Pay bills - New NAB & Xero feature

(THIS FEATURE IS IN BETA) Access to this version of payments is currently restricted to a small number of users.

Pay bills with the National Australia Bank

Xero and NAB have started working very closely together to help make managing money and working with Xero more streamlined. NAB currently provides direct bank feeds, it also can provide notification from within your NAB app when an invoice is paid and the newest feature just released is the ability to create business payments directly from Xero, and then approve them within the NAB app. 

The new feature allows you to send payment instructions from Xero securely to your linked NAB account, then approve them directly in the NAB app. And for peace of mind, Xero will notify you of the status of your payments from within your Xero account and even mark them as paid for you when they are successful.

How it works

Payments can only be made:

• In the currency that’s set up for your organisation
• On current and future dates, if sent directly to NAB
• Up to $40,000, dependent on your NAB daily limit
• Directly to NAB if you’ve added the feature to your subscription

If you don’t want to add the feature to your Xero subscription, follow the instructions to download a payment file instead. There’s no additional charge to download a payment file.

You can only send payments to connected NAB internet banking accounts. NAB Connect can't be used to approve payments. 

The payment file groups bills from the same supplier together to make a single payment. Bills are displayed separately in Xero, but are combined in the payment file, so your supplier receives a single payment and reference.

Before you start

• Check that your bank account is set up correctly in Xero.
• Download the NAB mobile banking app onto your phone.
• You need the standard, adviser, or invoice only user role in Xero to send a payment and be a bank account owner or a delegated authority to approve payments. You need to be the subscriber of your Xero file to add the feature to your subscription.

1. Within the Business tab, select Purchases overview.
2. Under Bills, click Awaiting Payment and then select the checkbox for each bill to pay. 
3. Click Batch Payment, then click Pay bills to confirm.
4. Select the account to make the payment from and the payment method.
5. (Optional) Follow the steps to subscribe to the new feature and choose a monthly tier based on the number of payment transactions you make in a month. Once you’ve confirmed the add-on you’ll be taken back to the Make Payments screen NAB bill pricing.
6. Click Continue to review bills. If it's your first time setting up a connection with NAB, you'll need to log in to NAB and follow the steps to authorise access.
7. Complete any remaining details or click into a field to edit it. You need the bank account admin user permission to edit supplier bank account details.

   

8. (Optional) To remove a payment, click the menu icon ,then select Remove from batch.
9. Click Continue to payment summary or Send [x] to the bank.
10. Click:
    • Download a payment file to download an ABA file that can be uploaded to your bank
    • Back to bills to return to your bills
    • Batch summary report to download a batch payment summary
    • Send remittance to email a remittance advice, so your supplier can see individual reference numbers for bills paid
11. Log in to NAB mobile banking and approve the payments or if you've downloaded an ABA file, log in to your NAB internet banking and upload the payment file.

Fully paid bills are marked as paid and moved to the Paid tab.