Tony M Mar 24, 2015:

@ Robin Yes, but we all know that in commercial EN (especially), things often get shorted ad absurdum, to the point that only insiders can really understand what the heck they mean!
By the way, a 'payment advice' is not always the same thing as a 'remittance advice' — the latter is (in my experience) always issued by the party making the payment, and usually gives details of which invoices are being settled, etc. A 'payment advice', on the other hand, quite often comes from e.g. a bank, to tell you that you have received a payment from XYZ — so it kind of confirms that the payment detailed on the 'remittance advice' has actually gone through.

As ever, not all terms are always used with perfect precision, and different organizations use different jargon sometimes for the same thing.

Jennifer Levey Mar 24, 2015:

Confusing ST Surely a 'remittance' is an actual payment or transfer of funds.

(the document issued with a payment and sent to our suppliers detailing the invoices we have paid) is not a 'remittance' - it is information about a remittance. And it is not issued 'with' the payment - it is issued 'concurrently' (and by a parallel route - usually directly to the supplier).

Any of the answers so far, except that offered by François, is valid - although there are likely to be preferences depending on the variant of French being targetted by Asker.

FWIW, I used to receive regular 'avis de paiement' from clients in Switerland saying they had just instructed their bank to transfer to me CHF nnnn 'in payment of last month's invoices', numbers x, y and z.