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Paying suppliers

Inventory → Purchasing → Payments is where approved supplier bills become money leaving the bank — as a document, not a moment. A payment run gathers bills for one pay date, is signed by the people the approval rules name, becomes a bank batch file for the bank's bulk-payment upload, is marked paid when the bank has done it, sends each supplier a remittance, and tells Xero. CleverOps never moves the money itself.

The key is Pay suppliers (finance.pay) — held by the Billing and Manager roles by default, and always by owners. It builds, submits, exports and marks paid. Signing a run stays with the ladder: Approve purchase orders, the people a rule names, owners and admins.

The Payments tab​

Across the top: Owed to suppliers (every approved bill with money still owing, and how much of that is overdue), On open runs, Awaiting approval and Paid, last 30 days. The scopes are Open, Drafts, Awaiting approval, To export, To mark paid, Paid and All; each run is a row — number, entity, reference, who built it, pay date, status (with the level bar while it waits), bills, suppliers, total, and whether Xero has been told.

Building a run​

New payment run asks which entity pays (Paid from — one run, one bank account), the pay date and a reference for the bank lines (the run number by default), then lists every payable bill grouped by supplier: approved or already in Xero, money still owing, not on another open run. Tick the bills; each is paid in full unless you change the Pay amount (never more than is owed). A supplier without bank details, or with unverified ones, is flagged on the group line. Build run drafts it as PAY-00001 and opens the sheet.

A bill can be on one open run at a time, and a run pays one billing entity's bills — a bill from another entity is refused with the reason.

The run sheet​

The number and status, Paid from, the pay date and reference, chips for what the rules will do, the ladder level, unverified or missing bank details, and Xero's state; a strip with Bills, Pay date, Remittances sent, and Total.

  • Bills on this run — supplier and bill (a link to the bill sheet), due date, owed, the amount paying (part when less than owed; paid with the date afterwards), the bank account it goes to (last four digits, unverified in red, none when missing) and Xero's answer per bill. While the run is a draft, ✕ takes a bill off it.
  • Approval card — the ladder, exactly as on an order or a bill. A run's facts for the rules are its total, entity, currency, how many bills and suppliers, how many suppliers have unverified bank details, and whether any bill is part-paid.
  • Remittances (once exported or paid) — one per supplier with the amount and bill count; type or confirm the email and Send remittance. It goes on the entity's letterhead, cc'd to the entity's accounts address, listing each bill, the amount paid, the total, the pay date and the bank reference. Send again resends.
  • Comments — kept on the run.

The doors, in order​

  1. Approve / Submit for approval — the same rule as an order: no rule matching → the run is approved at once (the person holds Pay suppliers); a rule that routes it → Awaiting approval, the people at the open level are told, and they see Approve and Send back; a rule that refuses it → the reason on the draft. Sent back means back to a draft with the note; every level signs afresh.
  2. Export bank batch — refused while any supplier on the run has no account number. Downloads PAY-00001-bank-batch.csv: one line per supplier — beneficiary name (the account holder), bank, branch code, account number, account type, amount, the beneficiary reference (your account number with them, else the run number), the run number, and the bills settled. Upload it to the bank. Download batch again repeats it; Back to approved under More undoes the export.
  3. Mark paid — asks for the bank reference, records every payment as paid today, brings each bill's balance down (a fully settled locally captured bill reads PAID), and queues the payments for Xero.
  4. Cancel run — the bills go back to the payable list. Reopen as draft brings a cancelled run back.

Xero​

With Payments to Xero on in Billing → Config → Accounting sync, every payment on a paid run whose bill Xero knows (pulled from, or pushed to, that connection's organisation) is posted on the next sync as a bill payment from the same payment bank account the customer receipts use, referenced with the bank reference. A bill Xero does not know shows bill not in Xero; a payment the bookkeeper already recorded there is left alone and noted (already settled there); anything Xero rejects shows not posted with Xero's reason on hover. The run's Xero column sums it up: waiting for sync, n of m in Xero, or n not posted.

Supplier bank details​

A supplier's bank details are never typed straight onto the supplier. They arrive through a change request that a second person verifies by phone and signs — see Suppliers → Bank details through a request. The supplier form shows what is on file (bank and the last four digits), whether it is verified and by whom, and Request a change. An account that is on file but unverified (details that predate the request flow) is a warning on every run that pays it and a rule fact — a rule can refuse or route a run with unverified suppliers — until a request with a verification call replaces it.