The walkthrough
70.6 seconds. Captions are included in the film. Made with Nolan from an editable screenplay running in a real browser.
What the requester said
“When they make a payment for 1 of the invoices in the batch, you have to remove and redo the payment then match the separate invoice up, and then recreate the batch payment”
Verbatim from the Xero Product Ideas board. Reproduced as a contiguous extract and checked against the harvested record.
Key moments
- Split one batch payment into two amounts.
- Preserve a link to the original payment and its remittance advice.
- Show the unmatched remainder and what reversal would need to do.
What we concluded
Has wider trade-offs
The amounts can still balance after a split, but the original payment reference no longer identifies either result.
The product also needs to define what happens to remittance advice and reversal.
Why we reached that conclusion
Splitting a batch payment can solve a difficult reconciliation problem, but the prototype showed that balancing the amounts is not enough.
In our scenario, one payment of 6,140.00 became two payments whose amounts still added to the original total. The reconciliation balanced, but both new records inherited a reference that had originally identified one payment.
A remittance advice had already been sent for the full 6,140.00. After the split, neither payment matched that document. Reversing one part also could not recreate the original batch as a single action.
The second part of the split remained open without a corresponding bank statement line. It might later be matched, but the product would need to explain that state and preserve a clear link to the original payment.
The request addresses a real workflow problem. Supporting it safely would also require explicit rules for payment identity, remittance advice, reversal, and any unmatched remainder.