Bill Payments

Bill payments solution of Paytm Payouts is one of the most popular services in the industry. Not only is it easy to use, but it also offers the merchants the advantage of making thousands of bill payments in one go. Since Paytm is the pioneer of bill payments and recharges, this dashboard has built-in integration with almost 95% of billers across India. The merchants can use the Bill Payments feature to pay all types of bills such as phones( prepaid, postpaid, landline), water, electricity, gas, etc.

Paytm Payouts allows the merchants to manage bills payment in a very simple and organized manner. The bills added in the system are mandatorily associated with a store. 

A 'Store' is a  specific subsection corresponding to a sub entity of the business created in the dashboard. For example, the merchants can create different stores for each shop, warehouse or office in the dashboard. This will help to classify all the expenses, bills , payment and vendor invoices of each sub entity.

Note: It is mandatory to associate a bill to a store.  This will implicitly manage bills at store level. A store can be created and edited through the 'Manage Stores’ option in the Settings section. Click here to learn more about ‘Manage Stores’.

 To make bill payments, firstly the bill details have to be added to the dashboard.

1. On the left main menu, go to 'Bill Payments' under the 'Paytm Payouts' tab.
2. Click the 'Add Bill' button and enter the details such as store type & bill type etc. The dropdown menu in the ‘Store Type' section will show the list of only those stores for which the user has permission access.
3. The input fields for bill details will change dynamically as per the entered bill type, such as electricity bill, water bill, mobile prepaid, mobile postpaid etc.
4. Enter the store details for the new bill. 
5. Fill in all the details as mentioned on the screen and click the 'Add Bill' button to finally submit the details of the bill.
6. The system will validate the entered bill details after which it will be added to the 'All Bills' section.
7. Further action on the bill  such as editing, bill payment etc will be managed from this section

Note: Currently bulk addition of bills is not available to the merchants. However, for bulk addition of bills, reach out to our team of experts at ebps.ops@paytm.com 

For multi store corporates, it was always a hassle to add details of each of its 1000’s of stores in the system. Payouts can now virtually support unlimited stores in the system. To know more about adding a new store, read here.

💡 Tip
 The paid bills can also be added to the dashboard at any time of the month. This allows the system to auto fetch  the bill amount details from next month onwards.

Paytm Payouts allows merchants to do bulk mobile recharges without adding an individual bill. This feature is of importance to businesses that make monthly phone reimbursements to its employees. It requires the information for phone numbers and the amount to be reimbursed.Follow the steps below to do bulk mobile recharges:

1. Under the 'Bill Payments' section, click 'Bulk Mobile Recharges'.
2. Download the sample file and fill in the information for a phone number, amount to be recharged and operator( optional).
3. Upload the file and click 'Process to validate'.
4. When the validation is complete, click 'Process valid requests'.
5. For entries showing error, the file can also be re-uploaded before processing.
6. Choose the Disbursal Account to make the payments and click the ‘Pay' button to make the final payment.

The 'Bill Payments' section is divided into three sections:

• Bill Summary
• All Bills
• Bill Payment History.

Bill Summary

This section provides a consolidated view of all the bills associated with the respective stores that can be accessed by a user or sub-user. The Total Bill Overdue and Total Bill Amount can be seen in the top summary section. Again, this information will be restricted as per the store access to the user.
From the bottom section on this screen, any particular store can be selected to fetch all the bills belonging to that store.

1. Select a store to view all the respective bills for this store.
2. Individual or bulk payments for the bills can be made by selecting the bills from this section.
3. Click 'Proceed to Pay'. 
4. Within a store, each bill can be viewed/edited/downloaded or deleted.

All Bills

All Bills view provides an overview of all the unpaid bills and the bills which are in the processing stage.

1. Select the 'All Bills' tab from the top section.
   The Summary Widget shows the overdue amount and the total bill amount.
2. Standard filters such as bill type, duration, bill number, biller etc. are available to further sort results for pending bills. New filters added here are to find the stores on the basis of location, store name, store Id etc.
   

   The user can also find the stores by name even if they have a vague idea.
   

3. Select one or more bills from the list and click 'Proceed to Pay' for making bill payments.
4. Use 'Download Bills' to download the details of all the bills as per your selection in a single excel.

Bill Payment History

Bill Payment History tab provides a review for all types of bills i.e paid, failed, and under processing bills.

1. The status of any bill can be reviewed from the left-most icons against the bill details in the list view. 
2. Alternatively, clicking on a particular bill will show the bill status. The bill invoice and the bill copy can also be downloaded through this action.
3. Use 'Download Bill Payment History' to get the bill payments history. The file will be available for download in the 'Reports' section in the main menu, under the 'Bill Payment History' tab.

When a bill is added into the Paytm Payouts dashboard, the details of the bill is auto validated by the system. The error can happen while associating the bill to a store. Hence, while editing the bill only the associated store can be changed. This gives additional security to avoid fraud bills for a comprehensive multi-user dashboard.

1. On the left main menu under 'Payouts', select 'Bill Payments', and then go to 'All Bills' view.
2. From the list view, select the bill to be edited.
3. Click on the options under the 'Actions' menu.
4. Select the 'Edit' option to open the detailed view.
5. From the 'Stores' options change the associated store for this bill.
6. Click 'Save Bill'.

The bill payment process is an effortless process and can be done using the steps below:

1. In the 'Bill Summary' tab, select the store for which bill/ bills need to be paid.
2. Select one or multiple bills that are to be paid and click 'Proceed to Pay'.
3. Alternatively, go to the 'All Bills' section and select one or more bills and move on to click  'Proceed to Pay'.
   The payment summary is shown with a break up of bill amount and commission amount.

   💡 Tip
   ‘ Pay Custom Amount’  option is available for the bills where the billers allow advance/partial payments or offer incentives on early payments. Select ‘Pay custom amount’ in the ‘ Pay bill’ option and enter the custom amount. To know more about special use cases where this can be used, click here.

   • Custom amount for a single bill can be paid as below:
      
     
   • Custom Amount for multiple bills in one go can be added as seen below :
      
     
4. Choose the Disbursal Account from the drop-down menu for bill payment and click the 'Pay' button. The bill is now in the Payment processing state.
5. Check the 'Bill payment History' tab to know the status of each bill.

Note: If an Approval workflow is set for the disbursal account which is selected for the bill payments, the approval request for processing the bill will go to the approver. The concerned approver can accept or reject the bill from the 'Approvals' section in the left main menu. Once the bill payment request is approved by all the approvers set in the workflow, the payment will be released from the disbursal account for bill payment.

💡 Tip
For pre paid mobile bills, the recharge plans can be selected from the dashboard . The user does not need to put any recharge value in this case, but will be allowed to select from the operator plans.

Bill Payment for Special Use Cases

You can see below few bill payment scenarios where the user can make:

1. Avail early payment incentives
   Some billers offer discounts if the bills are paid on or before a certain date. This incentive date and the incentive amount can be seen in the view bill section.
    
   
2. Advance Payment
   Some operators allow advance bill payment, usually if the billing cycle starts late in the month.
3. Partial Payment
   Some operators also allow partial bill payment as well. Use ‘Pay custom amount’ to enter the partial payment amount.
4. Penalty Payment
   If any previous bills were paid late, then enter the custom payment amount inclusive of the penalty to pay the recent bill.

1. To delete a bill, select the bill from the 'All Bills' tab.
2. Under the 'Action' header, click on the '3 Dot Menu' icon.
3. Click the 'Delete' button.

Note: The bills in the payment processing stage cannot be deleted.