Question:  An attendee in one of my Sage 300 classes encountered the following problem when trying to process EFT payroll using Sage 300 Payroll and Sage EFT payroll. After having set up payroll for EFT process, calculating and posting payroll, she then tried to create the EFT file but got a message stating, there is no data to process.  How to resolve this problem?

Answer by William:

My first step was to go through my check list for EFT processing:

1. Security set up.
   • Decide which users will process EFT, and then assign them to a security group that has the authorization they need.
   • EFT processing security authorization restricts access to EFT options, employee’s EFT information, and EFT file creation. It works together with other payroll security options. For instance, you need both EFT Processing and Payroll Cheque Printing access rights to create EFT files.
   • To set up users and security, use the Users, Security Groups, and User Authorizations windows in Administrative Services. For additional help, press F1 while you are using one of these windows.
2. Set up information about the company’s (employer’s) bank account.
3. Set up employees’ direct deposit (EFT) information.
4. At least five banking days before you need to process direct deposits, send prenotes to your employees’ bank accounts.
5. Optionally set up to enable combining multiple EFT files into a single file for submission.

It turned out that in the employee record, in the EFT Tab detail container, the Prenote Status was Not Sent.

Now you may ask “What is the Prenote Status?”

Prenotes are zero-dollar transactions used to verify employees’ bank account information. Direct deposits cannot be deposited into an employee account until a prenote has been approved for the account.

The status of the prenote for a bank can be one of the following:

• Not Sent. No prenote has been sent.
• Pending. A prenote has been sent and you are awaiting a response from the bank.
• Approved. A prenote was sent, and the bank approved it. You can make direct deposits to the bank account.
• Declined. A prenote was sent, but the bank declined it. Verify the account information and resend the prenote.

A further bit of research revealed the following additional information about prenotes:

1. When you first install a version of Sage 300 Payroll that includes the Prenote Status field, the prenote status for all existing banks is set to Approved. After this, any banks you create start with a prenote status of Not Sent.
2. A bank’s prenote status is set to Not Sent if you change the Transaction Code, Receiving DFI ID, or Account Number for the bank.
3. A bank’s prenote status is set to Pending if you generate a test file for the bank on the Generate EFT Cheques window.
4. Prenote statuses are not automatically set to Approved. After receiving a prenote approval from a bank, you must manually change the prenote status for the bank to Approved.
5. Direct deposits are calculated only for banks with a prenote status of Approved. If an employee is set up to be paid by direct deposit, but does not have a bank with a prenote status of Approved, the employee’s paycheque is created as a physical cheque, not a direct deposit.

Therefore, after reading bullet number five, the fix was simple – changed the status of the Prenote to Approved from Not Sent and it worked.  The EFT payroll file was created.