Making bulk payments from a business account

bakerycakeenthu

We process commission payouts for around 50 self-employed agents every couple of weeks, and at the moment it’s all done manually through our bank’s online portal.

It works, but it takes most of a day to set up and double-check each time.

Is there a simpler way to handle this? For example, can you batch payments or upload them in one go rather than entering everything individually?

Would be interested to hear what others are doing to save time on this.

marlot

Sounds like you need to start looking at some simple business software.

Perhaps take a look at Xero, QuickBooks and FreeAgent?

Savvy_Sue

I'm sure you can: I remember looking at the options for our similarly-sized salary run. IIRC we had to register for bulk payments, and then upload a spreadsheet in a particular way. This is a few years ago, and it was, frankly, a bit clunky. We went back to doing it manually.

But it surprises me that it takes most of a day to make and check 50 payments. It was for us at most an hour's work (on a bad day). Having generated the list of payments, my colleague would enter each payment. Then I'd get the list of payments, and check each one was correct before authorising it.

Grumpy_chap

I can't advise about bulk payments but, based upon my bank online system, while all day for 50 payments seems a long time I also doubt that my bank's system could get through 50 transactions in an hour. Barely a minute per transaction.

roarrory33

If you’re doing that volume regularly, most banks offer a bulk payment upload option (often via CSV) so you can set everything up in one file and upload it in one go. That alone usually cuts the time down quite a bit.

Some people also use accounting/payroll software to generate the payment file directly, which reduces manual entry and errors.

It still needs checking, but it’s generally quicker and more consistent than entering each payment individually.