Over the past two years, Continia's dedicated banking team has been working intensively on the development of the new Continia Banking App. The release of the app is now imminent, which is why the team would now like to provide an insight into the current development and implementation status.
„New features in Continia Banking and differences in OPplus and Dynamo PAY
In the following text, we would like to draw your attention to some of the key structural and functional features and associated highlights in Continia Banking.
Bank systems and setup server
With Continia Banking, we are introducing a bank integration structure that has already been tried and tested over many years in Continia Payment Management, which enables the customer to set up the banks and payment forms, including the associated validation rules, very quickly and with little effort. Continia Banking will already include the most commonly used banks as well as all common ISO-based payment formats on delivery. In future, new banks, payment formats and their validation rules can be set up by Continia within a very short time and made available via our setup server. Any necessary changes (legal) or bug fixes in the payment formats can also be delivered to all installations in the background via this route without the publication of a service pack or hotfix in the AppSource.
Approvals - Approval workflows
Another important feature that has already been implemented in the beta version is an approval workflow for payment release. This has been tried and tested for many years in Continia Payment Management and has now been integrated into Continia Banking as an optional module.
Bank account verification
The Approval module also offers the option of verifying accounts payable and accounts receivable in order to prevent unauthorized setups and changes to these accounts.
Bank connection
The direct communication option with banks already implemented in Continia Payment is also available in Continia Banking in a revised form. This means that a large number of banks are already available for the direct (API-supported) exchange of payment information, although not yet for the DACH region. It is planned for the release to connect a number of banks directly for the DACH region as well. In principle, however, we want to connect all common banks in the DACH region directly with Continia Banking, if organizationally and technically possible. Irrespective of this, the indirect, manual option is of course always possible and a connection to konfipay will also be available as an alternative to the direct bank connection for the release.
Payment export / payment status
Continia Banking implements two options for creating payment proposals. One close to the standard directly in the outgoing payment posting sheet with a number of features that supplement the standard and an option that largely corresponds to the tried and tested payment proposal in OPplus. A payment status has now been integrated which, when using direct communication with the banks, offers a much better overview of the status of payments and also improved automation.
Bank statement import
There will also be 2 options for processing account statements in future. The bank account reconciliation with corresponding enhancements that significantly support handling, and the payment reconciliation ledger sheet, also with the necessary enhancements for convenient handling. In both options, we provide the same revised search rules (account assignment rules) and functionalities for a maximum automated account assignment and clearing rate. We are thus replacing the payment import journals and the extended incoming payments ledger sheet from OPplus in Continia Banking.
SEPA 3.7 / DK 3.7
Banking will include the new SEPA formats and AXZ from the outset. We will not offer the old formats.
Features not directly related to payment
Continia Finance, which will soon be available in the Microsoft AppSource and is a separate project, replaces the non-payment-related functionalities offered in OPplus. We will link Continia Banking to Continia Finance for a selection of functionalities via a connectivity app. This will ensure that association payments or OP-managed G/L accounts (both modules in Continia Finance) can also be taken into account for payments in the future.
Modules / Activation / Licensing
As things stand today, Continia Banking will be made up of 3 modules: Essentials with the entire basic functionality, Direct Communication for direct data exchange with banks via API and Security for the approval and bank verification functions. Continia Banking is distributed as a SaaS solution in Microsoft AppSource. As with all other Continia products, the on-premises app can be downloaded via the Continia PartnerZone. The installation and operation of Continia Banking requires regular Internet connectivity, as activation is always carried out online and Continia Online is also responsible for creating and sending payment files and information as well as providing account statement information and status information on payments."
Source: Continia, Information Continia Banking_DACH.pdf, 28.05.2024
