered again one by one - which we're sure nobody wants to do.
Phase one: Confirming historic CRNs
To enable Re-Leased to collect the CRN allocations on the duplicated Contacts, upon entering upcoming expense invoices for BPAY Creditors, you will be asked some additional questions which will confirm that Creditor’s CRN data. The prompt for further information will only appear once per BPAY Creditor when you next submit an expense. This prompt will look like this:
After going through the above process, a Creditor's CRN status will be "confirmed". Confirmed CRNs will be kept if that Contact is merged. Unconfirmed CRNs will be lost if that Contact is merged.
To watch a video on this; Confirm CRN's on invoices
Phase two: Merging duplicated creditors
To further help with this migration away from the previous workaround, we will be making some visual changes to the Contacts list page to enable you to easily see which BPAY Creditors have had their CRNs confirmed and are ready to be merged.
Navigate to the new tab on the Contacts page titled BPAY Creditors.
There are new colour-coded tiles on the right-hand side of the list to show you the CRN status of each BPAY creditor.
- Green, or Confirmed, means all CRNs linked to that creditor have been confirmed. This contact is ready to be merged if needed.
- Orange, or Partially Confirmed, means some of the CRNs linked to that creditor have been confirmed, but some are not. We don't recommend merging this contact yet.
- Red, or Unconfirmed, means no CRNs linked to that creditor have been confirmed yet. We don't recommend merging this contact yet.
When you are ready to merge your duplicated creditors, select the relevant contacts using the check box on the left hand side, and then clicking the Merge button in the top right.
Note - you can only merge Contacts that are the same Contact Type. So for example, you cannot merge a Creditor into an Owner.
When you select Merge, a screen will pop up asking you to select the primary contact for the merge. The primary contact is the contact who will be left over after the merge is completed.
Select your primary contact, then tick the checkbox acknowledging you understand what will happen, then click Merge.
We would imagine that the process of merging your duplicated BPAY Creditors may be a gradual process over several months, as it may take several months to confirm the CRN data for all BPAY Creditors.
To watch a video on this Feature please see :
Merge BPAY creditors