Error Uploading ABA Payroll File to ANZ - Invalid Account Number for Item 39

[GasitAccounts15]

We had a new employee commence work recently and today we tried to pay them for the first time.

When uploading the ABA File into ANZ, there is an error that says there is an "Invalid Account Number for Item 39." We went back and deleted the transaction and tried again with all employees apart from our new employee and it worked as normal.

However, when trying again with just our new employee, ANZ rejected the payroll file again with the same error.

We ended up paying him as a "Pay Anybody" and it went through fine so we assume it is an error with MYOB/ the ABA file, but obviously we would like it solve this issue for future pays.

Thanks in advance

[Emily_B]

Hello @GasitAccounts15 

Can you confirm that the payroll information listed in the employee card does appear to be accurate? I would first check that the account number for this employee is showing properly on the .aba file by taking a copy of  that file ceated by AccountRight, and opening it in Notepad or a similar product. Compare the exact layout of Line 39 against all of the others lines which went through correctly. Even if the account number is numerically accurate, an unnecessary tab, space, hyphen or other character will be enough to render that line erroneous during an import.

AccountRight does use a generic file format for bank files (the .aba) which is standardised across the majority of Australian banks. However, some banks will update their required format thus making a standardised ABA file format invalid. It may be worth consulting with the ANZ Transactive Global File Format to ensure that Line 39 is following the current format for ANZ. We have seen some instances of ANZ clients experiencing this issue due to a change rolled out by ANZ in 2019 that included some slight changes to the .aba format. Ensure that you have selected the Self-Balancing transaction option, found in the Banking tab of your selected account. If this was unticked, please do tick it and try the upload again. 

[GasitAccounts15]

I have tried deleting the Employee Card details and re entering Bank Details.

The Bank Details are definitely correct  as I paid him directly yesterday.

I have checked my Account settings for my Bank.

I also tried to upload his ABA File again with only 1 record and it is saying invalid Account Number?

[Emily_B · Accepted solution]

Hello @GasitAccounts15 

Thank you for the additional information. Apologies for repeating myself but just to be clear - even if the numerical account number is correct, any spaces or other characters within that field would cause it to be read incorrectly. For example, assume . denotes a space and ... denotes that a tab.

Account 111222333444, entered within the field as .111222333444, or 111222333444., or ...111222333444, or any combination of unnecessary spaces or tabs may cause this issue. Please do check the account number for any spaces, and run the .aba file through Notepad to see if anything in Line 39 is misaligned with the other lines that went through.