Raw

**To:** Robert Salton  
**From:** John Jackson  
**Subject:** Approval of Big Chief’s monthly electronic settlement request  

**Situation** – Finance currently settles each delivery ticket individually, requiring drivers to forward tickets for processing.  
**Complication** – Big Chief (account 8306) proposes to replace the ticket‑by‑ticket workflow with a single prepaid monthly payment supported by an electronic file of all deliveries.  
**Question** – Should we accept this new settlement method?  
**Answer** – We can approve Big Chief’s request, provided the file meets our identifier requirements and the settlement follows the three steps outlined below.

**1. File content requirements**  
- The external file must include: parent number, outlet number, ticket number, ticket amount, and delivery date.  
- If Big Chief cannot supply the parent or outlet numbers, Finance will add them from the customer master file.

**2. Submission and balancing process**  
- Big Chief will develop an extraction program that generates the file in the format accepted by our national‑accounts cash‑receipt system.  
- The file and a detailed cheque listing will be sent to Data Processing and the lockbox, respectively.  
- Finance will balance the file against the cheque total; the two must net to zero before proceeding.

**3. Settlement and billing**  
- Once balanced, the monthly file will run through the national‑accounts system, automatically matching ticket numbers to statement history.  
- The system will then generate the appropriate billing records for each outlet.  

**Next step** – Confirm that Big Chief can produce the required file format and schedule the first monthly submission.