On the funds disbursement side of Oracle Payments, a payment method is a payment attribute on a document payable. The payment method indicates the medium by which a first party payer makes a payment to a third party payee. Payment methods also include other information used during the early stages of payment processing, such as validations and rules that determine how payment methods can be assigned to documents payable. Examples of funds disbursement payment methods include the following:

• checks printed in-house by the payer

• checks outsourced to the bank for printing

• electronic funds transfers, through ACH in the United States or BACS in the United Kingdom

• wires

Oracle Payments seeds some payment methods, but also enables you to define your own as well.

A source product user, such as an Oracle Payables clerk, must select a payment method when entering a document payable, such as an invoice. The source product uses Oracle Payments setup to default payment methods onto each document payable and to restrict the user's choice of payment methods to encourage efficient payment processing.