How do trigger-, confirmation-, and booking dates differ from each other for payments?
Table of contents
Introduction
Trigger Date
Confirmation Date
Booking Date
Example
Display in the contract account of a customer in billwerk
Examples
Effects on billwerk reports
Introduction
When payments are made, especially when payment service providers are used, various data on the respective transactions are processed at different points. This makes it possible to track at which point a payment was processed, when and how. This data is taken into account and processed accordingly in billwerk's reports.
Three different dates for a payment are evaluated for the reports. We only consider the data relating to the bank account of your end customer and the account you have set up with the payment service provider. Your account with your house bank is not taken into account.
Trigger Date
The trigger date refers to the time when the payment service provider initiated the payment collection on the end customer's account.
Confirmation Date
If the payment amount was successfully collected from the end customer and registered on your account with the payment service provider, billwerk is informed by the payment service provider and confirms the payment in the billwerk UI. The confirmation date describes the time at which the payment service provider transmits the confirmation to billwerk.
Booking Date
The Booking Date transmits the time at which the payment of the end customer was actually received and booked on your account at the payment service provider. If no Booking Date was transmitted to billwerk by the payment service provider, the Confirmation Date is used here. In most cases the Confirmation and Booking Date will be the same, especially for payments by direct debit, credit card or PayPal.
Example
PayOne triggered a payment to the end customer on 11/1/2021 (Trigger Date) and there is a chance, that the Clearing Date was specified by PayOne as well. On 11/12/2021 billwerk was informed by PayOne that the bank has initiated the payment. In this case, the Booking Date would be defined as the Notification Date. If no Clearing Date is provided, it is defined as notification date as 11/12/2021.
Display in the contract account of a customer in billwerk
In the contract ledger of a customer, the respective data of a payment are also considered and displayed. The date in the column "Created At" describes the trigger date. The "Date" in the column to the right indicates either the Confirmation or Booking Date, depending on what was transferred to billwerk by the payment service provider. If no date is specified at this point, the payment is still unconfirmed and is also marked as such in the "Status" column.
Examples
Confirmed payment:
Unconfirmed payment:
Effects on billwerk reports
Only when a payment is shown as confirmed in billwerk, the system has received the information that the payment has really been made. This also affects the results of the billwerk reports, such as the financial accounting report or the open items report. Thus, an unconfirmed payment will still be displayed in the open items report and not in the accounting export. Only when the payment is displayed as confirmed in billwerk does the behavior change and the payment no longer appears in the open items report, but instead in the financial accounting export.
In the financial accounting export, the booking date is used as the ideal booking date if it was transmitted by the payment service provider. If this is not the case, the confirmation date is used instead.