PayTo is a real-time payment method for paying your employees' wages and superannuation through Tanda. Instead of generating a single ABA batch file that you manually upload to your bank, PayTo sends each payment individually and instantly over Australia's New Payments Platform (NPP).
This guide covers how to set up PayTo, how the approval workflow operates, how to use it on a pay run, the impact on bank reconciliation, and the key risks to understand before switching.
This feature is gradually rolling out to all customers, so you may not see these changes in your account yet.
What this guide covers:
What is PayTo?
Traditionally, Tanda generates an ABA file at the end of a pay run. You download this file and manually upload it to your bank, which then debits your account in a single batch and distributes funds to employees over one to two business days.
PayTo replaces this process. When a pay run is posted with an active PayTo agreement, and the Pay Via PayTo button is pressed, Tanda sends each payment individually in real time over the NPP. There is no file to download or upload and Tanda receives a confirmation or failure status for each payment automatically.
Important: PayTo payments are irrevocable. Once a payment is submitted and settles, it cannot be reversed through Tanda. Any corrections must be handled manually with your bank or the payee. Review your pay run carefully before disbursing.
Prerequisites
Before you can start creating a PayTo agreement, the following must be in place:
Your organisation's legal name must be set. Navigate to Payroll > Payroll Settings > Reporting Details and confirm your legal name is recorded.
The user creating the first agreement needs the "assign roles" permission. This is required to automatically provision the payment admin role.
Access to your internet banking is required. After creating an agreement in Tanda, it must be authorised with your bank before it can work. This step happens outside of Tanda.
Setting Up a Wages PayTo Agreement
A wages PayTo agreement authorises Tanda to debit your nominated bank account to pay employee wages, PAYG withholding, child support, and other pay run disbursements.
Navigate to Payroll > Payroll Settings > Company Setup and click Setup PayTo for each relevant company file.
Under PayTo agreements, click Create agreement.
Select Wages as the payment type.
Read the reconciliation notice carefully and tick the acknowledgement checkbox. This confirms you understand that your bank statement will show individual payment lines rather than a single batch debit. See Reconciliation and Bank Feed Impact below.
Set the maximum payment limit for the agreement. This caps the maximum value of any single payment sent per user via PayTo. This does not cap the maximum total pay run amount that can be paid.
Click Create. Tanda sends the agreement to your bank via the NPP.
You will see a confirmation that the agreement has been sent and is awaiting authorisation. See below for more on the authorisation.
Setting Up a Super PayTo Agreement
A super PayTo agreement lets you pay superannuation batches directly from Tanda, rather than manually transferring funds to Beam. Wages and super require separate agreements, as they use different bank account authorisations.
Navigate to Payroll > Payroll Settings > Company Setup and click Setup PayTo for each relevant company file.
Under PayTo agreements, click Create agreement.
Select Super as the payment type.
Choose a bank account: either the same account used for wages, or a separate account dedicated to super payments.
Click Create Agreement. The agreement is sent to your bank for authorisation.
Authorise the agreement in your internet banking app, as with the wages agreement.
Note: The super PayTo agreement has a fixed maximum payment limit of $25,000. Super batches above this amount cannot be paid via PayTo.
Learn more about paying super here.
Authorising the Agreement
The agreement will remain in a pending state until you authorise it in your internet banking app. Log in to your bank's app or online banking portal, find the pending PayTo agreement, and approve it. Once authorised, the agreement status in Tanda will update to active.
Important: Different banks have different requirements for PayTo agreements. If you are unable to successfully connect with PayTo, check first with your bank to see if they support it. NAB, for example, doesn't allow PayTo agreements for business accounts.
Some banks may also not require authorisation to set up the PayTo agreement.
Payment Admin and Approval Workflows
PayTo includes an approval process to control who can submit payments and who must approve them before funds are released.
When the first wages PayTo agreement is created and no payment admin exists on the account, the user who created the agreement is automatically made the payment admin. That original payment admin can then nominate other users as payment admins as well.
The Payment Admin Role
The payment admin is the gatekeeper for all PayTo disbursement settings. Only payment admins can:
Edit the approval workflow (add or remove submitters and approvers)
Assign or remove other payment admins
Payment admins are managed under the Payment approval admins section on the Disbursement Setup page. You can have more than one payment admin.
Note: Tanda support staff cannot approve disbursements, create or cancel agreements, or modify bank account details on your behalf.
Approval Workflows
After creating a wages agreement, the creating user is added as the sole submitter, with no approvers required. This means they can disburse pay runs immediately without waiting for a separate approval step.
The approval workflow has two roles:
Submitters are users who can initiate a payment disbursement on a pay run. At least one submitter must be configured once any PayTo agreement exists.
Approvers are users who must approve a disbursement before it is submitted for payment. Approvers are optional. If no approvers are set, submitters can disburse payments directly without a separate approval step.
To update the workflow, navigate to Payroll > Payroll Settings > Company Setup, click Setup PayTo, and edit the Payment approvals section. Only payment admins can make changes here.
Choose who can submit automated disbursements and who can approve them. Learn how the approval process applies in practice below.
Disbursing a Pay Run
Once your wages PayTo agreement is active and your approval workflow is set up (if required), disbursing a pay run works as follows:
Navigate to Payroll > Pay Runs and open a posted pay run.
Review the payslips and confirm the pay run details are correct. PayTo payments cannot be reversed once settled.
Click Pay Via PayTo.
Review the wages and click Submit Payments.
When no approvers are configured, clicking Submit Payments submits them immediately.If there is an approval workflow in place, this button will say Request Approval instead:
How the Approval Process Works
A submitter clicks Request Approval on the pay run's disbursement page.
An approval request is created, and the approver is notified via email.
They can also view the notification in the notification center within Tanda.
The approver then reviews the request and clicks Approve or Decline.
Once approved, Tanda submits all payments to the NPP.
Tanda creates individual payments for each component of the pay run: employee wages, PAYG withholding, child support, pay advances, and deductions. You can view the status of the payment on the pay run page.
Payment Statuses
Each pay run will show a disbursement status on the pay runs page and on the disbursement page from within the pay run.
Each pay run can display the following statuses:
Draft: Pay run is not posted yet.
Posted: Pay run has been posted, no disbursement sent.
Disbursing: Payments are currently being submitted.
Disbursed: Every payment settled successfully.
Partially Disbursed: At least one payment failed.
Disbursement Failed: Every payment failed
For each individual line in a disbursement, you may see the following statuses:
Submitting: Tanda is sending the payment to your bank. This usually only takes a few seconds.
Processing: Your bank has received the payment and it's moving through the payment network. No action needed.
Paid: The payment has been successfully deposited into the employee's bank account.
Failed: The payment was rejected. This can happen due to an incorrect bank account number, a closed account, or a bank-side issue. You'll see a reason next to the payment.
Under Investigation: The payment has been flagged by the bank for review. This is uncommon and typically resolves within a business day. No action is required while the investigation is open.
Awaiting ABA: This employee's bank account doesn't support real-time payments, so it can't be paid via PayTo. You'll need to download an ABA file for this payment and upload it to your bank to pay them.
Paid Manually: This payment was processed outside of PayTo (either via an ABA file download or marked as paid by an admin) and has been recorded as complete.
Failed payments will need to be addressed manually.
Failed Payments
When a payment fails to disburse, you will be required to pay the employee manually. This can be handled in Tanda only after the pay run status switches to Partially Disbursed or Disbursement Failed.
If you have failed payments, open the pay run and click Pay via PayTo to open the disbursements page. From there, you have two options:
1. Download ABA for failed payments: Generates an ABA bank file covering only the failed payments, records the export, and automatically marks those payments as "Paid Manually". You then upload the ABA to your bank to pay the employees.
2. Mark failed payments as manually paid: If you've already paid the employee outside the system (e.g. bank transfer, cash), you can mark them as manually paid directly without downloading an ABA. Do so under Actions in the top right > Mark failed payments as paid.
Paying Super with PayTo
If you have an active super PayTo agreement, you can pay Beam superannuation batches directly from Tanda without transferring funds from your bank.
How It Works
Process your super batch as normal in Tanda via Payroll > Pay Super.
When submitting the batch to Beam using the Direct Debit payment method, a Pay Super with PayTo button will appear if your super agreement is active.
Click Pay with PayTo. Tanda will debit your nominated super bank account for the batch total.
The payment status is shown on the super batch page. Once settled, Beam processes the distribution to each employee's fund.
Super PayTo Restrictions
$25,000 limit: The super PayTo agreement has a fixed maximum of $25,000 per payment. Batches above this amount cannot use PayTo and must be paid by manual bank transfer.
Unverified SMSFs: If a super batch includes a self-managed super fund (SMSF) that Beam has not yet verified, the PayTo option will not be available for that batch. Beam verifies SMSFs after a successful BPAY payment has settled. Until then, only BPAY or manual EFT can be used for that batch.
SMSF bank account changes: If an SMSF's bank account details are updated, its verified status is reset. PayTo will not be available for that fund until a new BPAY payment has settled and Beam re-verifies the account.
Note: Settling a super PayTo payment does not automatically update the pay run. Beam's notifications remain the source of truth for confirming that super contributions have been distributed to employee funds.
FAQs/Troubleshooting
How is PayTo different from an ABA file?
How is PayTo different from an ABA file?
An ABA file is a batch instruction you download from Tanda and manually upload to your bank. Your bank then processes all payments together, typically overnight. PayTo sends each payment individually in real time over Australia's NPP. There is no file to manage, payments clear in seconds, and Tanda receives a confirmation for each payment automatically.
What happens if a PayTo payment fails?
What happens if a PayTo payment fails?
Failed payments are shown on the pay run page with a failed status. The pay run will not be marked as fully disbursed until all payments reach a final state. You will need to investigate the failure reason (for example, an incorrect account number or insufficient funds) and arrange payment through an alternative method. Tanda cannot automatically retry a failed PayTo payment.
Can I use PayTo for some employees and ABA for others?
Can I use PayTo for some employees and ABA for others?
No. Once a wages PayTo agreement is active, all disbursements for that pay run use PayTo. You cannot mix payment methods within a single pay run.
Is two-factor authentication required to use PayTo?
Is two-factor authentication required to use PayTo?
Two-factor authentication (TFA) is required for approvers when approving a disbursement. It is also required when adding or updating employee bank account details on a PayTo-enabled organisation, and when running bulk bank account imports. Submitters who disburse without an approver do not need TFA for the disbursement itself, but do need TFA to modify bank details.
What is the super PayTo limit and what happens if my batch is above it?
What is the super PayTo limit and what happens if my batch is above it?
The super PayTo agreement has a fixed maximum limit of $25,000 per payment. If your super batch total exceeds $25,000, the PayTo option will not be available for that batch. You will need to pay the batch by manual bank transfer to Beam instead.
My SMSF employees cannot be paid via PayTo. Why?
My SMSF employees cannot be paid via PayTo. Why?
Beam must verify an SMSF before PayTo can be used for it. Verification happens after a successful BPAY super payment has settled to that fund. Until then, BPAY or manual EFT must be used. If an SMSF's bank account details are updated, the fund returns to unverified status and must complete verification again before PayTo becomes available.