How to undo bulk payments in Xero

If a batch of payments went onto the wrong invoices, the wrong account or the wrong date, you need to undo bulk payments in Xero, and there is no single button for it. The by-hand way is to open each payment and remove it. Paysweep keeps a record of every payment it records, and can undo a whole run for 30 days.

Last checked 25 Oct 2026 against Xero’s published API description.

The by-hand way

In Xero, each payment is removed on its own: open the invoice or bill, open the payment and remove it (check the menu in your Xero for the exact place). If the payment is reconciled, it has to be unreconciled first. For a handful this is fine; for a few hundred it is slow, and it is easy to remove a payment that was not part of the batch.

What Paysweep undo does

For 30 days after a run, “Undo these payments” goes through the payments that run recorded, one at a time:

• It reads the payment back from Xero first. If it is already gone, the row is marked undone and nothing is sent.
• A payment that is reconciled, or part of a batch payment, is left in place and listed with the reason.
• Otherwise the payment is set to Deleted in Xero, and the invoice or bill is due again.
• A payment Paysweep cannot be sure about is marked “check in Xero” and never retried automatically.

Why the guards are there

Deleting a payment is a write to your books like any other, so undo follows the same rules as the run that recorded the payments.

• Only its own payments. Undo starts from the list of payment IDs that one run recorded. A payment someone entered by hand on the same invoice, even on the same day and for the same amount, is not on that list and is never touched.
• Read before delete. Each payment is read back from Xero right before it is removed. That is how Paysweep sees a reconciliation or a batch payment that happened after the run, and how it notices a payment that was already removed by hand.
• Reconciled payments stay. Once a payment is matched to a bank statement line, removing it would leave that line unmatched and change your reconciliation. Paysweep leaves it in place and tells you which one it is, so you can unreconcile it in Xero first if you really want it gone, and then remove it by hand.
• Batch payments stay. A payment that is part of a batch payment belongs to a group that Xero treats as one bank transaction. Paysweep does not split that group.
• No guessing after a lost answer. If Xero’s answer to a delete never arrives, the row is marked for review with a link into Xero instead of being sent again.

A worked example

Say a run recorded 120 customer payments from a remittance file, and you notice the next day that the payment date column was read in the wrong order: every payment is dated in the wrong month. In the meantime your bank feed was reconciled, and 15 of the 120 payments were matched to statement lines.

You open the run from the History tab and choose “Undo these payments”. Paysweep reads each of the 120 payments. 105 are removed and their invoices are due again. 15 are left in place and listed as reconciled, each with a link to its invoice. You unreconcile and remove those 15 in Xero, fix the date order on the upload page, and record all 120 again with a new preview. The result CSV of the first run and of its undo stay downloadable, so you have a record of both.

Before you start an undo

• Check the window. Undo is offered for 30 days after the run started. After that the run details are deleted and the payments can only be removed by hand.
• Keep the organisation connected. Undo needs the connection to Xero. Disconnecting deletes the run details at once.
• Download the result CSV. It lists every row with its outcome and Xero IDs, which helps if you need to explain the change to your accountant later.
• Tell your team. While the undo runs, payments disappear from invoices one by one. Anyone reconciling the bank feed at the same moment may see them change.

Doing it with Paysweep

1. Open the run. In Paysweep, open the finished run on its result screen or from the History tab.
2. Choose “Undo these payments”. The undo starts at once. It is free and does not count against your plan.
3. Let it run. Each payment is read back from Xero first, then set to Deleted. You can close the page; it keeps going.
4. Read the result. Payments left in place are listed with the reason and a link to the invoice or bill in Xero, so you can deal with them yourself.

What to expect

Undo uses the same pacing as a run: one call at a time, within Xero’s limits, pausing when the day’s budget is used. Undo is free on every plan, including the free 3 payments. Before you disconnect an organisation, download the result CSV if you want a record of what was recorded and undone.

To record the payments again after fixing the file, see how to bulk record payments in Xero from a CSV file.

Questions

Related guides

• How to bulk record payments in Xero from a CSV file
  What Xero offers for many payments, the by-hand way, the CSV layout, and doing it with Paysweep.
• How to mark invoices as paid in bulk in Xero
  Clearing many old open invoices and bills against one account from an Excel or CSV list, with a preview first.
• Pricing
  Free previews, a $39 pass or $19 a month, excl. VAT/sales tax.
• Paysweep overview
  What Paysweep does with your file, the checks on every step, and how undo works.