01 November 2023
More businesses mean more bank accounts and headaches when things don't go right.
After speaking to many Xero businesses, we learnt first hand the juggling acts finance teams find themselves in when paying bills for multiple businesses.
This is how finance teams juggle multiple entities with ABA / Bpay files.
Someone in the accounts team:
Logs into "Business 1" profile in Xero
Load the bills into Xero against Business 1
Bills are approved and marked as paid in Xero
Then:
The ABA is generated for Business 1 and saved.
Repeat for Business 2, Business 3, Business 4, Business 5, Business 6 and.....
Next comes the juggling:
The finance team now have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 + ABA files saved on their desktop or folders 😳...
The 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 + ABA file is emailed to the approver;
The approver is bombared with emails...
The approver tries to work out which of the 6+ ABA file is for which of the 6 businesses...
When the approver finally works it out...
The approver / finance team uploads:
1st ABA file under Business 1 bank account.. (✅)
2nd ABA file under Business 2 bank account.. (✅)
3rd ABA file under Business 4 bank account...(❌)
4th ABA file under Business 5 bank account...(❌)
5th ABA file under Business 6 bank account...(❌)
6th ABA file under Business 3 bank account...(❌)
Approve & Bills paid! .... not quiet....
Now comes the headache:
1-2 days later.... when it's time for bank reconciliation, the team discovers the bills were paid from the wrong operating entity's bank account :(.
Which leads to rectification efforts from everyone such as:
Working out what transfers needs to happen between each of the 6 bank accounts to 'correct' the error
Manually make inter-company funds transfer (taking care not to make more errors!)
Reverse the bill paid in Xero to reverse the incorrect reconciliation...
Re-create the bill payment process again in Xero (making sure not to duplicate the payment) ... and for the brave ones...
Create manual journal entities to account for the difference in Xero..
Gulp.. 🤯
Option available to you:
You can now automate bills payments for multiple businesses using the new auto-bank account allocation capability out of Xero.
This removes the juggling of ABA files across multiple business entities.
Every bill is paid & reconciled accurately from the right business' bank account without any manual effort or ABA/Bpay files.
Auto Bank allocation for Xero bill payments:
How it works:
Configure & allocate the right bank account for each business (you can do this for unlimited number of businesses)
Use the'Planned date' functionality to approve and pay bills out of Xero - removing the need for ABA and Bpay files;
Bills are automatically allocated and paid from the correct bank account
Now, every approved bill is automatically paid from the right account. ✅
No more messy management of ABA/Bpay files via email / uploads. ✅
Completely remove the risk of paying bills from the wrong entity's bank account. ✅
Users feedback:
This automation has been well received by Xero businesses with 5 star reviews in the Xero app store here.
Some feedback...
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Quick AP
“The speed at which Parakeet allows us to pay Bills with Xero has sped up our AP process. No longer having to apply payment, create a batch payment and go through to our bank means we get time back at the end of the week.” - Finance Manager
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Multi Bank account payments - A must have for Xero customers
"I am new Xero customer. Parakeet is an essential part of my accounting solution. BPAY transactions account for 50% of my suppliers and hence it was essential they could be processed along with the standard EFT payments. Parakeet not only gave me BPAY automation but provided the ability for me to process multi bank account payments within the same database. Implementation was simple, backed up with prompt and experienced support. " - Owner
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Want to give up juggling, but not sure if this suits you?
See how it works and discuss with us first or learn more about it here.
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About Parakeet:
Parakeet is a certified financial services app in the Xero app store that automates bill payments (BPAY & EFT) out of Xero and removes the need for manual uploading of ABA files or BPAY batch files into internet banking.
See Parakeet's Xero App Store listing here.
Learn about Parakeet's automated Bills payment automation (AP) here
For more information, contact: media@helloparakeet.com