Payment Fees

Banks and card processors often deduct a fee from a payment before it reaches your account, or charge one for a specific payment method (a wire transfer, a credit card). Payment Fees let you record that cost automatically instead of adjusting the journal by hand every time. Unlike Charge Codes, which apply to a sales or purchase document, a Payment Fee is triggered by the payment itself — how it was made (payment method, currency) — regardless of what invoice or order it's settling.

Status note: Configuration, matching, and GL posting are fully functional for fees charged to a Ledger account. Fees charged to the Customer/Vendor can be configured and will be matched against a payment, but do not yet post to the General Ledger — that accounting treatment is still being designed. See "Charge Behavior" below.

Conceptual Overview

Payment Fees have two separate screens — one under Accounts Receivable, one under Accounts Payable — each managing only the fees applicable to that side. You never choose which side a fee belongs to; the screen you're in decides that for you.

Each fee owns one or more setup rules, which define the conditions under which the fee fires (payment method, currency, effective date range) and how its amount is computed (a flat amount, or a percentage of the payment). When a payment is made, every configured fee whose setup criteria match is applied, not just the closest match — a wire transfer in a foreign currency can legitimately incur both a wire fee and a currency conversion fee on the same payment, so fees stack deliberately rather than picking one winner.

Configuring a Payment Fee

1. Navigate to Accounts receivable > Payments setup > Payment fee, or Accounts payable > Payment setup > Payment fee — whichever side this fee applies to. This choice is permanent for the fee you're about to create; there's no way to move a fee between the two screens afterward.
2. Select New on the action toolbar.
3. Code: Enter a unique, descriptive identifier (e.g. CC_SURCHARGE, WIRE_FEE). This is immutable once saved.
4. Description: Enter a description explaining when this fee applies.
5. Charge: Select Ledger or Customer/Vendor — see "Charge Behavior" below. This applies to the whole fee, not to individual rules.
6. If Ledger is selected, enter the Main account the fee should post to (and any required financial dimension segments).
7. Click Save.

Adding Setup Rules

A fee with no setup rules will never fire. Click Add setup under Setup rules to add one or more rules — these only define when the fee fires and how much it is; the accounting treatment was already fixed in step 5 above and applies to every rule on the fee:

1. Method of payment: Select the payment method this rule applies to, or leave blank to match any payment method.
2. Currency: Select the payment currency this rule applies to, or leave blank to match any currency.
3. Effective from / Effective to: Optionally bound the date range this rule is active for. Leave either blank for an unbounded side.
4. Percentage/Amount: Select whether the fee is a flat Amount or a Percentage of the payment.
5. Value: Enter the amount, or the percentage (e.g. enter 3 for 3%, not 0.03).
6. Click Save.

A rule is rejected if its match criteria (method of payment + currency + date range) are an exact duplicate of another rule already on the same fee.

Charge Behavior

Ledger

The fee is expensed to your organization. Select this when a third party (e.g. a card processor or bank) deducts a fee from the payment before it reaches your account, and you want to record that as a cost.

• Requires: a Main account (step 6 above).
• Status: Fully implemented.
• Posting effect: A matching payment generates two additional GL entries alongside the payment's own — a credit to the bank account for the fee amount, and a debit to the configured Main account. The customer's or vendor's balance is unaffected; their invoice still settles in full. See "Example Configurations" below for a worked posting example.

Customer/Vendor

The fee is charged to the paying party, absorbed by their own balance rather than expensed to a dedicated account.

• Requires: nothing further — no Main account is configured for this option.
• Status: Configuration and matching only.
• Posting effect: None yet. The fee is correctly resolved and matched against a payment, but applying it has no visible accounting impact until the posting design for this case is finalized.

Example Configurations

Credit card surcharge charged to the customer (configuration only — no posting yet, per the Customer/Vendor status note above). Created from Accounts receivable > Payments setup > Payment fee:

• Charge = Customer/Vendor
• Setup: Method of payment = (any), Percentage/Amount = Percentage, Value = 3

Wire transfer fee expensed by the organization (fully functional). Created from Accounts payable > Payment setup > Payment fee:

• Charge = Ledger, Main account = the bank-fee expense account (e.g. Charges control account)
• Setup: Method of payment = Bank, Percentage/Amount = Percentage, Value = 10

Posting a 2,000 payment against this fee (10% → 200) produces this voucher:

Account	Debit	Credit	Description
Bank Account	2,000		(the payment itself)
Accounts Receivable		2,000	(the payment itself)
Charges control account	200		PaymentFee
Bank Account		200	PaymentFee

The fee's two lines are additional to the payment's own two lines, not a replacement for them — the customer's invoice still settles for the full 2,000; the fee only affects the bank/expense side.

How Fees Appear on a Payment

When a payment matching one or more fee rules is created, the applicable fees are resolved and recorded automatically — there is currently no manual "Add fee" action for attaching a fee that didn't auto-match. This means a fee that should apply but doesn't (because its setup rule doesn't quite match the payment) can't be added by hand; the setup rule needs correcting instead.

Applied fees are visible on the payment journal itself: open the journal, select a line, and go to Line Details > Payment fees. This lists every fee applied to that line — Code, Description, Party (Customer or Vendor), Charge type, Amount, Currency, and Ledger account (for a Ledger-charge fee). While the journal is still open (not yet posted), each row also has a delete action to remove an incorrectly-applied fee before posting.