Making bulk payments from a CMA

To enhance the security of your clients' funds and streamline your payment process, we are introducing important updates to our Cash Bulk Transacting (CBT) service, effective 13 April 2026.

These changes involve decommissioning Vasco security tokens and introducing mandatory dual authorisation for all CBT files. This guide answers key questions you may have about what's changing, what you need to do, and how this new process will work in practice.

• The relevant ‘Customer reference number’ fields in the templates should contain the unique customer identifier:
  • On your client’s ASIC invoice, this is the Customer Reference.
  • On your client’s ATO invoice, this is the Payment Reference Number. This includes the PRN for DIV293 tax payments.
• The Customer reference number won’t be validated, so please take care when completing this field as an incorrect reference may result in the receiver not recognising the payment.
• Once created, the CSV file shouldn’t be re-opened in Excel as this will cause re-formatting issues with the customer reference number. The payment will still be sent if all other validations are successful.
• The ATO imposes an incoming crediting limit of $99,999.99. Any amount greater than this will generate an "amount missing or invalid" error message. To process larger amounts, you can add multiple lines to debit the same account up to $99,999.99 per transaction.

If using the ’Financial services payment (Debit file)’ template:

• the payment will only be successful if the bank account details entered match the nominated fee bank account provided at the time of registration
• the funds will be received in the end account as one consolidated amount.

When a client appoints you to have Accelerator Account Transfer Authority on an account, they’re authorising this adviser to have access to information about their account.

Accelerator Account Transfer Authority means you can also transfer funds interchangeably between their Macquarie CMA and their Accelerator accounts using bulk transacting provided you are a registered user.

Depending on the authority and the direction of the transfer, you may need to complete specific bulk transacting files. Please see the table below for the correct file to use.

Your clients can also transfer funds themselves via our online and mobile banking services.

When you generate a bulk transaction report, you may see one of the following statuses:

• Full – The file has been successful. All transactions have been processed.
• Errors – Some transactions in the file were unsuccessful. Only those transactions containing errors will be withheld from processing, with all other transactions processed as requested. When downloading an error file, only the errored accounts will fail, and the rest of the file will be paid successfully.
• File failed – The complete file has been unsuccessful. No transactions have been processed.

For troubleshooting errors and upload failures see Why is bulk transacting not working?

The following are some common causes for uploading errors.

File type: Make sure you check the file before saving as a CSV (Comma Delimited) file. Don’t re-open the file after saving as it may cause the file formatting to alter, resulting in an upload file error.

Corrupted files: Download a new version of your chosen template type for each new bulk transacting file you create. Avoid downloading and re-using a template saved on your computer.  

Duplication of files: The system will detect files containing the same number of transactions and total value submitted on the same day to prevent a file accidentally being processed twice. If a match is detected an error message display advising the "file has already been processed" you can either: 

• split the file into two smaller files, ensuring the two new files have different total amounts, and upload these two new files
• increase the amount of the sample row so the total file value is different to the previous one, or
• upload the file the next business day. You’ll also need to advance the date in the file. 

Processing of yesterday’s file in error: A check is in place to prevent users uploading past files in error. If the date on the file doesn’t equal today’s date, the system will reject the file. You can then either upload the correct file, or update the date to today’s date and resubmit. 

Invalid account number error: If the account number is invalid or incomplete, make sure you: 

• save the file as a CSV file
• ensure the cells are aligned right
• change the cell format to either number or text
• prefix the account number with 0 to make a 10-digit account number.

“0” (zero) dropping off in the BSB or account number and/or The heading in line one is invalid: Either the file hasn’t been loaded as CSV, or the file has been saved as a CSV but reopened resulting in the file being converted to Excel format. Please re-save the file as a CSV.  

The following are some common causes for file processing errors.

Insufficient debit authority: You’re attempting to debit an account you don’t have debiting authority on, or you don’t hold the required level of authority for the type of transaction you’re trying to perform. If you believe you hold the appropriate authority, please contact us for further review.

Insufficient client funds: The client has insufficient funds to cover the withdrawal requested. 

Invalid client account status: The CMA’s status is not open. If you require further information on why the account is not on open status, please contact us.

Invalid destination account: When submitting a financial services payment file, the bank details the uploaded file is trying to sweep fees to don’t match the details registered on file for your bulk transacting facility. Simply, the destination account submitted in the file isn’t an authorised destination account. If you want to have an additional financial services account added to your bulk transacting facility, please contact us.

Amount outside of allowable limit: This limit is related to the receiving BPAY entity. This means the biller has placed a maximum limit on funds they receive via BPAY – this maximum will usually be noted on the bill. 

No CHI clearing account exists: This error appears when attempting to debit an Accelerator account, which is not supported for certain CBT file types.