Pay a bill using Payit™ on mobile

This article explains how to pay bills with Payit™ using the FreeAgent mobile app.

What is Payit™?

Payit™, a service provided by NatWest, is a fast and simple way to make payments. It uses Open Banking to let you make secure payments from your NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland or Ulster Bank business current account to any other major UK bank via the FreeAgent mobile app. Payit™ is free to use and no fees are applied.

Before you get started

For the best experience, you should install and set up your bank’s mobile app on your device before using Payit™.

You will need to ensure that the person you want to pay is set up as a contact in FreeAgent, with their bank account details included in their contact profile, before you can use Payit™ to make a payment to them.

Tap the ‘☰’ (mobile app navigation menu) button and select 'Contacts'.

Tap the '+' at the top-right of the screen and enter the relevant details for the contact, including their bank details, and tap ‘Save’ in the top-right corner to complete the process.

How to pay a bill with Payit™

Tap the ‘☰’ (mobile app navigation menu) button and select 'Bills'.

Select the bill that you’d like to pay from the list. If you haven’t added the bill yet, tap the ‘+’ at the top-right corner, select the relevant contact and complete the details for the bill. Find out more about how to add a bill.

Next, scroll down and select 'Review and pay'.

If you didn’t add a payment reference when you first added the bill, you can do so now by tapping the ‘Reference’ field. The payment reference can be up to 18 characters long and must contain only letters and numbers. If you don’t enter a payment reference, the bill reference will be used automatically instead.

Select ‘Pay now with Payit™’.

Next, you’ll see a confirmation page where you'll be able to review the details of the bill before scheduling the payment. Once you’re happy that these details are correct, tap ‘Continue’ to proceed.

Next, you’ll be taken through your bank’s online banking login journey to authorise the payment. Follow the prompts provided by your bank. Please note that you will need to complete this step each time you pay a bill or schedule a bill payment using Payit™.

What happens next?

If the payment is approved

Once the bill payment has been authorised by your bank, you’ll be redirected to the FreeAgent mobile app and a ‘Payit: Approved’ banner will be displayed at the top of the bill.

Managing the transaction in FreeAgent

Please note that the Knowledge Base articles referenced below explain how to complete each process using the desktop version of FreeAgent, rather than the FreeAgent mobile app.

If you have a bank feed set up, the transaction will appear in the Banking section of your FreeAgent account during the next import. If you don’t have a bank feed set up, you will need to either upload the bank transaction to FreeAgent or enter it manually.

If you've enabled the Guess feature in FreeAgent, the software will attempt to match the imported or uploaded transaction to the appropriate bill. To approve the transaction, tap ‘Banking’ in the bottom-right corner, and select ‘For approval’. Select the relevant transaction from the list, review the explanation and then tap ‘Approve’ to explain the transaction.

If you haven't enabled the Guess feature, you can explain the bank transaction manually, choosing ‘Bill Payment’ as the transaction type.

If the payment isn’t approved immediately

If the payment isn’t approved immediately, a ‘Payit: Payment pending’ banner will be displayed at the top of the bill.

If the payment is unsuccessful

If the payment attempt is ultimately unsuccessful, a red notice will appear on the bill in FreeAgent. You will also receive an email from FreeAgent with the subject line: 'Notice: your bill payment was unsuccessful'. We recommend that you contact your bank directly so they can investigate the unsuccessful payment.