Cash Application Checklist

Download the prior business day's bank activity from each operating account and pull the lockbox BAI2 / remittance file. Treasury cutoffs sometimes push wire detail into the next-day file — confirm the date range covers every receipt you intend to apply.

Verify yesterday's cash receipt batch closed cleanly in QuickBooks / NetSuite / Sage Intacct and that the GL deposit cleared to the bank. Starting today's work over an unposted batch causes double-applied payments — a common cleanup hassle at month-end.

Run the unapplied cash / suspense ledger and note any aged items carried from prior days. Anything older than 5 business days should be researched today, not parked again.

Sum every ACH credit and incoming wire from the bank statement and confirm the total matches the receipts batch you are about to post. Wire fees are typically debited separately — do not net them against the receipt amount; they post to bank-fee expense.

For each lockbox check image, capture payer, check number, amount, and any invoice references on the stub. Checks without a stub or memo go to the research queue — do not guess at the customer based on the bank account name alone.

Stripe / QuickBooks Payments / Authorize.net deposit gross receipts minus the processor's fee. Apply the gross amount to customer invoices and post the fee separately to merchant-fee expense, otherwise customer balances will look short by 2-3%.

Run the receive-payments auto-match routine in the AR module against the day's receipts. Review every match before posting — auto-match will pair a payment with the wrong invoice when amounts coincidentally agree across customers.

When the customer is identified but the invoice is not specified, apply oldest-first unless the customer's contract or remittance instructions say otherwise. Split a single payment across multiple invoices line-by-line when the remittance lists them — do not lump-sum apply.

Wires with no remittance and checks with unreadable stubs go to the unapplied cash GL with a memo: payer name, amount, date received. Unapplied cash is not a parking lot — every item needs a follow-up owner before close of day.

Walk every parked or partially-applied receipt and tag the exception. Short pay and overpay each have their own resolution path; unidentified means the payer cannot be matched at all and needs customer outreach.

For unidentified wires, contact the AP contact at the likely payer with the wire date, amount, and originating bank. Do not apply on a guess — misapplied wires create a downstream short-pay on the actual invoice and a phantom credit on the wrong account.

Code the deduction by reason — pricing, shortage, freight, promo, return — and route per the customer's chargeback agreement. Open the residual on the invoice; do not write it off without a credit memo and approval per the deduction-authority matrix.

Confirm with the customer whether to refund or hold as a credit on account. Refunds over the firm's authority threshold need controller approval. Document the customer's instruction in the AR notes — unclaimed credits eventually become escheatable property.

Total today's applied + unapplied receipts and tie to the bank statement deposit total. Any variance must net to zero before posting — a $0.43 unidentified rounding gap usually means a processor-fee miscoding earlier in the batch.

Run the AR aging total and confirm it equals the GL receivables control account. A break here usually points to a journal entry posted directly to the GL receivables account instead of through the sub-ledger — investigate before close.

Re-open the unapplied cash GL and confirm same-day items have a research owner and a target clear date. Aged unapplied cash is one of the top adjusting-entry sources at month-end.

Save the bank deposit detail, lockbox images, and emailed remittances to the document management system (SmartVault, ShareFile, TaxDome) under the day's batch folder. Audit trail discipline matters here — auditors will sample receipts during year-end fieldwork.

Post and close today's receipt batch so it cannot be edited without a reversal. Leaving batches open invites silent edits that break the prior bank reconciliation.

The AR specialist signs off the worksheet; the controller or accounting manager reviews exception items and counter-signs at end of day. The signature is the daily key control auditors test for cash receipts segregation of duties.