This article explains the payment paths available to your clients and how processing fees are calculated, displayed and recovered.
Billing must be enabled for your organisation. If you don't see billing features, contact support to turn them on for your firm.
Nagaris collects the payment (auto-collect). You charge a saved payment method — a verified bank account (direct debit) or a stored credit card — either immediately or on a scheduled date. The client doesn't have to do anything.
The client pays into their Nagaris virtual account (push). Every client can have a virtual account: their own unique BSB and account number, plus an optional PayID. When the client pays into it by bank transfer or PayID, the payment is automatically matched to their invoices in Xero — no manual reconciliation needed.
The client pays you directly (external). The client pays straight into your own bank account, outside Nagaris. You record it against the invoice with Record external payment and match it yourself in Xero.
Direct debit is available for Australian bank accounts. Cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex) are captured through Primer's secure checkout — Nagaris never stores raw card numbers.
Card payments attract a processing fee. Your firm's exact rate is shown on the Transaction Fees card in Settings → Billing (Credit card payments incur a X% + $Y fee.). When the client pays the surcharge, proposals display the wording A 1.95% + 30c (exc. GST) surcharge applies for card payments. alongside No surcharge when paying by bank account.
You choose who wears the fee:
We absorb the fees – fees are deducted from your payout; the client pays the invoice amount only.
Client pays the fees – a surcharge is added to card payments; you receive the full invoice amount.
This is set firm-wide in Settings → Billing, and can also be chosen per proposal in the Proposal Builder's Payments card (You absorb the fee / Client pays the fee). When charging a card ad hoc, staff can switch between Waive Fee (You absorb the processing cost) and Pass to Client (Client pays the surcharge) for that charge.
GST is added on top of the processing fee — payment summaries show the fee and then Total (incl. GST).
Bank account (direct debit) payments never add a surcharge to the client — the payment summary shows Processing fee: No fee when a bank account is selected. Any direct debit processing cost is borne by the firm.
Whenever you collect or retry a payment, Nagaris shows a fee preview before you confirm:
Subtotal – the invoice amount being collected.
Transaction fee – shown only when a card fee applies and is being passed on.
GST (10%)
Total (incl. GST) – the exact amount the client will be charged. The confirm button repeats it, for example Collect $1,072.50.
When Nagaris collects a payment, the processing fee is deducted before the money is paid out to your firm's payout account. In Xero this is recorded in three steps (shown on the Xero Accounting Settings card):
Client pays → recorded in your Clearing Account.
Nagaris fee → recorded as a Spend Money expense.
Net amount → transferred to your bank account.
The clearing account returns to $0.00 and the bank deposit matches your bank feed automatically. If you pass the card surcharge to clients, the surcharge is recorded as revenue in your nominated Processing Fee Revenue Account.
A client can only be charged with a bank account that has been Verified (or had verification bypassed), or a card whose details have been captured and hasn't expired. See Adding and managing a client's payment methods.
Payments into a client's virtual account are matched and paid out quickly — the Xero settings card notes that Nagaris matches the payment instantly and pays it out the same day.
Each payment path can show the client a different Xero invoice template, so the payment instructions match how they're actually paying. See Setting up Xero accounts and invoice templates for billing.
