Remittance advice is a letter sent by a customer to a supplier to inform the supplier that their

invoice An invoice, bill, tab, or bill of costs is a commercial document that includes an itemized list of goods or services furnished by a seller to a buyer relating to a sale transaction, that usually specifies the price and terms of sale, quanti ...

has been paid. If the customer is paying by

cheque A cheque (or check in American English) is a document that orders a bank, building society, or credit union, to pay a specific amount of money from a person's account to the person in whose name the cheque has been issued. The person writing ...

, the remittance advice often accompanies the cheque. The advice may consist of a literal letter (e.g., "To Whom it May Concern: Your shipment of the 10th inst was received in good order; accompanying is our remittance of $52.47 per invoice No 83046") or of a

voucher A voucher is a bond of the redeemable transaction type which is worth a certain money, monetary value and which may be spent only for specific reasons or on specific goods. Examples include house, housing, travel, and food vouchers. The term vou ...

attached to the side or top of the cheque. Remittance advices are not mandatory, however they are seen as a courtesy because they help the accounts-receivable department to match invoices with payments. The remittance advice should therefore specify the invoice numbers for which payment is tendered. In countries where cheques are still used, most companies' invoices are designed so that customers return a portion of the invoice, called a remittance advice, with their payment. In countries where wire transfer is the predominant payment method, invoices are commonly accompanied by standardized bank transfer order forms (like '' acceptgiros'' (Netherlands) and '' Überweisungen'' (Germany) which include a field into which the invoice or client number can be encoded, usually in a computer-readable way. The payer fills in his account details and hands the form to a clerk at, or mails it to, his bank, which will then transfer the money. The employee who opens the incoming mail should initially compare the amount of cash received with the amount shown on the remittance advice. If the customer does not return a remittance advice, an employee prepares one. Like the

cash register A cash register, sometimes called a till or automated money handling system, is a mechanical or electronic device for registering and calculating transactions at a point of sale. It is usually attached to a Cash register#Cash drawer, drawer fo ...

tape, the remittance advice serves as a record of cash initially received. Modern systems will often scan a paper remittance advice into a computer system where data entry will be performed. Modern remittance advices can include dozens, or hundreds of invoice numbers, and other information. Remittance advices can be very complicated, especially in specialized fields like medical insurance payments.

References

{{Authority control Payments Accounting source documents Accounts payable Letters (message)

See also

References