Cheques and bills of exchange are the negotiable instruments your business uses to move money on paper rather than in cash — the cheque, the bill of exchange, and the promissory note. In Algeria they carry the bulk of business-to-business settlement, especially the post-dated cheque, which is written today but only payable on a future date and so works as informal credit.
Beelocity tracks every instrument from the moment you log it until it finally clears, bounces, or is cancelled — whether you received it from a customer or issued it to a supplier.
Received versus issued
- A received instrument comes from a customer. It is collateral, not cash — you do not have the money until the instrument clears. You log it, lodge it with your bank on a deposit slip, and it ends up either cleared (the bank pays you) or bounced (it comes back unpaid).
- An issued instrument is one you wrote to a supplier. It is your own obligation — the money only leaves your account when the bank actually debits you.
Opening Cheques & Bills of Exchange
Open Treasury → Cheques in the sidebar; it opens on the Cheques & Bills of Exchange tab. Each row shows:
- Number — the number printed on the instrument. Click it to open the instrument.
- Type — Cheque, Bill of exchange, or Promissory note.
- Direction — Received (from a client) or Issued (to a supplier).
- Partner — the customer who wrote it (received) or the supplier you are paying (issued).
- Amount — the face value, e.g. 601,842.50 DA.
- Issued and Maturity — the date it was written and its due date.
- Account — your own bank or CCP account it deposits to or draws on, in the instrument’s currency. A cash account never holds paper, so it is not offered.
- Status — where it is in its lifecycle.
Use the filter button beside the search box to focus by Direction, Type, Status, Partner, Account, Deposit Slip, Active, an Issued or Maturity date window or Amount — for example, Received + Received shows everything waiting to be lodged with the bank. The choices are written into the page’s address, so you can bookmark that view (Working with lists).
Recording an instrument
Most instruments appear automatically when you confirm a receipt or payment that uses a cheque or bill of exchange method. You can also log one by hand: click New and fill in:
- Instrument Number — the number printed on the paper. Fixed once saved.
- Type and Direction — fixed once saved, because they decide how the instrument behaves.
- Partner — the customer (received) or supplier (issued).
- Counterparty Bank — the other party’s bank (e.g. “BNA — Agence Hydra”). Asked of a received cheque only: one you issue is drawn on your own account, and the payee’s bank is printed nowhere on it.
- Amount and Currency — the face value.
- Issue Date and Maturity (Due Date) — the maturity drives the cash-flow forecast. For a same-day bank cheque the two are equal; for a post-dated cheque the due date is later.
Save it. While it is still freshly received or issued you can keep editing or delete it; once it is lodged or cleared it stays for the record.
The received-instrument lifecycle
Open a received cheque or bill of exchange and click its status — the whole journey of the paper opens behind it, and the moves you can make from where it stands are the words you can click. Received paper and issued paper travel different routes, so a received instrument is never offered a supplier’s stop-payment and an issued one is never offered a deposit slip; the picture shows both, so you can always see where else the paper could have gone.
From a received instrument:
- Remit — put it on a deposit slip (see below). It moves to Remitted for collection or Remitted for discount, depending on the deposit slip, and reaches your bank when the slip is handed in.
- Clear — record that the bank has credited the funds. This is the moment the linked receipt actually posts to your Cash Ledger. You can give the bank’s value date; left blank, it is the maturity date, or today for an instrument that is not due yet. A value date you give has to be a day that has already come: Beelocity refuses one after today, one before its issue date, and — for an instrument on a deposit slip — one before the slip was handed in. While that slip is still a draft, the instrument can’t be cleared at all: the bank doesn’t have it yet, so hand the slip in first.
- Bounce — the instrument came back unpaid. You give a reason — it is shown as the instrument’s Reason, under its status — and, when you have it, the value date the bank returned it on — left blank, it is today. That day can’t be after today, before the instrument’s issue date, before its deposit slip was handed in, or before the day the bank credited it. The linked receipt is reversed on that day and any settled invoice reopens. As with clearing, an instrument on a draft deposit slip waits until the slip is handed in.
- Endorse — sign the bill of exchange over to a third party — for example paying a supplier with a customer’s bill of exchange. You pick the partner; the instrument leaves your treasury without going through your bank.
The issued-instrument lifecycle
From an issued one, the same status opens:
- Present — record that the supplier has presented the cheque to your bank for payment.
- Clear — the bank debited your account. This posts the linked payment to your Cash Ledger. The value date works as it does for a received instrument: left blank, it is the maturity date, or today for an instrument that is not due yet; a date you give can’t be after today or before the issue date.
- Stop payment — file an opposition with the bank (loss, theft, dispute). You give a reason, shown as the instrument’s Reason; the linked payment is cancelled.
- Cancel — void the cheque before it is presented (e.g. it was spoiled and re-issued). The linked payment is cancelled.
Deposit Slips — lodging received instruments with the bank
A deposit slip is what you hand your bank when you lodge a batch of received cheques or bills of exchange in one go. Open Treasury → Cheques and its Deposit Slips tab to manage them.
A deposit slip is one of two kinds:
- Collection — the bank collects each instrument at its maturity and credits you then.
- Discount — the bank advances the funds early, minus interest and bank charges, and carries the risk if an instrument bounces. Only bills of exchange and promissory notes are discounted: a cheque is payable on sight, so it goes on a collection slip.
The slip list narrows on its filter button by Type, Status, Deposit Account, Active, a Date window or a Total range (Working with lists).
Assembling and crediting a deposit slip
- Click New, choose Collection or Discount, pick the deposit account (a bank or CCP account), whose currency becomes the slip’s, and save. It starts as a Draft.
- On the Instruments tab, click Attach cheque and pick a received instrument in the same currency. Repeat for each instrument you are depositing. The Total updates as you go. Once an instrument is attached, the slip’s deposit account stays as it is — detach the instruments first to change it.
- Attached the wrong cheque? While the deposit slip is still a draft, click the three dots at the end of its row and choose Detach — the instrument goes back in hand (Received) and the total updates. Deleting a draft deposit slip does the same for every instrument still attached to it.
- Hand it in. The slip’s status line reads Draft · Submitted · Credited, and Submitted is the next step — click it. The slip’s date has to be today or earlier, and no earlier than the day any instrument on it was received. Every attached instrument is now locked as remitted; from this point instruments are resolved by crediting the slip, not detached, and the slip’s date, deposit account and number can no longer be changed.
- When the bank confirms the result, click Credited on the same line, give the value date the bank credited the slip — left blank, it is today — and mark each instrument cleared or rejected. The value date can’t be after today or before the slip was handed in. Cleared instruments post their linked receipts to your Cash Ledger. A rejected one never reached your account, so there is nothing to reverse: it bounces, and the invoice it paid is owed again. If everything cleared the deposit slip is Credited; if any was rejected it is Partially rejected. The value date is asked only while at least one instrument is marked paid: a slip whose every instrument came back credits nothing, so there is no day to give.
Only a draft deposit slip can be deleted; once submitted, it stays for the audit trail.
What changes automatically
You never adjust balances by hand:
- Clearing a received instrument (or crediting it on a deposit slip) posts the linked receipt into the Cash Ledger, so your account balance rises.
- Clearing an issued instrument posts the linked payment, so your balance drops.
- Bouncing a received instrument reverses the receipt it had posted and reopens the invoice it had settled.
- Stopping or cancelling an issued instrument cancels the linked payment.
Every one of these money movements appears as a row in the Cash Ledger, the single record behind every balance, and the maturities of your live instruments feed the cash-flow forecast.