How do I reconcile bulk payments in Xero?

At Farnell Clarke, as you probably know, we love Xero. Which is why we want to help you, as a small business, to understand and implement your own changes and updates quickly and easily.

Today we are explaining how to reconcile bulk payments – as always, if you feel you need further assistance or have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in contact with us.

To start, when creating a batch payment or a batch deposit, you will need to reconcile the bank statement line with the batch within Xero, not with the individual bills and invoices.

If you haven’t created a batch, you’ll need to use ‘find & match’ to reconcile the statement line with the individual transactions instead, but if the statement line matches the batch exactly, you can reconcile as normal.

What do I do if… the batch exactly matches the bank statement line?

Xero suggests a match in the bank reconciliation screen. If the suggestion is correct, then you can click ok to reconcile.

What do I do if…there are multiple statement lines for a single batch?

You may be in the predicament where your payments are showing as separate lines on your bank statement instead of a single payment – in this case you can reconcile the statement lines with the individual transactions rather than the batch.

• Firstly, find the batch payment (or batch deposit) and write down all the bills or invoices included.
• Delete the batch payment/deposit to remove all payments and return the transactions to awaiting payment status.
• Reconcile each bank statement line with the individual invoice or bill as normal.

What do I do if…there’s a single bank statement line for multiple batches?

If you have multiple batches that cover a single bank statement line, reconcile using find & match to select all batches that make up the bank statement line.

What do I do if…the bank statement line doesn’t match the batch total?

A bill or invoice included in the batch hasn’t been processed – Edit the batch to remove the bill or invoice that hasn’t been processed. Then reconcile the bank statement line with the amended batch transaction.

The statement line includes payment for bill or invoice that’s not included in the batch – You can’t add an invoice or bill into the batch. Use find & match to reconcile the statement line with the batch and the invoice or bill.

Payment was recorded incorrectly on one of the invoices or bills in the batch – If you accidentally record the wrong payment amount on the invoice or bill, or the amount paid was different than expected, you can edit the batch deposit or batch payment to correct it. Then, reconcile the bank statement line with the amended batch transaction.

An invoice or bill was overpaid – Remove the invoice or bill from the batch, record the overpayment, then reconcile as normal.

What about payments received from online sales?

When the bulk receipt from your online store or payments processor appears in your bank account in Xero, from the Create tab, create a new receive money transaction and allocate it to your clearing account.

If your statement details are the same each time, you could set up a bank rule to do create the transaction for you.

Check your clearing account balance

You should regularly check the transactions in your clearing account using the Account Transactions report. Total payments applied to your invoices on a particular day should match the bulk receipt you allocated when reconciling. If the balance isn’t zero, it could be due to either:

• Invoices you haven’t received payment for yet
• Payment received in your bank account, but the individual invoice payments haven’t been downloaded by your online store or payments processor yet

If you have any issues or need further assistance, please feel free to get in contact with us here.