Overview 

When a child account is linked to a parent account through the Parent Account field on the Salesforce Account object, it allows for cash receipts from a parent account to be applied to a billing associated with a related child account.

In addition to having a parent-child relationship, an account can be paid by any other account, also known as an Alternate Payor. In the Cash Receipt Apply screen, a different customer account can be searched for and selected to apply a Cash Receipt to a Billing. Also, on the Account record, there is an Alternate Account Name field, which can be used to designate an Alternate Payor. If an Alternate Payor is entered in this field on the Account record or a different customer account is selected in the Cash Receipt Apply screen, and Alternate Payor is checked on the Activity Statement screen, an asterisk (*) displays on the statement to the right of any reference number that was paid by an Alternate Payor.

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Note: A different customer account can also be selected in the Billing Credit Memo Apply screen to select a different account when applying a credit memo.  

Use Case

Frequently a company will bill a customer but the payment will come from the corporate headquarters of that customer, not directly from the customer itself. In Accounting Seed it is possible to set up the two accounts in a parent-child account relationship and receive payment from the parent account and apply it to the billing of the child account. And, as mentioned above, you can also receive and apply a payment from any account to another account.

Link Accounts via the Parent-Child Relationship

The parent and child accounts must be set up as individual Salesforce accounts. To establish the parent-child relationship between the two separate accounts, populate the Parent Account field on the child account with the name of the parent account.