View, merge and download your ABA files

The Australian Banking Association (ABA) file is used by all major Australian financial institutions to specify payments to be made from one bank account (i.e. your business) to one or more bank accounts (i.e. your employees).

Once you have your ABA file, it’s a simple matter of uploading it to your business Internet banking portal and authorising the payments.

In foundU, if this automatic setting is enabled, an ABA file will be automatically generated once payslips have been processed. We highly recommend this for a more efficient payroll process each pay cycle. You can then download this file for uploading to your bank from the ABA files tab.

Once paid you can mark your downloaded ABA files with a Payment Reference Number for record keeping.

You can also generate an ABA again, for example, if an employee updated their bank account details after you already processed their pay (and the payment returned from the bank).

In this article, we will go through:

  • Downloading an ABA & adding a Payment Reference Number to your ABA file after it's been paid
  • Viewing payslips associated with an ABA file
  • Regenerating ABA files for specific employees
  • Merging ABA files
  • Archiving or recovering an archived ABA file
  • ABA History

  Please see our ABA payment settings article for information on how to update your ABA payment settings.

Want to experience a virtual walk-through of the new ABA files page? Check it out below! Or view the walk-through in full screen here!

 

ABA Files

Download an ABA file

Once you have generated the payslips for your employees, you'll next need to download your ABA file to upload it to your bank.

Viewing your ABA file

On the ABA files page, you may want to view your ABA before downloading, you can do so by pressing the ABA ID number. You'll also find it helpful to filter your ABA files using the coloured badges on the top right side.

Filter your ABA Files View according to:

  • Unpaid

  • Downloaded

  • Archived ABA Files

  Please note: This Screen Navigation has no sound, please watch and follow along for helpful tips on the quick filters and viewing your ABA file.

 

Downloading your ABA file

To locate and download an ABA file:

  1. Navigate to Payroll > Pay > ABA Files. This will display all ABA files, defaulting to your most recent period-end. Press the 'x' to clear the date filter to see all files.

  2. Select the calendar date to filter and search your ABA files by Period End or Payment Date. Additionally, you can filter by batch or Office Code. You can use the up and down arrows in the blue column to sort.
  3. You can see the Type of ABA file on the left. Hover to see the type display. The different types include: 
    • P = Standard pay run
    • E = ETP
    • M = Merged ABA
    • A = Adjustment

    • R = Regeneration



  4. To download the ABA into an importable format for your online banking institution press the Download button on the right-hand side.

      Please note: Some ABA files may take a couple of minutes to download.
  5. You can then provide your downloaded ABA file to your banking institution. 

The download button will now display as a + and you'll have the option to Add a payment reference number here should you wish. Read on to the next section for more instruction.

Add a payment reference number

Once paid you may like to add a payment reference number for your records. This number may be a number from your banking institution or your own records.

This is an ideal way to manage your ABA files and 'mark them as paid' once they have been downloaded and Paid.

To add a Payment Reference Number: 

  1. On the ABA file in question, once you have downloaded the file, select the + button to display the Payment Reference Number field.
  2. You'll then be prompted for a reference number, select the tick to continue.
  3. Hover over the 'i' tooltip to:
    • View when and by whom the ABA was downloaded. 
    • Click to make an edit to the Payment Reference ID.

View payslips associated with an ABA

As a part of your payroll process, you may want to view the payslips associated with an ABA. This will be beneficial to:

  • View the associated payslips with gross and net totals in foundU as opposed to the ABA file.
  • Make edits directly to those payslips, or, 
  • Easily identify the ABA file you are looking for.

On the left side of your ABA page, you can see the People and Records associated with each ABA file. 

  • People - The number of employees in the ABA file.
  • Records - The number of line items in the ABA file. Employees may create multiple records (line items) if they have monies paid to separate bank accounts (I.e. salary sacrifice).

You may also want to view the payslips associated with the ABA file so that you can easily make a change before downloading your ABA file. If you do make changes to a payslip, a new ABA file will be generated for you. 

To view payslips associated with an ABA file:

  1. Select the down arrow on the relevant ABA file > View Payslips.

  2. Press View payslips to be taken to the Pay Page with a filtered view of these generated payslips only.
  3. This will open as a new tab in your browser. You'll be taken to the payslips in their current state, if the payslip has been edited after the ABA file has been generated, then you will be shown the payslip in the current edited state.


  4. You can now make any necessary edits to the associated payslips. A new ABA file will be created for any edits that you make and can be found on the ABA files page. The old file will not be updated and you may like to archive it.

      Tip: You can Merge these ABA files later with other ABA files as long as all files you are merging are of the same Office Code.
  5. Press the Exit ABA view to remove the filter from the pay page.

  Hot tip: If you have made changes to payslips and subsequently new ABA files have been generated, it's a good idea to archive the old ABA file that you won't use to avoid accidentally paying employees twice.

Create a new ABA for specific employees

There may be a time when you need to create a new ABA for a single or a few employees only. 

An example of this is if you need to manually edit an employee's payslip and need to recreate an ABA file for this employee only. 

  Please note: If you have edited a payslip and haven't yet downloaded the ABA file, you can recreate the ABA. Select the week ending and click Create ABA. The new ABA will now contain the latest changes.

To regenerate an ABA for specific employees:

  1. Navigate to Payroll > Pay > Generated payslips and locate the relevant payslips.
  2. Then select the relevant payslip/s > Create ABA.
     

  3. You will see a green notification informing you that the ABA has been generated.
     

  4. Navigate to ABA Files to view and download the ABA file. This can either be done by selecting the ABA file > download or by selecting the blue download icon next to the ABA ID. 
     

Merge ABA files

If you've made adjustments to your processed pay cycles which have generated new ABA files, you have the ability to merge multiple ABA files into one.

  Tip: If you'd like to merge files, keep in mind you can only merge files from the same Office Code.

Merging ABAs

If you'd like to merge multiple ABAs, you can do so easily using the tick boxes and Bulk Actions bar. 

To Merge your ABAs:

  1. In ABA Files, filter the ABAs to the ones you wish to merge, or manually select each one.
  2. In the Bulk Actions bar at the bottom of your screen, press Merge.
  3. You can then optionally, add to a batch and enter a Label. If you enter a label, it will be displayed on the tooltip of the merged file.
  4. You must enter a payment date - the date will default to today's date as standard.


  5. Press Merge once you have filled in the details.

  1. The merged ABA will appear at the bottom of your Unpaid list. The merged ABA will show an 'M' in the Type column. You'll see a green notification informing you that your ABAs have been successfully merged.
  2. Press the Download button to access the newly merged ABA file.

  Please note: If your ABA payment settings are not completely set up you may receive an error message. 

Archive or recover an ABA

In ABA files you'll have the option to archive an ABA file. You can archive an ABA file before or after it is downloaded. You might like to use the Archive ABA feature in the following cases:

  • You created the ABA file in error- You may want to archive it to ensure it does not get downloaded and submitted to your bank in error.
  • You'd like to keep your ABA files screen clean- After downloading and submitting the ABA to your bank, you can archive it, keeping your screen clear of any ABA files that need to be actioned.

Conversely, if you archive an ABA by mistake, you can recover it if necessary.

Archiving ABAs

Depending on your reason for archiving, you may want to archive a single or multiple ABAs, we will cover the instructions for both below.

To archive a single ABA:

  1. Select the down arrow on the relevant ABA file > Archive ABA.
  2. Your ABA will immediately be archived and no longer be displayed on the main ABA files page.

Press the black Archived badge under the ABA files badge to locate this archived ABA.

To archive multiple ABAs:

  1. Select the tick boxes on the left of the relevant ABA files.
  2. Select Archive from the Bulk actions bar at the bottom of the page.
  3. Your ABAs will immediately be archived and no longer be displayed on the main ABA files page.

Press the black Archived badge under the ABA files badge to locate these archived ABAs.

Recover an archived ABA

You'll be able to view all your archived ABAs using the filters on the top of your page, from here you can locate the file you'd like to recover.

To recover an archived ABA:

  1. Navigate to the Archived Badge and press to filter by Archived.
  2. Locate the file you'd like to recover, select the down arrow on the right and Restore. 
  3. This ABA file will now be restored and available on the main ABA files page.

ABA History 

Each time an ABA is updated, it creates a new line in the ABA history window. All events on an ABA file will show in the order that they occurred with the newest displayed at the top. 

Viewing your ABA History

To view the history of an ABA file:

  1. Select the down arrow on the relevant ABA file > ABA History.


  2. In ABA history, you'll see all events that have occurred with the particular ABA including:
    • The date and time stamp.
    • The ABA type and total amount to be paid.
    • The event that caused the change (generated, payment reference updated, archived).
    • The Admin user who performed these actions.
  3. Select the Export button should you like to Export the ABA History.

  Tip: All actions will show in ABA history including after an ABA file is archived.

ABA payment settings

At times, you may need to add new ABA payment settings or update the ones you currently have. This could be because your banking institution has undergone some changes. 

Your ABA settings can be reached via the Settings cog from your ABA Files page.

  If you're interested in more information about ABA files, such as how to separate deductions or handle duplicate bank accounts, please refer to our ABA payment settings article.