Want to send multiple payments in one go from your Starling business bank account? Here's how to use Starling's bulk payments feature to bulk-pay suppliers and employees. We'll also cover what you can't do with Starling, and how to overcome these limitations.
At a glance: You’re limited to 250 payments per month, capped at £250,000. You cannot process international payments and there are no approval flows.
Go to 'Payments' and then the 'Bulk Payments' tab.
Click 'New bulk payment'.
Enter a name for the bulk payment, such as "December Suppliers," and select a reason from the category dropdown menu.
You now have the option to download a blank Starling template or pre-fill it with details from your existing payees. Simply select payees from the list provided, and their information will be added to your template, saving you time when editing the file.
Download the file and add payment amounts along with any additional payees. Ensure each payment is entered on a separate row, and do not reorder the columns or modify the header names.
Once you've finished editing, save the file as .csv, .xlsx or .ods.
Upload your edited file to the bulk payments feature.
Starling uses colour codes to flag payment issues. Review highlighted payments carefully. Here's what they mean:
Dark red: Payments to this payee cannot be processed.
Light red: There’s an error with this payment.
Purple: This payment is a duplicate within the file.
If a payment is marked as light red or dark red, you’ll need to edit the file and re-upload it. Proceeding with the current bulk payment will not be possible. You can proceed if you have duplicates, but make sure you're intending to send these payments.
You can either click 'Save as draft' to return to the bulk payment later, or select 'Authorise bulk payment' to proceed with the transaction. Keep your mobile authenticator app handy to complete the process - it will show as 'Awaiting Approval' until you approve this on your phone.
Note: Once the bulk payment has been sent, any new payees will be added to your account. Starling's full guide is here.
A limit of 250 payments per month applies: Starling allows unlimited uploads of bulk payment files, but there’s a cap on the total number of payments you can process. Each month, you’re limited to sending a maximum of 250 payments from these files.
You cannot include payments over £250,000: Due to Starling's transfer limits, you cannot include payments over £250,000 in your bulk payment run.
Bulk payments in international currencies are not supported: This feature is exclusively available for GBP payments made from a GBP account.
Access restrictions
Team, accountant, or bookkeeper access isn't available: Only Directors of your business can access your Starling account and its bulk payments feature. Unfortunately, there’s no option to grant access to accountants, bookkeepers, or other team members. To ensure the security of your funds, it’s essential not to share your login details with anyone.
You can’t assign another user to approve payments: You can't set up multi-level approval for bulk payments due to limited user access.
Limitations when creating payments
Custom payroll files require formatting: Whilst you can upload your own payroll files, you'll need to edit the column names and order to align with Starling's template. Supported file formats are limited to .csv, .xlsx, and .ods. Starling does not recommend using your own file.
Bulk payments cannot be scheduled for future dates: They can only be sent immediately.
Individual payments cannot be cancelled: To fix duplicate or incorrect payments in a bulk payment, you have to edit the entire payment file and re-upload it for the pay run. You cannot cancel or remove these individual payments.
Limitations when sending payments
Payments cannot be authorised if your account has insufficient funds: Instead of partially processing the payment, Starling will wait until you’ve topped up your account or adjusted the payment file to a lower amount.
Bulk payments cannot be reconciled as a single transaction: Each individual transaction within a bulk payment will appear as a separate statement line in your Starling account. This means that when reconciling in Xero, QuickBooks, or other accounting software, you’ll need to match and reconcile each payment individually.
An easier way for Starling business customers to make bulk payments
Starling's bulk payments feature has some key limitations: it lacks flexibility in team member access and creating payments, requires significant manual effort, and imposes several restrictions on the payments you can send.Solve this by using Starling bank with Telleroo. Starling is the 6th most popular bank amongst businesses using Telleroo.
Keep your bank account safe: With Telleroo, you no longer have to share access to your Starling bank account - and prevent exposing your main account to others. Simply top up your Telleroo e-money account using your Starling account, and you’re ready to send funds.
Send thousands of payments: Telleroo works for businesses of all sizes, whether you send 30 or 3000 payments per month.
You can include payments over £250,000 in a bulk payment run.
You can process bulk international payments in Euro, US Dollar, Australian Dollar, Canadian Dollar, Singapore Dollar and Swiss Franc. You can also send one-off payments for these currencies, as well as United Arab Emirates Dirham and Moroccan Dirham.
Solving access restrictions
You can add additional users: Add your team members, accountant, or bookkeeper to Telleroo and set their permissions. They can just view outbound payments (with bank details hidden) or create payments for your approval. Check out user roles.
Stay in control of payments: Choose between single or dual approval for payments. This means a team member, accountant, or bookkeeper can create payments, but you or another team member must approve them before they’re sent. You can also set multiple approvers to cover for annual leave.
Solving limitations when creating payments
Connect to your accounting software: See what needs paying, select invoices and pay directly in Telleroo. Integrations with Xero, and QuickBooks (coming soon).
Easy import from your payroll software: You can import files from Moneysoft, BrightPay, Sage and Paycircle without having to make any edits. You can also import a custom file if you're using another payroll software.
You can schedule bulk payments in Telleroo, and reschedule them if required.
You can cancel individual payments within a pay run.
Solving limitations when sending payments
We'll let you know when you need to add money: If you need to top-up your account to cover outbound payments, we'll email you to let you know.
You can still authorise payments if there's not enough money in your account: We know how timely payments can be, which is why we'll send what we can before you top-up, and send the rest when you've added funds to your account.
Reconcile in one click: When you connect Telleroo to your Xero account, we send everything back to Xero so you can reconcile 100 payments in one click!
Have a go at creating a bulk payment in Telleroo with a clickable walkthrough:
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