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My vendors send me a Quickbooks invoice with an ACH payment option embedded and all I have to do is enter my bank account info and it's saved in their system for all future payments.

Why is this not an obvious feature of Xero too?

For those in Australia, we have been using a third party app Parakeet for BPAY and bank account supplier payments. Bypass the use of any ABA files or bpay files. For those interested, they are in the app store. https://apps.xero.com/au/app/parakeet
Hope this helps.

Agree with Shane - this is being requested not only for UK, but for other countries.

But where in this ticket does it mention that this would be an idea just for the UK - this should be a global product idea. Sure batch payments and ABA's reduce the admin but not every bank account holder can have this functionality

So, the announcement doesn't have a lot of information other than just an announcement. Are their any more details:
- Will you need to subscribe to Bill to use it?
- What will the extra cost be?
- Are we going to need to go through Bill or can we just remain in Xero?
- Bill has a long history of making massive messes in Xero because of their 1-way integration (even though they say it is 2-way, we all know it is a 1-way), are they going to make this a better UX and prevent making messes of the books?

We tried this for this first time last week - seems very expensive for minimal time saving. We usually create a payment file in Xero - which allows bulk sending of all the remittances, then remove and redo so we can reconcile the individual payments.
With the new Direct Pay, you cannot send the remittances in one click as you can for payment file! You are expected to click on each payment one by one and click send remittance, this takes more time than the other way.
Please could 'send remittances' be a button that sends to everyone after making the payment? Otherwise surely a backwards step?

Also, none of our suppliers have been paid yet after making the payment 4 days ago....not sure whats going on.

I would like to see a feature allowing my client to pay her contractors through direct deposit. She is currently using this simple feature in QBO. Once her contractor is set up with a W-9, she just enters the bank information and pays them bi-weekly with the click of a button. I am hoping to migrate her to Xero soon, but this is a sticking point for her along with one other feature that is not available in Xero yet - tracking mileage without the need for a 3rd party app.

It makes no difference to me - I still have to go through almost as many steps, login to open banking, enter text message etc. The only thing I don't have to do is retype the amount. Can't see it's worth paying 20p for each transaction.
Having also taken away "Send via Xero network", the overall change is a negative experience.

This would be wonderful for Canada as well

Far too expensive - should be 5p per bill payment, not 20p. Also a lot of small businesses are not VAT registered, so their true cost is 24p per bill payment.

At this rate it's cheaper to process manually, rather than pay the price per bill payment.

I'm trialling the BETA version of this using NatWest Bankline. It works well but there is no option to date the payment file the next day which means that each of the payments are charged at £3.50 by Natwest rather than the next day payment fee of £0.45p.
Please can a payment date field be added like you can when creating a batch bank file.
Many thanks
Andy

Paying bills through the bank connection would be very valuable and a time saver.

Xero should keep direct payment links supported to allow streamless payment of bills from Xero.

Batch payment files should be sent directly to the bank from Xero. This allows administrative level employees to load payment batches to the bank, without the need to have bank access. Signatories can then approve batches in the bank.

Downloading and sharing bank batch files opens a huge security risk where bank account details can be amended in an unsecured notepad file.

Please take note Xero and continue to support direct payment links.

Alternatives in the AppStore do not offer the simple service of direct payment links that Xero currently offers. Additionally, these other apps add more complexity to processes and increase business costs.

QuickBooks has many advantages over Xero at this point because Xero keeps removing valuable functionality in favor of window dressing. At this point one of the few advantages that Xero has the lack of bloatware that is rampant in QB.

Quickbooks has had this as a standard feature for over 15 years. Clients moving from QB expect this capability. This is a Core function that cannot be overlooked.

I would really appreciate a function that allowed me to pay reconcile to statement and pay a bunch of invoices in one go - from within Xero... but I cannot even get my bank feeds to work...

I have read a lot of interesting comments on this thread. Many are voicing a similar concern to mine... Xero seem bent on adding "trivial" features which detract from the value rather than necessary ones which would add to it. They never fail to increase their prices each year though. Sad Xero. Listen to your clients!!!

I am finding so many useful features change to useless ways of doing things... bit over it to be honest.

This seems to be the path of Xero now, remove useful efficiency, add virtually useless and trivial features while ignoring years of calls for extending the number of digits from 4 to 6 in invoices, etc.

Oh, did I forget that while they make the software less useful, they increase the cost? I guess not.

Removing this feature is a real step backwards, as this a value add feature. Xero, you should be investing in this feature with all banks or true straight through processing, not removing this feature which makes life easier for your customers! This is not a good move!

Xero literally just announced that they are removing this feature for NZ ASB customers.
We use this for almost every bill payment.
It loads every payment into the bank for us, and then we just have to do into the bank to make a bulk approval.
The announcement says they are instead prioritizing features that add value for customers, which hardly explains why they are removing value!
Apparently Xero has new requirements that the banks can't comply with currently. Here's an idea... Use the existing method!
It's like building a very smart car that considers some intersections to be unsafe, so refuses to drive through them.

Instead we now have to download a CSV and upload to the bank (1972 tech).
Or pay each bill manually.

So I guess don't hold much hope Xero will 'add' this feature when they are actively removing it from jurisdictions that have it.