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Technical application
Follow our step-by-step instruction guide to fill out your technical application for your live account.
Please note that this section does not cover any legal or contractual parts of your live account application. Make sure you've been in touch with a sales contact for all non-technical contractual topics.
Accounting as a Service is a powerful system that on the one hand can be considered a predefined product, but on the other hand is highly configurable to meet your needs. To do so, additional information is needed to set up and configure your live account.
To make your technical onboarding process as easy as possible, we will fill in an onboarding form together with you, where all questions regarding the onboarding will be answered.
Step-by-step instruction guide
The following steps define, which information needs to be provided in the onboarding process. Each step describes the information that needs to be provided.
Once you decide to start the onboarding process, please get in touch with us sales contact and we will initiate the process.
Step 1: Registration contacts
To start the process we need the project representatives on your side. This typically is a project manager that will be our primary contact. In addition to this, we would like you to provide a replacement contact so that there is a contact person at any time.
You can already register to the API-Explorer. This will be used to send the requests to us later on. We will need this technal user to route the information to the right setup. Please let us know the user so that we can link the accounts.
Accounting as a Service's month-end closing concept is based on business codes which are defined as a tuple represented by the combination of a country and a currency (e.g. DE/EUR, FR/EUR, UK/GBP, etc.). Given that business codes are fundamental to Accounting as a Service, the configuration details must therefore be specified per business code.
- Country: The country of registration. If you have different legal entities (e.g. country entities or different brand entities), we support this with individual business codes. It is not important where the order is placed, but which tax scheme has to be applied. Therefore, the country depends on the registration of your business.
- Currency: To make sure that the data is not influenced by currency conversions, reporting will be done based on the currency in which we have received the orders. That means, if you e.g. have one legal entity which is selling goods in EUR and GBP, Accounting as a Service is set up with two business codes. If you have one entity which is selling goods e.g. in EUR in different countries, we will set up only one business code. Please note that if a currency or country in which your business is registered is not available in the application form, you should get in touch with us, and we will create the appropriate business code.
Please note that the company code number that you will be given for every business code is essential when working with the API of the accounting module.
Step 2: Master data (Company information)
General information about business code
In case Accounting as a Service takes over the communication with the end-customer (e.g. creates invoices, dunning notifications or booking confirmations), the company information for the imprint must be provided. The following information therefore is required:
| Field | Additional notes |
|---|---|
| Type of Business | Please state which product you are going to use. |
| Website URL of Company | The information is needed for outgoing communication such as invoices and dunning communication. |
| Your Logo (URL or File to be attached) | The logo is needed for outgoing communication such as invoices and dunning communication. The logo needs to be provided in the following format:
|
| Fiscal year | To enable Accounting as a Service to close the periods according to your needs, we need to know your fiscal year's start- and end-month. |
| Shipping/Tax Countries | If you deliver goods or provide services out of the main country of the entity to other countries, local tax rates could apply - those needs to be activated in Accounting as a Service. |
| Company legal name | Legal name of the company |
| Address | Address that needs to be displayed in the imprint |
| VAT-ID | VAT-ID of your company |
| Commercial registration number | Your commercial registration number. |
| Managing Directors | Your managing directors that will be displayed in the footer of your dunning communication. |
| Contact details | Email address and phone number that can be displayed in the footer of your dunning communication. |
| Expected Integration Test Start | We recommend an integration test with all involved parties/systems before going to production. To enable us to plan the setup and to provide the necessary support, please indicate when you are planning to start integration testing. Details (timeline and content) will then be aligned with the registration contacts. |
| Expected Go Live Date | When going live, we start to monitor your business and our manual exception handling services. Therefore, we need to know when you plan to go live. The exact timing will then be aligned with the registration contacts. |
Step 3: Number ranges
Accounting as a Service requires to configure the number ranges to enable us to e.g. match incoming payments properly. Please note that it is important that number ranges do not overlap to avoid mismatching, wrong dunning/collection activities and/or refunds.
Helpful hints
Some hints about the information requested in the scope of this process step:
| Number | Description | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Customer Account Number | This number should be the same in all involved systems, e.g. a webshop, an order management system, a subscription management system etc. | 20, alphanumeric |
| Order Number | This number is typically being generated in a webshop or e.g. a subscription portal, when a customer issues an order or a new subscription contract | 16, alphanumeric |
| Invoice Number | This number is usually being generated in an order management system or similar when goods are shipped or services are delivered | 30, alphanumeric |
| Contract Number | Only relevant if you have subscription business, and you are using Accounting as a Service Webshop but not use Accounting as a Service Subscription. The contract number indicates the unique number of a contract | 40, alphanumeric |
Step 4: Payment methods
This section allows you to configure the payment methods to be supported. For each method, you will need to indicate the Payment Service Provider (PSP) as well as the capture handling to be applied. Also, you configure which payment method shall be supported by which business code.
Helpful hints
Some hints about the information requested in the scope of this process step:
| Field | Additional notes |
|---|---|
| Payment method | Accounting as a Service supports are a variety of payment methods. For more information, please check out the payment method section. You will have to provide the list of payment methods to be supported as part of your setup. |
| Capture | You will need to define the capture handling for each payment method. Please refer to the list of available capture options per payment method or (group of payment method) for more information. |
| Provider | For each payment method, you will have to indicate the Payment Service Provider (PSP) in charge. |
| Chargebacks and dispute handling | Accounting as a Service can handle chargebacks and disputes (if applicable) in your name, That means we take over the whole correspondence with e.g. the acquirer and provide documents to prove the transaction. This type of service is optional. In case you request activation as part of the technical application, we will get in touch with you to define the details. |
Step 5: Due date-Reminder, dunning, and collection
If you want Accounting as a Service to send out due date and payment reminder and / or dunning notifications, these have to be configured as part of your setup. All parameters can be configured individually in the application form, but also changed later while business is running. If you need a customer-group specific dunning workflow, please reach out to us. Also, please note that Accounting as a Service allows monitoring of all related processes in its reporting portal.
A common standard dunning escalation process looks as follows:
- Level 0: Due date reminder (4 days before the due date) via email
- Level 1: Payment reminder (14 days overdue) via email
- Level 2: First dunning notification (14 days after payment reminder) via email
- Level 3: Second dunning notification (14 days after first dunning notification) via letter
- Level 4: Transfer to collection agency (14 days after second dunning notification)
Additional remarks:
- All open items will be included in the dunning communication.
- In the standard template, dunning will always be performed on account level If you need a dunning on invoice level, please get in touch with us.
- all values are in local currency.
Please note, that Accounting as a Service will archive all generated documents. You can access those documents via a notification or the myAccounting GUI.
To define the dunning process we will need the following information:
Due date reminder
The due date reminder may be sent out prior to the due date to prevent that end-customers get into the dunning process.
| Field | Additional notes |
|---|---|
| Days prior to due date | Defines how many days before the due date is reached, this communication shall be sent out. |
Sample due date reminder
In case of the due date reminder, only an email is sent to the end-customer without an attachement.
Dunning process
| Field | Additional notes |
|---|---|
| Dunning threshold | Debtor accounts with lower overdue balance will not be included in the dunning process. |
| Days until write-off of outstanding receivables | If outstanding receivables are below the dunning threshold or no dunning process is activated, the amounts will be written-off after this period of time. Accounting as a Service writes off after 60 days. |
| Sender email address | Email address that will be displayed in the sender information to the end-customers |
Each dunning level (dunning communication) can be configured individually. Therefore the following information is needed by dunning level:
| Information | Description |
|---|---|
| Days overdue | Accounts for the first dunning level (payment reminder). All receivealbes overdue will be included in the communication if one open receivable is over this value. |
| Payment term | time, the customer has to pay the open amount. This will be used in the email communication. The date does not change the intervall itself. Therefore the payment term should be shorter than the days after last communication. Please note: in operations the incoming payment may take up to 4 days to be reported to Accounting as a Service. Therefore the payment term should be about 4 days shorter than the days after last communication |
| Dunning interval | Number of days after the last communication (from dunning level 1 onwards) until sending out the next communication. Please note, this value should always be at least 4 days more than the payment term, so that transfered amounts at the last day of the payment term can still be considered before sending out the next communication. |
| Dunning Fee | Fees which will be added to the dunning communication. Fees will only be booked statistically until they are paid. If the consumer does not pay, fees will not be dunned and not booked as revenue. |
| Channel | Accounting as a Service can send out emails or white letter to the client. Please note that if an email address is not provided correctly, a last attempt to reach the end-customer may be to send the white letter. |
Sample dunning email
The image below shows what can be changed in the dunning/payment reminder email:
Sample dunning PDF/letter
The image below shows what can be changed in the PDF-attachement / letter:
A paylink can be added to all outgoing dunning communication if you wish to. Please be aware that additional transactional cost can occur. Check out [paylink section]() below for more information.
Collection process
For collection, we need the following information in addition to the dunning process:
| Information | Description |
|---|---|
| Collection Threshold | Minimum overdue amount to generate the dunning step. |
| Collection Agency | If you have chosen Level 4, please select a collection agency. We are happy to transfer funds to one of Rivertys own international collection agencies. Of course, you also have the option to use another collection agency or to split volumes to benchmark. In this case, just contact us to discuss the details. |
| Risk Management Provider | To optimize risk scoring, it often makes sense to feedback payment and dunning information to the risk management service. Accounting as a Service supports this via its risk management API. The following options are currently implemented: (1) Use Accounting as a Service's own risk service, (2) CRIF Bürgel. |
Support of paylinks
Accounting as a Service can integrate paylinks or QR codes in emails and documents to provide your customers with the option to pay conveniently via alternative payment methods. Following paylinks, customers will first have to pass authentication checks before they will be provided with the list of open items from their account. Once they passed the authentication check, they can select from the list of open items to handle payment execution (e.g. by using a credit card or PayPal).
Sample paylink
A sample of a paylink procedure, from the authentication check to the payment execution.
Sample due date reminder with paylink
A sample due date reminder, with a paylink integration to showcase the use of the field "Reference text" , "Text2" and "Promotional text".
Step 6: External provider setup
Accounting as a Service offers a variety of payment methods and supports the connection to various Payment Service Providers. Payment method and PSP can be combined individually based on your needs. Please note that when using external providers, you need to provide the necessary credentials to connect Accounting as a Service to all of your preferred providers. This section is about the provision of such data.
Please note that if the credentials related to the PROD environment are not yet available, these can be provided at a later stage. We usually don't need credentials for the TEST environment.
Helpful hints
For all external partners (except the bank partner), the following information will be needed:
- Merchant ID: Your unique "customer" number or identifier at the partner
- Credentials: Technical authentication data - differs from partner to partner. Usually a user / password + e.g. a token + a merchant ID or BIN. Please refer to the list of known 3rd party credential types for more information.
- Settlement credentials: Usually a daily settlement file / payment advice is provided on a SFTP server. We will need the URL, user and password to fetch the files automatically on a daily basis.
Below you can find some additional hints related to the information requested in the scope of this process step.
| External partner | Additional notes |
|---|---|
| Bank Partner | For every business code, a dedicated bank account needs to be set up. All payment methods need to be settled to the specific bank account. No other payments than the ones linked to transactions processed by Accounting as a Service are permitted on those accounts. To get access to the bank statements, we need to set up an EBICS connection with your bank. |
| Acquirer | Please fill in all relevant data of your card acquirer. You will get those usually from your account manager during the onboarding process. If your acquirer provided different data, e.g. per card brand, please fill-in all of them. If you are using a collecting PSP who is providing card payments as well, please leave these columns blank, but fill out the Collecting PSP area. |
| Collecting PSP | If you are going to work with a collecting PSP, please fill in all relevant data in the relevant columns. Please note that if you are using Accounting as a Service in the collecting PSP model, you don't need to fill anything here. |
| Payment Provider 1-n | If you have direct contracts with one or more payment providers (e.g. PayPal), please fill in the relevant data in the corresponding columns. Please note that if you are using Afterpay, you don't need to fill anything for this method. |
| Risk Management Provider | If you are going to use a risk module, please fill in the relevant data in the corresponding columns. Please note that if you are going to use Accounting as a Service's own risk module, you need to integrate the risk management API in your checkout process. If you are going to use another provider, Accounting as a Service will only provide payment, dunning and collection information to this provider. You need to integrate the risk management providers API in your checkout process. |
IMPORTANT NOTE Please make sure that all payment methods to be supported settle to the indicated bank account of the related entity according to the information from this section of the application form and make sure that all the transactions processed by Accounting as a Service will be manged via this bank account.
Step 7: Invoices
In this section you can configure, if and how Accounting as a Service should generate invoices and how these should be distributed. You will also have to indicate the language(s), in which the invoices should be generated.
If you expect to have a high volume of invoices in reference to the open invoice as your form of payment method, you may want to integrate a paylink on your invoices as it enables your customers to pay convenient (e.g. via credit card or PayPal) after they have decided to keep the goods and not to return them.
Although the invoice template of Accounting as a Service is standardized. You can customize the elements as shown in the following illustration:
Please note, that Accounting as a Service will archive all generated documents. You can access those documents via a notification or the myAccounting GUI.
Step 8: Booking notifications
This section handles the configuration of Accounting as a Service with regard to various booking notifications. Accounting as a Service can send notifications by email to your customers using different languages. By default, German and English notifications are supported, but more languages are available on request.
All notifications are based on templates with predefined values for all text elements. If you require additional languages and/or you need to have custom values for some text elements, please get in touch. For more information about the existing text elements and their predefined values, please refer to the list of notification related text elements.
Below you can find a sample notification generated by Accounting as a Service concerning the notification type "Payment".
Please note, that Accounting as a Service will archive all generated documents. You can access those documents via a notification or the myAccounting GUI.
Step 9: Month-end reporting
You can configure how to consume the Accounting as a Service month-end reporting (general ledger balances). To learn about the different options, check out the section about the month-end closing handling, as described in the accounting module.
Helpful hints
Some hints about the information requested in the scope of this process step:
| Field | Additional notes |
|---|---|
| Format Option | Please configure which option you want to use |
| Transfer Option | Please configure how you want to receive your month-end closing files |
| Chart of Accounts | You can either select the standard chart of accounts (=G/L account numbers) or define alternative G/L account numbers. If the second case applies, you need to provide alternative account numbers, which we will then upload in Accounting as a Service for you. Please reach out to us to align on the details. |
Step 10: Reporting portal user
Accounting as a Service provides a wide variety of reports to monitor and analyse your business. To give access to the reporting portal, you will have to provide the name and email address for all relevant team members of your organization. Usually these members are in the role of managers, controllers or CFOs.
Access will be available via web-portal as well as via app. Further details about how to use and/or install will be provided together with the access credentials.
Below you can find samples of the reporting made available via the Accounting as a Service Reporting Portal.
Step 11: Accounting as a Service user
Accounting as a Service provides a dedicated user interface to look up your customer's accounts, including the option to set dunning locks and to issue goodwill credits. To provide your team with access to Accounting as a Service, you need to provide the name and email address of the team members in charge. Usually these members are customer service employees.
Helpful hints
You can choose between the following roles:
| Role | Additional notes |
|---|---|
| Read Only | This role enables the user to receive read access to the customer app, the customer account app, the dunning blocks app and the goodwill credits app as well as the documents app. The user can overview open and closed invoices and the total balance of an account. In the documents app the user can find all customer documents, which have been created by Accounting as a Service (invoices, dunning letters, etc.). |
| Basic | In addition to the read only role, the basic role also enables master data changes. |
| Basic + | On top of the basic role, the user is allowed to set and delete dunning blocks. |
| Agent | In addition to the basic+ role, the agent role enables the user to create goodwill credits for the whole invoice or only for one or more items (within dedicated limits (in EUR): day: 3.000, week: 10.000, position: 300) |
| Teamlead | In addition to the agent role, the team lead role enables the user to create goodwill credits for the whole invoice or only for one or more items (within dedicated limits (in EUR): day: 5.000, week: 24.500, position: 300) |
Sample screenshots from Accounting as a Service:
Step 12: Ticket system user
To raise operational 2nd level support tickets, Accounting as a Service provides a ticket system as part of its support. An example use case could be a question about a declined refund or a missing payment. To provide your team with access to the ticket system, you need to provide the name and email address of the relevant team members from your organization. Usually these members are customer service employees.