Set up Sage bank feeds

Sage bank feeds is a secure service that you can use to download or import your bank transactions to Sage 200, to help you reconcile your bank account.

This reduces the time that you spend reconciling your bank transactions, and ensures your accounts are up to date and accurate.

Sage bank feeds is a completely free service - you don't need a subscription, and there are no fees.

How it works

Sage bank feeds connects to your bank and downloads details of the transactions from your bank account into Sage 200. If your bank doesn't allow you to download bank feeds automatically, you can manually import transactions from a file that you download from your bank.

Once you have downloaded or imported your bank transactions, you can match them to the existing transactions in Sage 200, or create new transactions in Sage 200 if something is missing. This means that transactions in your live bank account are reflected in Sage 200. Sage 200 will remember which transactions you have matched, ready for your next bank reconciliation.

Watch a video: Sage 200 UK - Bank Feeds 2024 R2.

Banks supporting automatic bank feeds

Open Banking (PSD2) is a secure way for you to share financial information from your bank with companies like Sage that offer banking and payment apps and is designed to give you greater control over your financial data.

You can only use automatic bank feeds if your bank supports the open banking standard. To check if your bank supports automatic bank feeds, follow the steps to Enable Sage bank feeds and use the Automatic option.

If you find that your bank does not support automatic bank feeds, you can request that your bank is added during this process.

Before you start

To complete the registration, you will need to know:

  • Your bank name, type of account, the account number and IBAN number.

  • A contact email address for your organisation, in case we need to contact you.

Enable Sage bank feeds

You can't set up Sage bank feeds for a cash book account if:

  • The cash book bank account already uses Supplier Payments (Sage Salary and Supplier Payments).

  • The cash book bank account is set up for reconciliation using e-Banking, with E-Banking functions set to either Bank reconciliation only or Both payments and bank reconciliation.

    You can still use e-Banking to generate payments for suppliers, if E-Banking functions is set to Payments.

Open: Cash Book > Create & Amend Accounts > Amend Bank Account Details

  1. Choose the cash book bank account that you want to set up for Sage bank feeds.

    Note: To enable Sage bank feeds, you must have user access to amend the cash book bank account. See User access for Sage bank feeds.

  2. Move to the Online Banking tab.

  3. In the Sage Bank Feeds section, select Enable.

  4. Follow the steps in the Sage Bank Feeds setup. This is where you enter the details of your bank account.

    • Try the Automatic bank feeds option first, to see if your bank supports downloading bank feeds.

    • If your bank doesn't allow you to download bank feeds, try again using the Manual option to manually import transactions from a file that you download from your bank.

    Note: If you choose to use a manual import now, you can still convert your bank account to use automatic bank feeds at a later date. See Convert from manual to automatic bank feeds.

Automatic bank feeds

  1. Choose Automatic - Connect Bank to download bank feeds directly from your bank.

  2. You might be asked to enter your contact email address, if you have not used the service before.

  3. Choose your bank and your country.

    If there are no results when you search for your bank, you can tell us about it and request that we add your bank.

  4. Sign in to your bank. The steps are different for each bank, and you may need to enter your online banking credentials.

    Note: Your bank account must be set up with permission to use bank feeds, otherwise you may not be able to sign in or connect to your bank. You should contact your bank if you are unsure how to set these permissions.

  5. Choose the historical Start date when you want to start downloading transactions from, then select Process.

    The transactions you can download may be restricted by your bank.

Manually import transactions from a file

  1. Choose Manual - Import Statement to import transactions from a file that you have downloaded from your bank. You can manually import transactions if your bank doesn't support automatic bank feeds.

    You may prefer to import transactions manually if you frequently need to have bank transactions for the current day, because automatic bank feeds will usually only include transactions from the previous day.

  2. You might be asked to enter your contact email address, if you have not used the service before.

  3. Select a file from your device to upload. This will be a statement file that you have downloaded from your bank.

    We support BAI2, CAMT053, OFX, ASO, QIF, CSV, XLS(X) file formats. These files can be identified by one of the following extensions: BAI, XML, TXT, OFX, ASO, QBO, QFX, QIF, CSV, XLS, XLSX.

    Select Open file import guide for help setting up your file or to download example files.

  4. After your file has been uploaded, continue to Review transactions to check your transactions.

    If the summary of the transactions look correct, then continue to Confirm import to import the transactions to Sage 200.

Note: The first time you use Bank Feeds Reconciliation, you will need to select Download Transactions once to see the imported transactions. The next time you want to import transactions in Bank Feeds Reconciliation, use Import Statement to upload new transactions, then transactions are downloaded automatically (so you don't need to use Download Transactions again).

Convert from manual to automatic bank feeds

If you have set up your bank account to use a manual import, you can convert your account to use automatic bank feeds. So if your bank did not support automatic bank feeds when you first set up the account, you can still convert your account later when your bank adds support.

To convert from using manual import to automatic bank feeds:

  1. Amend the bank account which is enabled for bank feeds.

    Open Cash Book > Create & Amend Accounts > Amend Bank Account Details.

  2. Move to the Online Banking tab.

  3. Select Convert to automatic.

    Follow the steps to choose your country and bank. See Automatic bank feeds.

Note: If you want to convert from using automatic bank feeds to a manual import, you must first use Disable to stop using bank feeds for this bank account. After the bank account has been disabled, you can use Enable to set up bank feeds again for this bank account and choose to use a manual import. See Manually import transactions from a file.

User access for Sage bank feeds

You may want to control user access for who can set up a bank account, and who can reconcile transactions.

Note: If the user is an Administrator, they will already have access to all features.

Open: Settings > Organisational and Financial > User Access.

  1. Select the user that you want to give access.

  2. To allow a user to enable Sage bank feeds, ensure that they have access to:

    Cash Book > Advanced > Amend Cash Book Account Details

  3. To allow a user to download or import transactions, or to reconcile transactions, ensure that they have access to:

    Cash Book > Advanced > Amend Cash Book Account Details

    Cash Book > Advanced > Bank Feeds Download Transactions

    Cash Book > Advanced > Bank Feeds Reconciliation

Troubleshooting

This might be because:

  • You don't have user access to amend the cash book account. See User access for Sage bank feeds.

  • If you are creating a new bank account, you will not see these options until you first Save and Close the account. Once you have closed the account, open it again by amending the account, and you will now see the option to enable Sage bank feeds on the Online Banking tab.

If the Enable option is disabled, this might be because Supplier Payments is already enabled for this account. You can only use one of these services with a cash book bank account.

Your bank feeds status may be "pending" for different reasons:

  • If you are using automatic bank feeds, after sending your completed form to your bank, you may need to wait a few days for the bank to process your request.

    Once your bank has authorised your request, the status will change from Pending to Active and you can start using Sage bank feeds to download transactions.

  • If you set up your bank account to use a manual import, but you did not successfully complete your first import.

    To resolve this, open Bank Feeds Reconciliation and select Import Statement to import transactions.

If bank feeds has stopped working, first check our Service Status to see if there is a problem with the service.

If you can't you can't get bank feeds working again, you might need to refresh your signature key. This will reset the link between your Sage 200 company and the bank feeds service. See Refresh signature key for Sage bank feeds and Invoice Payments.

If you want to change the email address that you used to enable bank feeds for this account, please contact our support team.

This email address is used if you need to refresh your signature key for bank feeds.

The Sage bank feeds and Invoice Payments services use the same contact email address.

You may experience problems setting up bank feeds if your firewall is blocking access our servers.

When you try to enable bank feeds, you may see this message:

  • "An unexpected error occurred setting up your account in Sage Bank Feeds. Please try again later."

To resolve this, we recommend that you set up your firewall to allow access to these sites:

  • www.sagetokenservice.com

  • eu.sagebankdrive.com

When you set up bank feeds for particular banks, you will be asked to provide the sign in details for your bank account. These details will expire after a period of time, and you will be asked to Authenticate your account by entering your sign in details again.

To authenticate your bank account:

  1. Amend the bank account which is enabled for bank feeds.

    Open Cash Book > Create & Amend Accounts > Amend Bank Account Details.

  2. Move to the Online Banking tab.

  3. Select Authenticate.

    Note: This is only available if your bank account requires authentication.

  4. Enter the details required for your bank account.

After you authenticate your bank account, you may have to wait several hours before you download new transactions for this account.

Only disable bank feeds if you definitely want to stop using it with this cash book account. When you disable bank feeds, this will permanently cancel your bank feeds account linked to this cash book account. If you decide to use bank feeds again later, you will have to repeat the setup process.

  1. Amend the bank account which is enabled for bank feeds.

    Open Cash Book > Create & Amend Accounts > Amend Bank Account Details.

  2. Move to the Online Banking tab.

  3. Select Disable.

    The bank account status will change to Disabled.

When you set up Sage bank feeds, you contacted your bank and gave your consent to transfer your banking data to Sage. If you definitely want to stop using Sage bank feeds with this bank account, you should contact your bank and instruct them that you no longer want to use this service.

Your bank feeds account will be cancelled automatically if it is inactive, and the bank or aggregator will be informed to stop sending data to Sage.

  • Bank feeds accounts which have been in a Pending state for 6 months will be automatically cancelled.

    Your account would be Pending if transactions have not yet been received from the bank. This may happen if you do not complete the authorisation process with the bank, or your application was rejected by the bank.

  • Active bank feeds accounts with no new transactions for 12 months will be automatically cancelled.

    This may happen if you:

    • Do not download transactions for 12 months.

    • Have cancelled your bank feed directly with the bank (without informing Sage).

    • Have cancelled your Sage subscription.

Note: You will not receive any notification if your account is cancelled due to inactivity, but it will be possible to reconnect your account again if required.

You may see this error when you try to download transactions: Sorry, we have been unable to download transactions for this account at this time. Please try again later. HResult: -2146233087.

Some causes of this error are as follows:

  • If you set up your bank account to use a manual import, but you did not successfully complete your first import.

    To resolve this, open Bank Feeds Reconciliation and select Import Statement to import transactions.

Migrate Sage bank feeds from Sage 50 Accounts

If you have previously used bank feeds in Sage 50 Accounts, you can continue to use bank feeds in Sage 200.

Bank feeds rules are not migrated, so you will need to set up your bank feeds rules again in Sage 200.

It's a good idea to disable Sage bank feeds in Sage 50 Accounts before you migrate your data to Sage 200 using the migration tool.

After you have migrated your Sage 50 Accounts data to Sage 200 using the migration tool, you will need to enable Sage bank feeds in Sage 200.

See also

Sage bank feeds

Bank feeds rules

Reconcile using bank feeds