Payment Initiation – abbreviated as PAIN – is a payment initiation message. PAIN.001 is an XML-based payment initiation message used across Europe, the UK, and Switzerland for processing credit transfers – like salary or reimbursement payments.
Perk supports country-specific versions, including:
-
PAIN001.003 for direct debit (EUR payments in the EU Zone)
- versions for Germany and France
- PAIN001.003 for UK
- PAIN.001.003.ch for payments in Switzerland
- PAIN001 specific for Swiss Salary
The payment instruction file contains the same amount as the expenses exported during the export job. Expense line items are not batched in any way. In other words, Perk creates a payment instruction line item for each employee.
Caution: If you want to export the expenses every day (i.e. for accruals or reporting), but only run reimbursement once a week or every second week, you must combine several payment instruction files as payment runs and posting must coincide. (i.e. if you have exported reimbursable expenses for an employee in two export jobs, this will result in two payment instruction lines for that employee).
If the payout file is enabled for the company, you must enter your bank details.
A valid IBAN is mandatory. If you are reassigned to another company and then moved back to the original company where PAIN files are activated, all configuration is lost. You need to reenter all bank information.
The payment file sources the debtor details from the company bank details. This is in the B level of the pain file format. The payout amounts are summed up per employee and included as a single line in the C level of the pain file.
No journal is created for the payment file, i.e. a GL impact journal posted against an employee A/P or transit account. The additional journal debiting the A/P or transit account and crediting the bank account needs to be generated via custom development or recorded manually. A straightforward way is to generate it during bank reconciliation end of day, week, or month.
Enable payment initiation file
To enable a payment initiation file:
- Go to Settings > Account > Companies.
- Under company settings, click View spend settings.
-
Under Data export and ERP configuration, in Export payout file, choose the version of the format from the dropdown list:
- Switzerland: pain.001.001.03.ch.02 (with IBAN)
- Switzerland: pain.001.001.03.ch.02 (without IBAN for employees)
- Switzerland: pain.001.001.03.ch.02 (without creditor address)
- Germany: pain.001.001.03
- payoutFormat.pain.001.001.03.fr
- payoutFormat.pain.001.001.03.uk
- Swiss Salary
Depending on the file type, you need to configure the setup in Configurations. For all types except Swiss Salary, you need to configure the Bank connection.
This specifies the payout account to be used:
Field |
Description |
|---|---|
| Legal company name | Name of the company associated with the payout account. |
| Street | Address of the bank where the payout account is located. |
| Street number | Address of the bank where the payout account is located. |
| ZIP code | Address of the bank where the payout account is located. |
| City | Address of the bank where the payout account is located. |
| Bank Identifier Code (BIC) / SWIFT | Bank identifier code of the payout account. |
| IBAN | International bank account number of the payout account. |
With every new expense export, Perk generates additional ZIP file with payout XML files per payment date. Every expense within the file is showing amount in original currency.
Note: For each country, there are different configurations. See File type-specific configurations for a full overview of the specific configurations for Switzerland/Swiss Salaray, Germany, France, and The UK.
Include bank information in user profile
Once you have enabled the PAIN export option in the company settings, you can see an additional section in your user profile where you can enter your bank information for reimbursements.
In the mobile app, the bank information popup window appears on login to encourage you to fill in the required information as soon as possible. You can skip that, but the screen is displayed once again each time they log in.
Generate standard Payout file for expenses
The payment instruction file is generated with each triggered export of expenses and can be downloaded in Perk in Finance > Review > Export Log.
Generation of payment file is possible per payment date (a payment file can only have one payment date).
Note: The format of payout file is “pain.001.001.03.ch.02” used by Credit Suisse bank, but it also standard-based payment format that can be used and supported with multiple banks.
Field description
For better understanding, the hierarchy level of the elements is indicated by preceding “+” sign in front of it.
Note: “Debtor” is the paying company (LE) while “Creditor” would be the employee to whom it gets paid. In this case for debtor, Perk takes the company information, and for creditor - employee information.
File type-specific configurations
There are several versions of PAIN:
- Version three of the message, PAIN.001.001.03, is currently the most used version of the ISO 20022 Credit Transfer message and is a mandated message to be used in direct debit.
- Version 02 is used in countries as well (e.g. Finland) and versions 04, 05 and 06 are already published by ISO 20022.
In addition to direct debit payments, PAIN.001 may be used for other types of payments, like salaries and currency payments. Cheque payments can also be made by using this message.
Country type-specific conditions
Below you see a list of country-type specific conditions for:
Switzerland (with or without IBAN)
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Aggregate payments by employee | Creates a single instruction line per employee. |
| Aggregate payments by trip | Creates a single instruction line per trip. |
| Transaction charge bearer |
Party responsible for paying any transaction charges. This can be:
|
Swiss Salary
| Option | |
|---|---|
| Custom category field for salary type | Perk category used for posting the salary type. |
| Custom user field for employee ID | Custom Perk user field where the employee ID is stored. |
Germany
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Aggregate payments by employee | Creates a single instruction line per employee. |
| Aggregate payments by trip | Creates a single instruction line per trip. |
| Suppress batch booking | Prevents expenses from being booked as a single line item. |
| Transaction charge bearer |
Party responsible for paying any transaction charges. This can be:
|
France
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Aggregate payments by employee | Creates a single instruction line per employee. |
| Aggregate payments by trip | Creates a single instruction line per trip. |
| Transaction charge bearer |
Party responsible for paying any transaction charges. This can be:
|
UK
| Option | Description |
|---|---|
| Aggregate payments by employee | Creates a single instruction line per employee. |
| Aggregate payments by trip | Creates a single instruction line per trip. |
| Transaction charge bearer |
Party responsible for paying any transaction charges. This can be:
|