Payment efficiency goes beyond the payment itself.

We’re all about saving time and improving processes for SMEs.

So far we have focussed heavily on the payment part of the month-end puzzle. Enabling bulk payments for as many banks as possible as well as improving API connections to constantly push the boundaries of banking in the favour of SMEs. We have made great progress in this field and as a result of this Comma now supports 30 major UK banks. In addition to this, we have embedded a Comma Wallet within our product which enables every one of the 30 banks to perform bulk payments through one authentication — even if the bank itself doesn’t natively support this functionality.

But our vision of a world of frictionless payments goes way beyond the payment itself. The aftermath of a business payment can still involve plenty of admin and reconciliation. Bulk payments are great. In fact, some users claim that Comma payments save them hours every week, but in some use cases, they created problems further down the line at this reconciliation stage due to the way accounting systems and banks handled payments. For a while, this had been an issue for some Comma users depending on what they were paying, which accounting system they had connected and which bank was processing the payment. So naturally, our next goal was to automate and elevate reconciliation for our users. Achieving this brings us another step closer to our end goal.

Bulk auto-reconciliation is born.

Our product team have been working tirelessly to be the first in the market to deliver this to our Xero users. But what is it?

Auto-reconciliation is where Comma talks to Xero to auto-match and reconcile bulk payments as they happen in Comma and the bank. This means that users, accountants and bookkeepers no longer need to spend time matching payments in Xero as well as saving time on the payments themselves.

How it works:

1. A user connects Xero account to Comma — this creates an ongoing sync between the two systems
2. A user selects the bills to include in the payment run
3. A user makes payment in bulk using Comma
4. Payment statuses are tracked periodically by Comma (more accurately than the bank itself) and relayed back to the client and the accounting system.
5. Payments are reconciled line by line in Xero as completed statuses are achieved.

Be better than the bank

Now, this is a bold statement to make. Especially when payments are made using Open Banking and the existing bank account a user holds. But there are ways third-party payment providers like Comma can be better than the bank itself. A prime example of this is reflected in our latest update surrounding the polling of payment status and confirmation of receipt.

Banks rarely keep you up to date on the status of the payments, especially beyond the basics. But this is something that can be done to give payers more visibility. What we now do at Comma is notify the user when a payment has been made, if there has been an issue which needs to be investigated and also when the money has hit the payee’s bank account. This gives the user certainty about their payments even while processing them at speed or in mass. It also allows you to be proactive rather than reactive if there is an issue as you are notified immediately (not when an angry employee or supplier is asking where their money is).

We see notifications like this as a way of building upon what the bank offers to give users clarity and peace of mind as well as functionality in their payment systems.