Does your club take online payments through VostroPay and use Xero for your accounts? If so, you can turn on automatic bank reconciliation. It saves you from matching each VostroPay deposit to lots of individual payments in Xero by hand. Instead, your daily bank reconciliation becomes a one-click job.
Note: This is only about receipting the money once a payout lands in your bank account. It has nothing to do with the invoices raised for each registration, or how those invoices are tracked.
Note: To turn this on, please contact support@sportsground.com first. Once we have switched it on for you, all of your forms that take payments will pick up the new settings automatically.
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The Problem It Solves
When members pay for registrations online through VostroPay, each payment creates its own invoice and payment in Xero. But VostroPay does not send you the money one payment at a time. It sends one lump sum each day, after taking off its processing fees.
Note: VostroPay payouts show up in your bank feed as 'Nuvei_MS' or 'TILL_Payments'.
So your bank statement shows a single deposit, say $1,523.45, while Xero holds dozens of separate payments. Matching them up by hand takes a long time. Auto-reconciliation turns this into a one-click job for each payout.
How Auto-Reconciliation Works
When this feature is turned on, here is what happens.
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Payments go to a clearing account first. Each time a member pays through VostroPay, the payment is recorded in Xero against a temporary 'clearing' account instead of your real bank account.
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Sporty handles the daily settlement. Each day, Sporty receives a detailed file from VostroPay that lists every transaction and the exact fee charged on each one. Sporty then records the fees as an expense in Xero, and creates a bank transfer from the clearing account to your real bank account for the amount left over.
- Your bank account shows one transfer. This transfer matches the real VostroPay deposit in your bank, so you can reconcile it with one click.
The clearing account is just a temporary holding spot. It should always come back to zero, or very close to it.
Setting It Up
Note: Please make sure you have contacted Sporty at support@sportsground.com and had the feature turned on before you try these steps.
Step 1: Create the Xero Accounts
In Xero, go to Accounting, then Chart of Accounts, then Add New Account. You will need two accounts.
- A clearing account (bank "current asset" type) – For example, 'VostroPay Clearing'. This is where payments sit for a short while before they move to your real bank account.
- A fee expense account (expense type) – For example, 'Card Processing Fees'. This is where VostroPay's fees are recorded.
You will also use your normal bank account, the one VostroPay pays your daily payout into, as the place the money ends up.
Step 2: Enable in Sporty
1. Log in to Sporty and go to Admin Settings.
2. Go to Connections, then the Accounting section.
3. Scroll to the bottom section called VostroPay Settlement Reconciliation.
4. Tick "Enable automatic VostroPay reconciliation".
The VostroPay daily payout window relates to payments taken between 8pm NZST, and 7:59pm NZST the following day. Once you tick "Enable automatic VostroPay reconciliation", the sync between VostroPay, Sporty and Xero will kick in from the next 8pm window. If this setting is disabled, the window will reset and any payments recorded will need to be manually reconciled.
5. Pick your clearing account, your fee expense account, and the bank account that gets your daily VostroPay payout from the drop-down menus.
NOTE: Only payments made after the date and time stated via VostroPay will appear in the clearing account. Any payments received before this date and time will need to be manually reconciled. This date and time reflects the time when you ticked the box for "Enable automatic VostroPay reconciliation".
6. Scroll to the bottom and click Save.
REMINDER: When auto-reconciliation is enabled, "Automatically create invoices" is turned on for all your registration forms. This is required so that every VostroPay payment has a corresponding Xero payment.
When Does It Start?
Reconciliation starts from the next settlement cut-off, which is 8:00 PM NZST, on or after you save your settings. If you turn it on before that day's cut-off, it starts that evening. If you turn it on after the cut-off, it starts the next evening. You will see the exact start date and time on screen under 'Reconciliation starts from'. Any payments taken before that point keep going to your bank account as normal. Your first automatic reconciliation will show up in Xero a day or two later, once VostroPay has settled those payments.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why does my clearing account show payments as 'unreconciled'?
This is normal, and there is nothing to fix. In Xero, 'reconciling' means matching a line from your imported bank statement to a transaction. The clearing account is not a real bank account, so it has no bank feed and no statement lines to match against. That is why its payments will always show as unreconciled. The way to check the clearing account is healthy is to make sure its balance comes back to zero, or very close to it, once each day's fee expense and transfer have gone through. If it balances to zero, every payment has been fully accounted for, and you can safely ignore the 'unreconciled' flags.
What if a transaction does not match?
If you notice a transaction does not match, compare the registration in Sporty with the VostroPay settlement payout report and the clearing account in Xero. If you are unable to identify the issue, please contact support@sportsground.com with the details.
What about refunds?
Refunds show up as negative amounts in the settlement and lower the total daily payout. Once in a while a day's refunds might be more than its payments. When that happens the payout will be negative and will need to be handled manually.
What if the VostroPay deposit does not arrive?
Sporty keeps an eye out for missing settlement files and gets an alert if no file arrives for more than two days. VostroPay normally settles every day, with next-business-day funding for New Zealand merchants..
Can I turn it off?
Yes. Just un-tick the reconciliation checkbox in your settings. From then on, payments will go straight to your normal bank account, and anything already in the clearing account will stay in Xero. Unticking the VostroPay auto-reconciliation feature will mean any payments taken will need to be manually reconciled.
Do I need to do anything each day?
Only your usual bank reconciliation in Xero, where the daily transfer is now a one-click match.