How to pay suppliers (payment notes and SEPA file)

What is it for?

There are two ways to pay suppliers in fiscaldoo and this article explains both. The payment note prepares the payment of one or more invoices and requires checking and approval before paying: it suits companies that separate who prepares from who authorises. The payment batch gathers several payments already registered into a single SEPA transfer file, which you upload to the bank's online banking.

fiscaldoo sends nothing to the bank: it generates the file, and the bank makes the payment when the file is delivered to it.

When to use it?

• You have unpaid supplier invoices and want the payment order to go through checking and approval (payment note).
• You pay several suppliers on the same day and prefer a single file to typing each transfer by hand (batch).
• Do not use the batch for payments to suppliers without an IBAN, or for payments in a currency other than the euro: the SEPA file only carries euros and the screen refuses the rest. Tested with a payment of USD 100.00 to the supplier Cloud Services Inc. in a batch: on Validate, with no supplier IBAN on the payment, the screen says “PBNK1/2027/00001 has no supplier bank account (IBAN): set it on the payment.”; with the IBAN set, it says “The SEPA file cannot be generated: - PBNK1/2027/00001: SEPA credit transfers are only in euros”. The batch stays in Draft; pay that invoice with a payment note or through the bank, outside the batch.
• Do not use the payment note as a tax document: it is an internal document, with no tax series and no ATCUD.

Where to find it?

• Payment notes: in Accounting › Record › Purchases › Supplier invoices, select the invoices and open Actions › Create payment notes. The notes are in Accounting › Reconcile › Banks and cash › Supplier payments.
• Batches: Accounting › Reconcile › Banks and cash › Payment batches (or the New payment batch button in What is there to do with the banks?).

Before you start

• The invoices are Posted and each supplier has an IBAN registered.
• The right profiles: the Accountant creates and issues the notes and prepares the batches; Check requires the Treasury: Manager profile; Approve requires Treasury: Approver or Treasury: Payment approval only. The person who checks should not be the person who approves. They are assigned in Configure › Security and data › Users (administrator).
• For the batch: the Banco journal has the company's IBAN (and BIC) filled in: they go into the file as the account to debit.

How to use it

Pay invoices with a payment note

1. In Supplier invoices, select the invoices to pay (in the example, FTF/2026/00050, €123.00 from Papelaria Central, Lda, and FTF/2026/00049, €369.00 from Equipamentos e Mobiliário Lusitano, Lda), click Actions and choose Create payment notes.
2. Choose the Payment journal (Banco) and the Date. The window lists the invoices and warns: “One payment note is created per supplier and currency. Nothing is posted until you issue the note.” Click Create payment notes.
3. Notes NLP/00001 and NLP/00002 appear, in Draft and Under review. There is no journal entry yet.
4. Someone with the Treasury: Manager profile opens the note and clicks Check. The note becomes Checked.
5. Someone with the approval profile opens the checked note and clicks Approve (ready to pay). The note becomes Ready to pay. With Refuse / block the note is blocked, and Reopen (Manager profile) sends it back for checking.
6. The Accountant opens the ready note and clicks Issue payment note. The payment is posted and reconciled with the invoice: in the example, PBNK1/2026/00054 and PBNK1/2026/00055, with the invoices Paid.

Pay several suppliers with a batch and a SEPA file

1. Open Payment batches and click New. Choose the Bank journal (Banco) and the Execution date (the date on which the bank should execute it). In Payments, Add a line and choose each payment: in the example, PBNK1/2026/00044 (€149.50) and PBNK1/2026/00045 (€79.60), both from Papelaria Central, Lda. The Total (€229.10) and the Number of payments (2) are calculated automatically, and the Supplier IBAN comes from the payment. The File format opens on 2019 format (recommended).
2. Save. The batch becomes LOTE/00002, in Draft, with Validate and generate file and Cancel.
3. Click Validate and generate file. The state becomes Validated and “Generated file. The transfer file LOTE_00002.xml was generated and is attached to the batch. Nothing was sent to the bank” appears. The File tab holds the SEPA file, the File hash (SHA-256) and the File warnings: in the example, fiscaldoo replaced “Demonstração” with “Demonstracao” in the company name, because the SEPA character set has no accents.
4. Click Download the SEPA file. In the example, the file LOTE_00002.xml has 2 transactions and a control total of 229.10, the same as the batch.
5. Upload the file in the bank's online banking. Then, in the batch, click Mark as sent: the state becomes Sent, with Sent on and Sent by. It can no longer be changed or cancelled.
6. When the bank debits the batch, import the statement (How to import a bank statement) and, in the batch, click Find bank movement. fiscaldoo links the batch to the Bank Transaction of −€229.10 and the button becomes Reconcile. Click Reconcile: the batch becomes Reconciled.

Expected result

• Payment note issued: the payment's journal entry is D 2211 Fornecedores gerais €123.00 and C 120003 Pagamentos Pendentes €123.00, reconciled with the invoice (which becomes Paid). Account 120003 is only cleared when the bank debits.
• Batch reconciled: the statement posts D 120001 Conta Transitória €229.10 and C 121 Depósitos à ordem €229.10; the batch reconciliation posts D 120003 Pagamentos Pendentes €229.10 and C 120001 Conta Transitória €229.10 (OD/2026/00106, in Miscellaneous Operations). A single bank movement pays the whole batch.
• The batch does not link the payments to the invoices: in the example, payments PBNK1/2026/00044 and 00045 are still not reconciled with the invoices; do it as in How to reconcile invoices and payments.

Important notes

• Only payments in the Paid state go into the batch. Payments issued from a payment note, and those created with the invoice's Pay button, are Reconciled with the invoice and do not appear in the batch's list. To pay a note by SEPA file, do not issue it this way: use manual payments, which are linked to the invoice afterwards.
• A payment can only be in one active batch. If it is in another one, fiscaldoo does not accept it.
• After “Sent”, there is no going back. Until it is sent, Cancel makes the batch Cancelled.
• IBAN or name differences. The file goes with the IBAN on the payment: confirm it with the supplier before validating.

Common problems

“Some required fields are empty” when creating the notes

• Symptom: when you click Create payment notes without a Payment journal, “Some required fields are empty. Fill in the fields marked in red to be able to save.”
• What to do: choose the Payment journal.

“PBNK1/2026/00044 is already in the batch LOTE/00002”

• Symptom: when saving a batch with a payment that is already in another active batch, “Validation Error: PBNK1/2026/00044 is already in the batch LOTE/00002.”
• What to do: remove the payment from the second batch, or cancel the first one if it has not been sent yet.

“0 bank movements of - 229,10 € were found”

• Symptom: when you click Find bank movement before importing the statement: “0 bank movements of - 229,10 € were found from 01/11/2026 on. Porquê: The batch is only linked automatically when exactly one unreconciled movement of the same bank journal has its total. Como resolver: Se o movimento não existe, importe o extrato do banco; se há vários, escolha o certo no campo “Movimento bancário” do lote.” (if the movement does not exist, import the bank statement; if there are several, choose the right one in the batch's Bank Transaction field).
• What to do: import the bank statement, or choose the movement in the Bank Transaction field.

I do not see the Check or Approve buttons

• Cause: your user does not have the Treasury: Manager profile (Check) or Treasury: Approver or Payment approval only (Approve). Each button only appears for the right profile and only in the right state: Check with the note Under review, Approve with the note Checked.
• What to do: ask the administrator to assign the profile in Users.