Skip to main content

How to Troubleshoot a Failed or Partially Failed Batch Payment

  • Updated

Find out why a batch payment failed, in whole or in part, and how to fix it without rebuilding the batch.

Steps

  1. Open the batch and check its status. Go to the Batch Payments page, or the Failed tab on Accounts Payable, and expand the batch. Weel pays each invoice in a batch separately, so a batch can complete fully, fail completely, or finish Partially Failed (some invoices paid, others not). See What do the different batch payment statuses mean? for what each status looks like.
  2. Hover over the red Failed status on any failed invoice to see its specific reason, then match it to one of the causes below.
  3. If the reason is about funds, fix the shortfall. Weel retries the invoice automatically once the shortfall is resolved, checking hourly, for invoices created in the last 6 months (older invoices need manual rescheduling).
    • If your whole account balance was short, every invoice in the batch failed together and nothing was sent. Weel checks your balance against the full batch total before sending any payments.
    • If only one invoice's budget or budget member limit was short, only that invoice failed; the rest of the batch went through. See Understanding Why Accounts Payable Payments Fail Due to Insufficient Funds for more detail.
  4. If the reason is about the supplier, fix their record. Weel retries automatically once bank details are corrected.
    • Missing bank details: the supplier sits in Draft and can't be paid until they're completed.
    • Invalid bank details (an invalid BSB or account number, rejected by the bank at payment time): correct them on the supplier record.
    • A new or not-yet-approved supplier, or one whose BPAY reference (CRN) was edited after the invoice was created: this needs individual review and approval before it can be included in a bulk approval. This happens at the invoice-approval stage, before the invoice is even eligible for batching, so if an invoice never made it into your batch at all, this is often why. Once a supplier's first invoice is approved, this stops applying to their future invoices. See Understanding Supplier Statuses and How to Approve a Payment to a New Supplier.
  5. If the reason is about approval, ask an admin to step in. Batch payments can never be approved by the person who built the batch, even if "Prevent self approval" is off for other approval types, so a stuck batch always needs a second approver.
    • Only one approver is set up, and they're also the batch's creator: the batch stays on Pending Batch Approval until an admin adds a second approver or reassigns it.
    • Approver unavailable: batch approvals follow your normal out-of-office and delegate settings. If that doesn't resolve it, an admin with approval-override access can manually reassign the approval to someone else, though not to the batch's creator, themselves, or someone currently out-of-office.
    • Approval rule changed after the batch was already submitted: this doesn't retroactively move it. It stays with whoever it was originally routed to; use manual reassignment instead.
  6. Rule out a limit instead of a failure. A per-invoice payment limit is enforced when the invoice is coded, not when the batch pays, so it can't cause an in-batch failure. If an invoice is missing from the batch altogether, check Understanding Payment Limits for Accounts Payable. Also confirm the batch doesn't exceed 100 invoices or include an international payment, per How do I submit a batch payment?
  7. If nothing above resolves it, remove the invoice and contact us. Removing an invoice from the batch returns it to Ready to Pay; the rest of the batch is unaffected. Contact Weel Support (in-app messaging or help@letsweel.com) with the batch reference number and the invoice(s) affected if:
    • the reason shown isn't one of the above, or the hover text doesn't make it clear what to fix
    • an invoice keeps failing after you've corrected what looks like the cause
    • the failure relates to compliance rather than funds or approvals

What happens next

Once every failed invoice is retried successfully or you resolve it manually, the batch's status updates to Completed on its own. You never need to rebuild or resubmit the whole batch to recover a single failed invoice.

Related Articles