Do we have to date the payments 2 business days prior to the file processing date?

Does this mean we have to date the payments 2 business days prior to the 15th in Theatre Manager and I have to be in the office for those days?

No. You may continue to date all the payments in Theatre Manager as the 15th of the month as you do now.

Referring to this 2 day requirement…. some banks require 2 days as the minimum days in advance of the withdrawal date in order for them to process the withdrawals on your specified date. You are able to submit it 3 days in advance, or 4, or 5, or 6, or 7, etc. Meaning, you can submit the EFT file easily when you're in the office without making special trips to be there. In fact, some banks allow you to submit them 45 days in advance — but currently, Theatre Manager only allows 14 days in advance as a safety measure.

Let's say you create the export file on the night of July 11th. The EFT file will have a Creation Date of July 11, while all the payments within the file will still have a Transaction/Processing of July 15. This allows you to submit the file on July 12 or 13 or 14. The rule from the bank is, if the Transaction/Processing date falls on a weekend or holiday, the transaction will be processed on the next business day. In this example, as July 15 is a Saturday, the transactions will be processed on Monday July 17 from the bank.

As a reminder, if the file was created on July 11th, but for whatever reason you didn’t make it into the office until July 17th, all is still fine. You can submit that same EFT file upon your return and the transactions will be processed within the next 2 business days.

Note: There is a limit to this… you have up to 7 days after the File Creation date to submit it for processing. After 7 days, the file will be rejected by the bank. So in the example above, you would need to submit on July 17 upon your return to keep the file ‘valid’.

If something happens and the 17th is missed (as an example), no need to worry - let Arts Management Support know and we’ll assist in getting the EFT file formatted so you can submit it again.