Most banks in Australia allow approved customers to initiate Direct Debits using an industry-standard file format called the “Australian Banking Association” file format (or ABA file). This file is not a comma separated file (CSV) like NZ banks mostly use – it is a fixed length file format which takes a bit more effort to create than a CSV file.
uCollect can output Direct Debit collection requests in this file format for you – initiated by the due date of the invoice in Xero. All you have to do is to configure the Gateway in uCollect with your unique data, and then tell uCollect which contacts will be collected using this method. We retrieve the bank account details from Xero, so uCollect never stores any sensitive data in our database (and this way there is only one place for you to change it), and generate the file for you. We send you an email when there are collections due so that you know to come back to uCollect to download the ABA file (it contains other people’s bank account numbers, so we never send it by email). As soon as you download the file we mark the invoices as paid in Xero.
If you are using Direct Debits in Australia please use our 30 day free trial to give it a try.