You can select to post AP invoices, computer checks, manual payments, and house account payments in summary or in detail. The difference between summary and detail posting is in how the credit to either the AP account or the cash account is posted. The expense account distributions are always posted as entered in the voucher (and always have the voucher number as the journal control number).
The following examples describe how GL entries to the computer check’s cash account are made for each option (remember, the expense account GL entries do not change based on the option selected); the AP invoice, manual payments, and house account payment postings are comparable:
If you select Summary posting, you will get one credit to cash for each apply date in the batch. Each credit is the total of all of the check amounts for each apply date in the batch. The journal control number is the batch code.
If you select Detail Posting, you will get a credit to cash for each check in the batch. The journal control number for both sides of each entry is the voucher number.
When doing General Journal Inquiries you will get different results depending on whether the vouchers were posted in summary or in detail. For example, if inquiring on a journal control number, if you post in summary, an entry could appear out of balance; therefore, in this case you should inquire on the batch code. The same inquiry on an entry posted in detail would return a balanced entry.
You can specify your posting preferences under Setup > Other Definitions > Accounts Payable tab, Posting Choices.