Creditor
A payable is the supplier whose invoice has been recorded but not yet paid; accounts payable maintains these obligations and generates the payment order to the bank from them.
Definition
The process is the same everywhere: record the invoice, check it on the merits, release it, pay, post it. Where more than one person is involved, the process becomes a rights problem — whoever may record should not be able to release alone.
The payment itself leaves the software as a file or over a bank interface. In Switzerland the format is pain.001 under ISO 20022; back comes the debit advice as a camt message, with which the payment run can be reconciled automatically.
Where to read it
What the software must be able to do
What decides is whether the software knows a genuine payment run: bundling several invoices into one order, respecting due dates and discount deadlines, producing the file in the correct format, and matching the bank’s return. Four-eyes release and a log of it are the second check.
Checked Aug 2026
More terms under Invoicing, payment and banking: Advance payment Allowance for doubtful debts Bad debt camt.053 Cancellation invoice Cash discount Certificate of shortfall Credit note Current account Debt enforcement Debtor Default interest Delivery note Dunning eBill Final invoice IBAN Invoice number ISO 20022 / camt Open items pain.001 Part payment Payment term Pro forma invoice QR reference QR-bill QR-IBAN Quotation Receipt Tips TWINT as a payment method Visitor taxes