Business FAQs - BPAY (2024)

Every business day, more than 1.6 million payments are made using BPAY. This makes it Australia’s most widely used bill payment service*. To join the thousands of businesses already using BPAY to help manage their billing, talk to your bank or contact us today.

*RFi Payments Diary 2018.

Better cash flow. Your money clears within one banking business day.

• Easy reconciliation. Use BPAY’s unique customer reference number to identify customers easily. You can also control how much and when they pay.
• Smarter billing. Deliver bills straight to your customers’ online banking with BPAY View and save the paper costs.
• Happy customers. Australians prefer paying bills with BPAY.

Simply register as a biller with your bank, then add the BPAY logo, your Biller Code and a Customer Reference Number to every bill you send.

When a customer pays by BPAY, you’ll have the money in your account on the next Banking Business Day^ – a day when Sydney or Melbourne banks can make settlement – together with an electronic payment file for easy reconciliation.

Your bank sends you a customised payment information file, with everything you need to update your receivables system and keep track of payments.

^The process may vary between banks.

You get to choose which accounts you would like to offer your customers to make their BPAY payments through. The options are:

• debit accounts
• credit card accounts

When you accept a payment from a credit card account, you’ll enjoy cleared funds in your account the next Banking Business Day^ – a day when Sydney or Melbourne banks can make settlement.

There is no risk of credit card chargebacks, because the payment is processed through the BPAY system from the underlying account, and not via the credit card. Further, the payment is made from within the secure environment of the customer’s online bank.

^The process may vary between banks.

The CRN is a unique 2–20-digit number that appears on every customer bill. You use the CRN to identify the account or bill to be paid, without providing any personal information about the customer.

You can use CRNs like account numbers, putting the same CRN on every bill you send an individual customer. Or you can use them like invoice numbers, putting a different CRN on each individual bill. We call that a variable CRN, which can be used to track individual transactions for a customer that may receive multiple bills from you within a billing period.

You can even use an Intelligent CRN (iCRN) that ensures customers are only able to pay the exact amount you have specified, or by a particular date you have specified, or both. See What is an Intelligent Customer Reference Number iCRN (below) and how do I set it up? for more information. All CRNs also include a ‘check digit’ validation (below) to ensure that your customers can’t enter the wrong details.

The check digit is a special number (or numbers) used in BPAY CRNs, calculated from the other digits in the CRN.

It ensures your customers don’t enter the wrong numbers, or transpose the digits when they are making their BPAY payment. So you can be confident that the bill they paid is the one they meant to pay.

iCRN stands for Intelligent Customer Reference Number.

You can use it to set the amount the customer is allowed to pay, or the date the bill must be paid by, or both.

iCRN may be useful for businesses like insurers that do not wish to be bound by a contract unless they receive an agreed amount on time, or where there is a requirement for a specific payment to be made in full or by a specified date, such as a fine or vehicle registration.

Your bank can help you set up iCRN for your bills.

In a Master Biller arrangement, the Master Biller signs up to help other businesses, usually smaller organisations, to offer BPAY payments to their customers . When a business signs up to offer BPAY through a Master Biller, they are called Sub-Billers.

The Master Biller may be able to assist Sub-Billers in the billing, receipting, and reporting for BPAY payments, often in return for a fee. One use case could be for instance when an Accounting Package is a Master Biller and enables their customers to offer BPAY by becoming BPAY Sub-Billers through their software.

Speak to your bank if you are interested in signing up as a Master Biller. Master Biller arrangements may be appropriate for businesses in industries with a high number of sole traders or franchisees, or which receive frequent payments from a large number of different sources.

For example, Master Biller arrangements may be suitable for businesses in:

• Property rental
• Child care
• Education
• Retail
• Strata management
• Building services
• Accounting

Potential benefits for Master Billers include:

• Revenue. Earn revenue from transaction fees paid by your Sub-billers.
• Stronger business relationships. Form lasting relationships with your business customers with value-added services that could save them time and money, including daily bank reconciliation files, automated reconciliation of receivables, receivables management services, outsourced billing services and more.
• Support franchisees. Support franchise arrangements — even gaining visibility of Sub-Biller BPAY payment volumes and values.

• Faster cash flow. The Sub-biller enjoys cleared funds in their business account, without the risk of chargebacks.
• Lower overheads. BPAY can assist Sub-billers to streamline their billing and payment reconciliation processes, helping them to reduce overheads.
• Less administration.The Master Biller can take care of analysing receivables transactions, and deals with the Biller Institution for the Sub-biller, freeing up time so they can focus on their business. The Master Biller may even offer a full billing and collection service on the Sub-biller’s behalf.

BPAY View is a bill presentment and payment service that makes it easy for your customers to pay, with convenient and secure payments direct from their online or mobile banking.

With BPAY View, your customers will receive their bills in their online or mobile bank, with the option to pay straight away or schedule payment for later. BPAY View is supported by over 45 banks around Australia.

BPAY View gives your customers a secure, easy way to view, pay and store bills and statements, directly in their online or mobile banking.

They can schedule payments, get reminded on the due date*, and never miss a payment again.

Here’s a summary of how your customers can benefit from BPAY View:

• Easy access. Customers whose banks offer BPAY VIEW can access their bills anytime and from anywhere on their online or mobile bank.
• Convenience.Customers can view and pay multiple bills from multiple billers all from the one location, making it faster and easier to pay.
• Choice. Your customers can choose to use any payment method you allow, including BPAY.
• Organisation. Bills can be viewed, paid and stored in one electronic location — no more filing required.

*Process may vary between banks.

• Use BPAY View to send bills and statements online to your customers’ banking app in bulk – so you save time.
• Deliver bills straight to your customers’ banking platform – so they’re right where they need to be.
• Help your customers to pay on time, with electronic reminders.
• Get paid faster, with cleared funds in your account on the next Banking Business Day (a day where Sydney and Melbourne banks can settle funds).
• Drive traffic to your website by putting links to special offers in your bills.

When your customers view their bills on BPAY View, they can choose to pay them with any of the payment methods you allow — it doesn’t have to be by BPAY.

However, if they do pay by BPAY directly from BPAY View, the Biller Code and Customer Reference Number are automatically filled in and the customer can pay in one click*, making it faster and even more convenient to pay.

*process may vary between banks.

To become a BPAY View biller, first contact your bank.

We’ll work with you, your bank and your Bill Service Provider to help test and implement your BPAY View system.

BPAY View may be used together with your proprietary bill presentment option, such as direct to consumer emails.

When your customers receive their summary bill from their online banking, they can click through to see the detailed bill, driving extra traffic to your site. In this way, you can use your bills to increase customer engagement, or create an effective and targeted sales and marketing tool.

We’ll work with you and your bank to make sure BPAY View is the right solution for your business and help you implement it smoothly.

To start the conversation, please contact your bank.

When you send out a bill, it needs to have the BPAY logo, and your BPAY View Registration Number. Your customers will need to register to receive your bills and invoices via BPAY View.

See the BPAY Brand Guidelines for more information on adding BPAY details to your bill.

To get the most from this service and to help your customers get the most from BPAY View, we also suggest additional promotion to increase awareness of your BPAY View Services.

Our marketing team can help you with ideas and opportunities to inform your customers about your BPAY View service — please contact us on our Marketing Support Page to discuss your options.

You can also find some standard flyers about BPAY View on our Marketing Support Page. You can use this as a basis for your own marketing materials, or simply add your business logo to ours.

Bill Service Providers support BPAY Billers and Member Financial Institutions at multiple points in the BPAY process, including technical certification for BPAY View, software integration, billing and receivables managements, and bill printing.

The following Bill Service Provider organisations have successfully obtained BPAY View Certification for current BPAY View Billers:

• Computershare
• Forms Express
• FujiXerox
• IQ mail
• Lane Print and Post
• Payreq
• PML
• Zipform

For further information and details on using a Bill Service Provider, you should contact your bank and obtain a copy of the relevant documentation

Your customer will receive a notification of a new bill from their bank (either in their online or mobile banking, or by email, or both).

When they log into their internet or mobile banking, they can view a bill summary in the BPAY View section, which includes information like the biller, payment amount and due date. Clicking on a link in the bill summary will take them to a more detailed bill that is hosted on your website (or the Bill Service Provider’s site), which can look exactly like a paper bill.

Just like your paper bills, your electronic bills need to include the relevant BPAY details. That way your customer has the information they need to pay your bill with BPAY.

You’ll need to include a payment methods section, with a section for the BPAY logo, Biller Code and Customer Reference Number (CRN). Here’s an example:

If you offer BPAY View, those details need to appear on the electronic bill as well.

See the BPAY Brand Guidelines for more information on adding BPAY details to your bill.

If your customer makes a mistake, advise them to contact their bank.
The bank can assist if they have:

• paid too much
• used the wrong Biller Code or Customer Reference Number
• accidentally paid the same bill twice.

Here are the five types of error corrections and their causes:

1. Mistaken payments — your customer makes a mistake when paying you with BPAY.
2. Unauthorised payments — access to your customer’s online, mobile or phone bank is compromised by fraud.
3. Reversals — a system error has occurred.
4. Payment traces — a customer makes a payment, but you don’t receive it.
5. Biller-initiated error correction — you receive a payment, but you don’t know who it’s from, or the customer made a mistaken payment.

There are simple procedures for processing these errors that involve both you and your bank. You’ll need to contact your bank to find out what to do.

Yes. All BPAY payments are made within the secure environment of your customer’s online bank, so you can be confident that their security is protected.

BPAY does not receive any of your customer’s personal or account details during the payment process (except the type of bank account they paid from).

The BPAY brand guidelines aim to provide guidance as to how the BPAY and BPAY View logos and word marks need to appear in various mediums. If you have any questions about BPAY branding, please contact BPAY Marketing.

Note: If you have not updated your bill since 2012, please refer to our new brand guidelines.

Your BPAY biller service is managed by your bank. If you are changing banks, you should check to see if they offer BPAY biller services. If they do, they can help you manage the transfer and any changes you need.

Find banks that offer BPAY biller services.