Australian ABA File

An ABA file is a common file supported by most Australian banks (“Australian Banking Association”) that communicates payment information to the bank. It is used for sending (direct credits) and receiving (direct debits) payments. uCollect can prepare the DD ABA file for you to upload to the bank (the banks do not provide us with an interface to be able to do this on your behalf).

To be able to initiate Direct Debits directly with your bank you need to be approved as a Direct Debit Initiator. This can be problematic for many small businesses. If your bank does not approve you (or you want a more automated solution) then please consider EziDebit.

Creating your Direct Debit Authority

Please contact your bank directly to inquire about this. It can take some time to go through the approval process.

Setting up in uCollect

Note: There are two versions of the ABA file format. Most banks accept the balanced version, but Westpac requires the unbalanced version.

To set up your gateway in uCollect Add a new Gateway (Edit, Payment Gateways, see other gateway options (at bottom of screen), + Add Australian ABA File) with the following details:

Enter your Banking and APCA details as prompted. If you are not sure what to include here please contact your bank for clarification
Calculate Commission/Fees on Settlement: This option is not appropriate for ABA Files.
Pay Now: ABA files are not eligible for Pay Now. If you want something for PayNow please consider EziDebit.

You can also pre-set the defaults of the following values for all your customers:

Customer’s Bank Account Title. This appears in the ABA file and possibly in your Internet Banking or bank statement. You can use “[Contact]” (without the quotes) to have this pre-filled with the contact’s name from your accounting system. Truncates to 32 characters.
Reference. This will appear on the other party’s bank statement. You can use “[Invoice]” (without the quotes) to have this pre-filled with the invoice number (if more than one we list the first one and “etc”). Truncates to 18 characters.

For help on using the Gateway setup screen please see the help page.

Managing your Customers

For Xero: We pull the Bank Account number from the Xero contact record data. When you Edit Contact in uCollect we will display the Bank Account number from Xero so that you can see if it is correctly formatted.

For Quickbooks: You will need to enter the bank account number directly into the Add/Edit Contact dialog.

You need to ensure that the bank account number is entered in the format BSBBSBAAAAAAAAA (we strip out dashes and spaces, so the following also work: BSB-BSB-AAAAAAAAA, BSBBSB AAAAAAAAA).

When setting up your contacts in uCollect you have two:

Customer’s Bank Account Title. This appears in the ABA file and possibly in your Internet Banking or bank statement. You can use “[Contact]” (without the quotes) to have this pre-filled with the contact’s name from your accounting system. Truncates to 32 characters.
Reference. This will appear on the other party’s bank statement. You can use “[Invoice]” (without the quotes) to have this pre-filled with the invoice number (if more than one we list the first one and “etc”). Truncates to 18 characters.

Managing your Collections

Because your bank does not give uCollect the ability to submit the ABA/DD data directly to them we have to get you involved in the process. This is not our ideal mode of working!

Every day we check your accounting system to see if you have collections that need to be initiated (we based this on invoices that are due or over due).
If there are collections due by ABA then we will send you an email asking you to log into uCollect.
When you log into uCollect you click on the Generate Now link (or go to Collection History and click Process Now).
uCollect will check again to see what payments are due for collection. At this stage you can preview this list and suspend any invoices from collection (until further notice). When ready you click Generate.
uCollect will now generate the ABA file and download it to your browser. If you have multiple payment dates (usually because you have set the “Number of days in advance to initiate”) then we will prepare one file for each date. We will also mark the invoices as paid in your accounting system.
It is ESSENTIAL that you upload the ABA file(s) to your internet banking right away. If you fail to do so payments will not be initiated.

If you are away for a day and payments are due but you don’t generate the DD file in uCollect there is no need to panic. Simply log back in the next day and any invoices that were due for collection will be included in the current batch.

Known Issues

Westpac users should use the unbalanced version of the file. Please note that you may need to be using Westpac Corporate, not Westpac Live to process Direct Debits.