Feature catalogue

Return files

A collection does not always succeed. The payer’s account may be closed, the number may be wrong, or the money may not be there. When that happens the clearing channel sends back a return file, and the platform reverses the payments it names.

You see what arrived, what it reversed, and what it could not, on the Return files panel.

Whose file it is

A scheme addresses its return file to the identity it issued you — your participant. That identity is in the file header, and it is how the platform knows whose file it is.

An identity issued to one legal entity makes the file that entity’s: it appears on that entity’s Return files panel and on no other’s. An identity that serves your whole organisation — a bureau identity — makes a file that can span entities, so it appears on every entity whose payments it returned.

A file carrying a code nobody in your organisation holds is refused whole, and no payment moves. That is deliberate. A file you cannot claim is either meant for someone else or is not what it says it is, and neither is a reason to reverse your customers’ payments. See scheme participants.

Where to work a file

The file Where you work it
Issued to one legal entity That entity’s Return files panel
A bureau file with lines matched to entities Every one of those entities’ panels
A bureau file nothing matched Payments › Returns only
Refused Payments › Returns only

Payments › Returns is the tenant-wide list — every file, whoever it belongs to. It is where a file that belongs to no entity is worked, and nothing is lost between the two views.

How a return finds its payment

Every payment carries a trace number when it goes out. The clearing channel quotes that trace back on the return, and the platform matches on it.

The trace is unique within its channel. A return can only reverse a payment we sent on the channel the return arrived on, so a file that quotes a trace from somewhere else reverses nothing.

flowchart LR
    A[Collection sent] -->|carries a trace| B[Clearing channel]
    B -->|return file quotes the trace| C[Return files panel]
    C -->|matched| D[Payment reversed]
    C -->|no match| E[Kept as unmatched]

What the panel shows

Column What it tells you
Value date The day the file applies to
Channel The clearing channel it came from
Participant The identity the scheme addressed the file to
Lines How many payments the file quoted
Returned How many were matched and reversed
Unmatched How many could not be applied
Source Whether a channel sent it, or it was simulated for a rehearsal

Select View lines on a file to see every line it carried. A matched line names the payment it reversed and why. An unmatched line names the trace it quoted and why the platform could not apply it.

Nothing is ever dropped. A line the platform cannot match still appears, because a return quoting a payment you do not recognise is exactly the thing worth looking at.

Why a payment came back

The clearing channel sends its own code, and the platform reads it as one of four outcomes.

Outcome What happened
Account closed The payer’s account no longer exists
Invalid account The account number is not one the bank recognises
Insufficient funds The payer did not have the money
Not authorised The payer’s bank does not accept your authority to collect

The last two apply to collections only. A payment you push out has no funds to be short of, and carries no collection authority to dispute — so a return quoting one of those codes against an outgoing payment is kept as unmatched rather than applied.

A code the channel’s list does not carry is never guessed at. The line is kept as unmatched and names the code, so you can take it up with the bank.

When the reversal is dated

A return reverses on the day it arrives, not the day the payment went out. A return landing in March for a February collection is a March movement, so a month you have already closed is never restated.

Files that are refused

Some files are refused whole, and nothing in them is applied. When that happens the file appears at the top of the panel with the reason.

Reason What it means
The totals do not reconcile The file’s own footer disagrees with the lines it carries, so it arrived incomplete or corrupt
Already presented The same file has been seen before on this channel, and applying it again would reverse the same payments twice
The channel cannot be read A file arrived for a clearing channel the platform has no reader for
Participant unknown The file names an identity your organisation does not hold, or holds only as retired. It may be another organisation’s file

A refused file is always recorded. If a file is refused, ask the channel to resend it — correcting and resending is normal, and a genuinely different file is accepted.

Rehearsing a return

Before a clearing channel is connected, you can rehearse the whole leg. Mark a payer’s bank account to come back with a chosen reason, and the platform produces a real return file for that channel at end of day, once the channel’s return window has passed.

The rehearsal is deliberate, not random: only accounts you mark come back, and they come back with the reason you chose. Every rehearsed file is recorded as Simulated, so months later nobody can mistake it for a file a bank sent.

Rehearsals only run where your organisation has simulation switched on.

What your organisation configures