ABA files: the easiest way to make batch payments in Australia

Airwallex is fuelling the growth of thousands of businesses across the globe with borderless financial solutions. We help business owners and finance teams run their operations smoothly with convenient payment acceptance, wide-coverage fund collection, competitive foreign exchange rate, and fast international transfer capability. While in the midst of innovation and transformation, we know we don’t always need to reinvent the wheel to make domestic payments more manageable for you. Today, we’re thrilled to announce Airwallex now supports creating batch transfers with ABA files in Australia.

What is an ABA file?

An ABA (Australian Bankers Association) file is used by all major Australian financial institutions to specify payments to be made from one bank account to one or more bank accounts. It's also commonly known as Direct Entry file or a Cemtext file. ABA files are usually generated systematically can be opened with any text editor.

What are the benefits of using ABA files to make payments?

Improved efficiency

Suppose you want to pay employees and contractors on time or pay for goods and services purchased from local vendors without worrying too much about the reconciliation process. In that case, you’d probably want to use ABA files to avoid manually creating the transfers one by one. You can streamline the payment process by generating an Australian Banking Association (ABA) file via your accounting or payroll software, such as Xero, Quickbooks, and NetSuite.

Simple to generate and use

The process begins with setting up your pay run or invoices with the recipient’s bank account details in the accounting software or payroll software and then generating an ABA file that contains these payments. These ABA files can be uploaded to any banking portals in Australia (including Airwallex) for the payments to be processed with the security measures put in place. You can learn more about creating transfers using the ABA file in our Help Centre.

Ease of reconciliation

If you use accounting software to manage payments, you'd probably want to import transactions from your bank or financial institution to the accounting software for reconciliation. You can eliminate the need to import transactions manually with automated bank feeds. When using Airwallex to make payments, you can connect to Xero to auto-sync the transactions to your chart of accounts.

Try Airwallex for ABA batch payments

You can make a batch payment for your local invoices and payroll with ease by uploading an ABA file. If you have not joined Airwallex, sign up for a free business account today. Faster, cheaper transfers are just 2 minutes away.

Related article: What Australian Banks Charge for International Payments