Automating payment file generation shouldn't mean giving up control. VEU (Verteilte Elektronische Unterschrift, distributed electronic signature) is the EBICS mechanism that keeps explicit human validation on every payment, without falling back to manual re-entry on a bank portal.
What VEU is, and why EBICS requires it on certain orders
VEU is a multi-person signature mechanism built into the EBICS protocol: a bank order (transfer, direct debit) may require one or more signatures before it's actually sent to the bank for execution. Many banks require this workflow once an amount crosses a threshold, or for certain sensitive order types — a bank requirement, not a software option.
The approval workflow, step by step
A payment generated from an approved invoice in Sage Intacct first lands in a signature queue. The authorized signatory or signatories (based on rules set by the company and its bank — single signature, or dual signature above a certain amount) validate or reject the payment from their own space, never needing to re-enter the order. Once signed by the required number of people, the order is sent to the bank for execution.
What the EBICS signature relies on
The VEU signature relies on EBICS keys specific to each signatory, registered and then activated by the bank when the subscriber is initialized. Before executing an order, the bank verifies each signature: the signatory's identity and the integrity of the signed order can be verified after the fact. Each person's signing rights are defined with the bank under the EBICS agreement.
Audit trail: what gets tracked for every payment
Every step of the workflow is timestamped and attributed by name: who initiated the payment, who signed it (and when), whether a rejection occurred and by whom. This traceability directly addresses internal and external audit requirements on payment workflows — a point often checked during an ISO 27001 audit or a statutory auditor's review of the treasury process.
Setting it up in Arkaio
The signature workflow configuration follows the rules already defined by your bank for your EBICS subscriber (number of required signatures, any thresholds): Arkaio doesn't reinvent the banking workflow, it surfaces it clearly from within Sage Intacct, with notifications to the relevant signatories as soon as a payment is awaiting their validation. The full EBICS connection is described on the EBICS Connector for Sage Intacct page.
In summary
- VEU enables multi-person human validation without manually re-entering payments
- The signature relies on each signatory's EBICS keys, verified by the bank before execution
- Every step (initiation, signature, rejection) is timestamped and attributed by name
- The workflow follows the rules set by your bank, surfaced directly from Sage Intacct