Schedule a bill payment using Payit™
This article explains how to schedule a payment for a bill for a future date with Payit™ using the desktop version of FreeAgent.
If you have the FreeAgent mobile app, find out How to schedule a bill payment using Payit™ on mobile.
Please note that:
- Payit™ is only available if you have full (level 8) access to your FreeAgent account and if a NatWest, Royal Bank of Scotland or Ulster Bank business current account is your primary bank account in FreeAgent.
- Payit™ is not available if you have a user role of ‘Accountant’.
- Payit™ is not available if you’re accessing a client’s account through a practice dashboard.
- When you schedule a bill to be paid at a future date, your Cashflow report will use the scheduled date instead of the bill date.
- You can’t use Payit™ to part-pay any bills.
To pay the bill immediately, find out how to pay a bill using Payit™.
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 without leaving FreeAgent. Payit™ is free to use and no fees are applied.
Before you get started
You’ll need to ensure that the person you want to pay is set up as a contact in FreeAgent before you can use Payit™ to make a payment to them.
You’ll also need to ensure that their bank account details have been added to their contact profile in FreeAgent, either when adding them as a user or by editing the contact and then adding their bank account details.
How to schedule a bill payment for a future date with Payit™
Navigate to the 'Bills' tab at the top of the screen.
Select the bill that you’d like to schedule a payment for from the list. If you haven’t added the bill yet, select ‘Add New Bill’ and follow the steps for adding a bill in FreeAgent.
If you didn’t add a payment reference when you first created the bill, you can do so now by selecting ‘Edit bill details' in the top-right.
The payment reference of the bill is the reference that your supplier will see when you pay the bill. It can be up to 18 characters long and must only contain letters and numbers. If you don’t enter a payment reference, the bill reference will be used automatically instead.
Complete the ‘Payment Reference’ field and then select ‘Save Changes’ at the bottom of the screen.
Once the bill has been prepared, you’ll be able to schedule a payment for the bill using the date picker in the ‘Pay this bill’ panel on the right.
The date will default to the current date, but you can choose a date in the future.
Please note that some banks do not process payments on weekends or bank holidays. If you select a date that falls on a weekend, you’ll receive an error message advising you to select a valid business day.
If you select a date when your bank doesn’t process payments, your bank may advise that you’ve selected an invalid date when you go through your bank's online banking journey. You would then need to return to FreeAgent and choose a valid date.
Once you’ve chosen the relevant date, select ‘Schedule 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, select ‘Continue’ in the bottom-right 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?
Once the payment has been authorised by your bank, the bill's payment status will update automatically to ‘Payit: Scheduled to be paid on [X]’.
If the scheduled date has passed and FreeAgent hasn’t received the payment from your bank during the next import, a banner will appear advising you to contact your bank.
Managing the transaction in FreeAgent
To check if the payment has been made successfully on the day it was scheduled, please check your online banking for the most up to date information.
Once the bill has been paid, the scheduled payment will appear in the 'Banking' section of your FreeAgent account during the next import if you have a bank feed set up, not on the date of the payment. 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 and mark the bill as paid. If you haven’t enabled the ‘Guess’ feature, you can explain the bank transaction manually, choosing ‘Bill Payment’ as the transaction type. Find out more about how to pay a bill.
Amending or cancelling a Payit™ payment
If you would like to change or cancel your scheduled payment, this will need to be done in your banking app or online banking. Typically there will be a scheduled payment or standing order section to manage future payments. If you can’t locate the payment, please contact your bank for further assistance.
If you cancel a scheduled payment with your bank and you would like the ‘scheduled’ status to be removed in FreeAgent, find out how to remove a payment reference for a bill that has been scheduled through Payit.